Mr Cheung Hok-yau was born in Hong Kong. He originally worked for the Trade Development Council and Cathay Pacific Airways. He started his entertainment and arts career when he beat over 20,000 contestants in the Amateur 18-Hong Kong District Singing Contest in 1984 with the song Fatherland. He was immediately signed by Polygram Records, now Universal Music Limited.

Not long after that, he gained enormous popularity in Cantopop circles, being dubbed one of the “Four Heavenly Kings”. Two of his solo albums, True Love Expression and Love Sparks, whichwere both released in 1992, sold more than 400,000 copies in Hong Kong alone. The Mandopop album The GoodbyeKiss was a great success and sold over four million copies in Asia and still holds the record for best-selling album, giving him a place in Universal Music Group’s 1990s’ Hall of Fame in 2000. In 1996, he was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the 25 Most Infl uential People in the New Hong Kong.

Mr Cheung has received numerous other music awards in Hong Kong and overseas. In the 1994 US Billboard Music Awards, he was named the most popular singer in Asia. He also won the titles of the Best-selling Asian Artist in the Worldand the Best-selling Chinese Singer at Monaco’s World Music Awards in 1995 and 1996, as well as being chosen as one of the World’s Top Ten Outstanding Young Persons in 1999. The fi rst Asian singer to perform at Madison Square Garden in New York, Mr Cheung has performed all over the world, including New York, Europe, India, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.

While Mr Cheung is best known for his singing, he has also starred in nearly 60 fi lms, bringing many memorable characters to life on the silver screen. He was awarded Best Supporting Actor at the 1988 Hong Kong Film Awards for his performance in Wong Kar-wai’s As Tears Go By. In 1990, he won BestSupporting Actor at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards for King Hu’s The Swordsman. He has subsequently been nominated five times for Best Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards, and in 2002 won the Best Actor Award at the New Delhi Film Festival for his role in Ann Hui’s July Rhapsody.

In 2013’s A Complicated Story, Mr Cheung played the role of a rich businessman who hires an undergraduate from the Mainland as a surrogate mother and falls in love with her. This film was the fi rst Thesis Production of the Master of Fine Arts Degree in Film Production at the Academy’s School of Film and Television, and Mr Cheung received no fee in order to assist production. His performance received many accolades.