Chen Sing
| Chen Sing | |
|---|---|
| Chinese name | 陳星 (traditional) |
| Chinese name | 陈星 (simplified) |
| Pinyin | Chén Xīng (Mandarin) |
| Jyutping | can4 sing1 (Cantonese) |
| Born |
1936 (age 77–78) Thailand |
Chen Sing (also Shin Chan, Hsing Chen, Xing Chen, Chen Xing)[1] (born 1936, in Thailand) is a Thai-born actor whose film career centered around the Hong Kong movie industry.
Biography
Chen Sing was born in 1936 in Thailand. At age four he moved back to Hainan, China with his parents. He had his education in Wen Chang (Chee Wei Village), End of River village. He spent his high school years at Haikou First Middle School. Later, he became a teacher, went to university (Wah Nam Agriculture University, Guangdong), moved to Hong Kong in 1958, and began working in the movie industry.
His first appearance was with the Shaw Brothers Studio in Dead End in 1969. In 1972 he left Shaw Brothers. He got his first break in the movie The Bloody Fists in 1972. This hit movie led to more promising roles, usually as the villain, in both studio and independent films.
He was one of the pioneers of kung fu movies. Like the actors Pai Ying and Chan Hung Lit, Chen was considered "typecast-right" from the beginning of his acting career for villain roles. His exotic Southeast Asian features, his mustache, and his strength marked him as different from the smooth-faced, Eurasian-looking actors favored by the big Hong Kong studios. He was cast against type as an heroic undercover agent battling vicious crooks in Tough Guy (1972) or Japanese subversives Yasuaki Kurata (Tiger vs. Dragon, 1972, or Rage of the Wind, 1973).
When Chen was not acting, he was a karate instructor for Gōjū-ryū & Goju Kai karate. He was also a Hong Kong prison policeman for the prison system and demonstrated for the Singapore police system with Sunny Tan.
By the early 1990s, with the end of Hong Kong's status as a British colony approaching, Chen opted to leave the Hong Kong film industry. In 1996, newly married, he moved with his Indonesian-Chinese wife and infant son, first to Indonesia, and soon thereafter to Vancouver and Toronto, where he still lives in retirement.
References
- ↑ Chen Sing at the Internet Movie Database