Tony Chow Kwok-chung was born in Hong Kong to a Guangdong family. His father, Chow Tat-kuen, worked as a film sound recordist before moving into film processing and running two laboratories. After graduating from a technical college in 1961, Chow joined his father's Man Fuk electrical processing firm, where watching editors cut film in the darkroom sparked his interest in editing. He began editing in the late 1960s, his first credit being the 1970 film Death Comes in Two Faces, and he also cut Taiwanese and Indonesian productions. When Karl Maka made his directorial debut in 1976 he invited Chow to edit, beginning a long partnership that ran through a string of late-1970s Golden Harvest-era hits. Joining Cinema City in 1980 and becoming a full-time editor a year later, he cut almost all of its films up to 1985, including Aces Go Places (1982) and All the Wrong Spies (1983). He won Best Editing at the 18th Golden Horse Awards for All the Wrong Clues (1981) and at the 2nd Hong Kong Film Awards for He Lives by Night (1983). He helped Cinema City buy the Kong Ngai recording studio in 1985, heading post-production, and was credited anonymously on City on Fire (1987), which won Best Editing at the 32nd Asia-Pacific Film Festival. He co-founded the Silver Medal production company with Chow Yun-fat and Ringo Lam in 1989 and later ran Sound Art post-production, merged in 2000.
A pivotal figure in Hong Kong post-production, Tony Chow handled Cinema City's editing for years, and his brisk cutting shaped the look of 1980s local comedy and action. He later coordinated dubbing, processing and subtitling and ran his own post-production company, helping professionalise the local post-production sector. Even after retiring he took on industry posts, promoting the rights and exchange of post-production workers.
Achievements
- 1980 · Joined Cinema City as an editor in 1980 and later rose to post-production manager overseeing dubbing and processing.
- 1981 · Won Best Editing at the 18th Golden Horse Awards for All the Wrong Clues (1981).
- 1983 · Won Best Editing at the 2nd Hong Kong Film Awards for He Lives by Night (1983).