Simon Yam was born in Hong Kong in 1955. First a model, he came to notice in Television Broadcasts Limited's single-episode drama CID (1976) and went on to appear in television series such as A House Is Not a Home (1977), The King of Gamblers (1980) and Police Cadet II (1985), moving to Asia Television after finishing Blood of Good and Evil (1989). During this period he also took film roles including The Discharged (1977), The Beasts (1980) and Goodbye Mom (1986). From the late 1980s he concentrated on film, and amid the vogue for gangster and crime pictures he played villainous triad bosses in films such as Burning Ambition (1989) and The Return of the God of Gamblers period titles, while his role as the dashing Vietnamese assassin in John Woo's Bullet in the Head (1990) was a breakthrough. In the early 1990s his looks made him a natural for the gigolo dramas Hong Kong Gigolo (1990) and Gigolo and Whore (1991), which did well at the box office. He then took numerous leads, including in Days of Being Dumb (1993) and Wan Chai Tigers (1994), still mostly as killers, gangsters and robbers. From the late 1990s he reduced his output to focus on quality, working repeatedly for Johnnie To's Milkyway Image: the steady but ruthless sergeant in PTU (2003), the outwardly modest yet savage triad chief in Election (2005), and the elegant, nostalgic pickpocket leader in Sparrow (2008). His range widened further with a policeman encountering strange events in Pang Ho-cheung's Exodus (2007) and an over-repressed man turning violent in Ann Hui's Night and Fog (2009), and he won Best Actor at the 29th Hong Kong Film Awards for Echoes of the Rainbow (2010). In 2013 he co-directed one segment of the horror portmanteau Tales from the Dark Part 1. Later notable roles include Fruit Chan's The Midnight After (2014), the Taiwanese director Tsui Chen-tung's The Tenants Downstairs (2016) and Chasing the Dragon II (2019).
Starting from television and modelling, Simon Yam built his early reputation on villainous gangster and crime roles before moving into the cooler characters of Milkyway Image, winning a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor with Echoes of the Rainbow. Able to move between commercial hits and auteur cinema, he is a rare performer who has kept reinventing himself over decades.
Achievements
- 1976 · Appeared in the TVB single-episode drama CID, beginning to be recognised by audiences.
- 2003 · Played the steady but ruthless sergeant in Johnnie To's PTU.
- 2010 · Won Best Actor at the 29th Hong Kong Film Awards for Echoes of the Rainbow.