Bill Tung Piu (1933–2006), born Chu Man-biu, came from a racing family on Jardine's Lookout: his grandfather Chu Ping-yau was the Hong Kong Jockey Club's first Chinese trainer. He was riding horses by the age of eight and learning to train them by thirteen, and grew up to become one of Hong Kong's first professional jockeys, racing as far afield as Singapore and Britain. When RTV began televising horse racing in 1967 he turned to commentating and, over nearly four decades, became the territory's best-loved and most outspoken racing voice, affectionately known as 'Uncle Bill'; his catchphrase 'I'm Bill Tung and you're not, when I talk horses you listen' became a household line. He had appeared in his first film in 1947 and his first television drama in 1976, and in 1978 he co-wrote and starred in a racing film. In 1985 he played Jackie Chan's superior in Police Story and was the fortune-chasing everyman opposite Lydia Shum in the hugely popular It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World comedies; he also appeared in Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx. In 1997 he took a Macau Jockey Club trainer's licence and won the trainers' championship in his very first season with sixty-four winners, the first trainer to do so, his stable star taking seven races in a season. In 1999 he played the historian Jiang in ATV's The Legend of the South Sea Thirteen. He died of lung failure in Hong Kong on 22 February 2006, aged seventy-two, and was honoured with the Hong Kong Film Awards' Professional Achievement Award that year.
Bill Tung carried horse-racing commentary into almost every Hong Kong household, and his witty, blunt style became a shared memory across generations of punters. On screen he specialised in ordinary folk and kindly superiors, making 'Uncle Bill' a fond emblem of his times and a witness to racing's move from a small circle into mass entertainment.
Achievements
- 1976 · Appeared in his first television drama, moving formally into show business.
- 1985 · Played a police superintendent in Jackie Chan's Police Story, one of his signature screen roles.
- 1997 · Obtained a Macau Jockey Club trainer's licence and won that year's trainers' championship with sixty-four winners.