Profile | The rise of Hong Kong actress Sharla Cheung, star of Stephen Chow and Wong Jing films, and the surprise movie she made after retiring
- Sharla Cheung, a frequent collaborator of Hong Kong director Stephen Chow, has appeared in over 50 films and starred opposite Chow Yun-fat and Andy Lau
- Sixteen years after retiring, the actress made a surprise appearance in a short film – apparently as a favour to Wong Jing, the director who discovered her
When we think of the early films of Hong Kong comedy legend Stephen Chow Sing-chi, it is hard not to recall his leading lady Sharla Cheung Man.
Yet Chow’s films did not define Cheung’s career. Indeed, she was one of the few “Sing Girls” – the nickname given to actresses who starred opposite Chow as his love interest – who already had a burgeoning acting career before appearing in any of his headlining films.
Born in Shanghai, China in 1968, Cheung moved to Hong Kong with her family at a young age and was discovered by director Wong Jing, who cast her in his 1986 action film The Magic Crystal.
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As an actress, Cheung quickly rose to prominence. She became a bona fide star in the early 1990s, thanks in large part to the films in which she appeared opposite Stephen Chow.
Among these was All for the Winner, a parody of God of Gamblers in which Chow played Sing, a country boy from mainland China with the ability to see through objects and cards.
In the film, Sing is persuaded by his uncle to get into gambling. He soon becomes the “Saint of Gamblers” and becomes infatuated with Cheung’s character, Yee-mung, who turns out to be a henchwoman for the “King of Gamblers”.
The film was an astonishing commercial success, making over HK$40 million at the Hong Kong box office – the first to ever reach that mark.
Cheung and Chow went on to star in Fist of Fury 1991, a comedy that parodied All for the Winner, with Stephen Chow acting as a boy with a supernatural ability who has recently arrived in Hong Kong from China. His character, Lau Ching, has a different ability this time – super strength. He once again becomes enamoured with Cheung’s character, the daughter of a martial arts master.
The two actors appeared opposite each other in a string of further box office hits, including the wuxia comedy Royal Tramp (1992) and martial arts comedy King of Beggars (1992).
Another of their films was Fight Back to School, Hong Kong’s highest-grossing film of 1991, in which Cheung plays Miss Ho, a guidance counsellor, and Chow plays Chow Sing-sing, a policeman working undercover as a student. Through a number of tutoring sessions and other interactions, the two characters bond and – no surprise here – fall in love.
The film spawned sequels Fight Back to School II (1992) and Fight Back to School III (1993), which follow Chow Sing-sing’s undercover investigations as the couple’s relationship progresses.
In 1991, the pair appeared in Dances with Dragon, in which Lau’s character, Lung Ka-chun, becomes romantically entangled with Cheung’s Moon Chan after he finds himself hiding on the roof of Moon’s home following a series of incidents.
For her role in the film, Cheung was nominated for best actress at the 12th Hong Kong Film Awards – the first and only major award nomination she received in her career.
Both films were commercial failures and, after appearing in three other films, Cheung took a four-year hiatus from the film industry, choosing to spend her time on other business ventures instead.
She returned to the limelight in the early 2000s in television, appearing in series such as Zhanguo Hongyan Xi Shi and Diao Chan. In those shows, Cheung played the titular characters Xi Shi and Diao Chan respectively, two of the four renowned beauties of ancient China.
The actress made her film comeback in The Two Individual Package Women (2003), a film about how two women – the other played by Hong Kong actress Elena Kong Mei-yee – deal with loneliness amid navigating relationships and affairs.
But after appearing in one more film, The Sixth Sense (2003), and a handful of television series and commercials, Cheung once again stepped away from the public eye and retired from acting.
In 2022, 16 years after her last project, the actress made a surprise appearance in the short film Inn, reportedly as a favour to Wong Jing.
“I can’t believe that Sharla and I still have the same chemistry,” Wong wrote in a post on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter/X. “It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since we last worked together.
“There are old friends who like to meet up for a drink, but I think that making memories with this short film will make us happier.”
For her part, Cheung wrote in a post: “I haven’t acted for over a decade. I’m very emotional after working with director Wong Jing again, and it feels like just yesterday that we were making films together. I still remember the scenes that we shot together 28 years ago.
“I believe that we’ll fondly remember [our friendship] when we look back at this short film years down the road.”
Since that appearance, Cheung has steered clear of show business, and posts only occasionally on her Weibo account. She is reported to have dated someone 10 years her junior, but remains tight-lipped about her personal life.
