Kenneth Tsang

Kenneth Tsang's star on Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong.

Kenneth Tsang Kong (Chinese: 曾江; born 2 September 1935) is a Hong Kong actor. Tsang's career has spanned 50 years and included a variety of acting roles. Tsang won the Best Supporting Actor Award at the 34th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2015.

Early life and education

Tsang was born in Shanghai with family roots in Jida, Zhuhai, Guangdong.

Tsang attended high school in Wah Yan College, Hong Kong and then Wah Yan College, Kowloon. He attended McMurry College, Abilene, Texas for his Freshmen year and transferred to University of California, Berkeley, where he received a degree in architecture.

Career

Tsang returned to Hong Kong in the early 1960s as an architect but was bored by the work. His older sister by 2 years, Jeanette Lin (林翠), was a film star at the time and provided Tsang with several connections in the industry which boosted his acting career. In the media, Lin Tsui was always presented as Tsang's younger sister instead as it was moreover uncommon for female stars to reveal their age.

Tsang's film debut was in the movie The Feud (1955), when he was just 16, which was followed by a role in Who Isn't Romantic? (1956). In the mid 1960s, Tsang starred in detective films and classic kung fu movies with (at the time) Hong Kong teen idols Connie Chan Po-chu and Josephine Siao. Tsang also appeared in a few Wong Fei-Hung movies in the late 1960s. In the 1986, Tsang worked as taxi cab owner, Ken, in John Woo's A Better Tomorrow. Subsequent collaborations with Woo included the role of Ken in A Better Tomorrow 2 in 1987, police officer Danny Lee's murdered partner in The Killer in 1989, and the strict adoptive father of Chow Yun-fat, Leslie Cheung and Cherie Chung in Once a Thief in 1991.

Tsang also filmed several Singaporean Chinese dramas during the 1990s, one of his most notable works there was the 1995 epic The Teochew Family and The Unbeatables II in 1996

Up to this point, Tsang had played roles in mainly Hong Kong movies. His first Hollywood film was The Replacement Killers (1998), also the Hollywood debut of co-star Chow Yun-fat. Tsang appeared alongside Chow once again in Anna and the King as well as Jackie Chan in Rush Hour 2. Tsang played General Moon in the James Bond film Die Another Day (2002), and he continues to appear in films from his native Hong Kong.

Personal life

Tsang is currently married to Chiao Chiao (焦姣), a Chinese-born Taiwanese actress.

Filmography

• The Feud (1955)
• The Big Circus (1964)
• Tragedy in a Fishing Village (1967)
• Paragon of Sword and Knife (1967)
• The Tin Long Gang (1968) aka Dragon Fortress
• The Deadly Dragon Sword (1968)
• Wong Fei Hong Conquers the Plum-Blossom Piles (1968) aka Huang Fei-hong: The Invincible 'Lion Dancer'
• A Romantic Thief (1968)
• The Flower and the Sword (1968)
• Hotel Lavender (1968)
• The Great Duel (1968)
• The Frightening Sword (1968)
• Magic Bow (1968)
• Purple Night (1968)
• The Magnificent Five (1968)
• Three Encounters (1969)
• The Little Warrior (1969)
• The Legend of the Condor Heroes (1976)
• The Return of the Condor Heroes (1976)
• Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (1982)
• The Legend of the Condor Heroes (1983)
• The Duke of Mount Deer (1984)
• Sword Stained with Royal Blood (1985)
• The Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain (1985)
• New Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre (1986)
• A Better Tomorrow (1986)
• A Better Tomorrow 2 (1987)
• Return of the Lucky Stars (1989)
• The Killer (1989)
• Deadly Secret (1989)
• Bury Me High (1991)
• Police Story 3: Supercop (1992)
• The Teochew Family (1995)- Mediacorp, Singapore
• The Unbeatables II (1996)- Mediacorp, Singapore
• The New Adventures of Wisely (1998)- Mediacorp, Singapore
• Legend of the Crow (1998) – Mediacorp, Singapore
• Riding The Storm (1998)- Mediacorp, Singapore
• The Replacement Killers (1998)
• Anna and the King (1999) - Justice Phya Phrom.
• Killer (2000)
• Rush Hour 2 (2001)
• Funeral March (2001)
• The Touch (2002)
• Die Another Day (2002) – General Moon, Colonel Moon's father.
• Six Strong Guys (2004)
• Butterfly (2004)
• Colour Blossoms (2004)
• Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
• The Tokyo Trial (2006)
• The Drummer (2007)
• Kung Fu Dunk (2008)
• The Treasure Hunter (2009)
• Motherland (2009)
• Formosa Betrayed (2009)
• Prince of Tears (2009)
• Blood Ties (2009)
• Here Comes Fortune (2010)
• Who's the Hero (2010) (TV series)
• Overheard 2 (2011)
• ICAC Investigators 2011 (2011) (TV series)
• My Wedding and Other Secrets (2011)
• Inseparable (2011)
• Joyful Reunion (2012)
• Supercapitalist (2012)
• Overheard 3 (2014)
• The Summer of Our Graduation (2014)
• You Are My Sassy Girl (2014)
• The Eyes of Dawn (2014)
• Fight Up (2015)
• Stan Lee's Lucky Man (2016)
• For a Few Bullets (2016)

See also

• Once a Thief

External links

• Kenneth Tsang at IMDb