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Actor

1966-12-11 · Beijing, China

3 series in the catalog

Leon Lai Ming SBS BBS MH (Chinese: 黎明; born 11 December 1966), is a Hong Kong actor, singer, film director, and businessman. He is one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" of Hong Kong pop music.

Early life

Lai was born in Beijing, China. His family, of Hakka ancestry, was from Meixian. He migrated with his parents to Hong Kong at the age of four. At the age of 15, he attended Christ College in the United Kingdom, but returned to Hong Kong at 18 in 1984.

Early years

Lai initially worked as a salesperson for a mobile phone company. After being awarded second-runner-up in the 1986 New Talent Singing Awards, Lai received vocal coaching from Dai Sicong (戴思聰). In the same year he signed with Capital Artists. He did not release any albums for four years. As a result, his teacher Dai arranged to have him signed a contract with Polygram, later known as Universal Music.

Music

In Polygram, he released his first album Leon and subsequent album Meet in the Rain. His debut album went gold.

In the early stages of his career, he mainly sang Cantopop and Mandarin, but due to the influence of producer Mark Lui, he expanded his repertoire to include popular electronic songs with compelling music videos. In 1990 he won his first 1990 Jade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards and 1990 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards. He followed up to win the "Most Popular Male Singer" award in 1993 and 1995 for TVB Jade Solid Gold. In 1996, he collaborated with composer-producer Steve Barakatt on his album Feel. Two years later in 1998, he became the first Hong Kong singer to reach the Top 10 K-pop chart with the song "After Loving You."

In 2000, Lai's song "All Day Love" (全日愛) got him into trouble with the Chinese authorities for drawing passages from the Chinese National Anthem, "March of the Volunteers". The starting tune was accused of plagiarism from the anthem. Lai was warned against using the song for commercial purposes.

In 2002 he was selected to sing "Charged Up", the 2002 FIFA World Cup theme song for the Greater China region. In 2004, he became the first Hong Kong singer to represent the territory at the first Asia Song Festival held in South Korea.

In 2004, Lai formed a new record label Amusic with Peter Lam. The first album produced by the company, Dawn, was released in September of that year. The album was released with minimum promotion as Lai went to Mainland China for a movie shoot on the day of the album's release.

In 2005, Lai invited Taiwanese music producer Jonathan Lee to produce his new Mandarin album A Story. However, by doing so he had to give up the opportunity for a lead role in a big budget Taiwan movie Silk due to conflicts in his schedules.

He performed at the Hong Kong Coliseum on 13 April 2007 for his one night only Leon 4 in Love Concert, where he performed not only his own hits but also hits from the other three Heavenly Kings. He performed a total of 18 songs, all of which are newly arranged by Mark Lui. He subsequently released an album titled 4 in Love on 3 May 2007, comprising 16 of the 18 songs he had performed at the concert.

Lai was selected to be the ambassador of the 6th Winter Asian Games to be held Changchun in 2007. He sang the Games' theme song and took part in the torch relay. He then joined Michael Wong and Janice Vidal and held a three-day Magic Live charity concert at Star Hall, Hong Kong from 9 to 11 November 2008.

Lai holds his concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum, titled Leon Lai Talk & Sing 2021 Concert, from 10 July 2021, for 9 shows.

Duets

Apart from being a solo artist, Lai has collaborated with other artists. Some of his better known collaborations are "Love Until the End" and "A Happy Family" with Vivian Chow, "Really Wish to Be Like This Forever" and "It's Still You" with Priscilla Chan, "Song of the Star" with Alan Tam, "Never Give Up" with Jacky Cheung, "Why did I let you go?" with Janice Vidal.

Acting career

After the New Talent Singing Awards, he had some opportunities to star in a few TV series. On one occasion, he went for the filming of a romantic serials titled Fengyun Era (風雲時代) in Taiwan. There was a stark contrast in height between Lai and the popular lead actress who is only 160 cm tall. The actress then demanded that Lai squat while filming so as to make up for the height differences. Lai had to act through all the scenes with the actress while squatting, but he had to endure it as he was not popular at the time. Not long afterwards, his new TVB series The Breaking Point turned out to be a resounding success and propelled him to widespread fame in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In 1996, Lai was nominated for the Best Actor award at the 16th Hong Kong Film Awards for the film Comrades: Almost a Love Story. The following year in 1997, he won the award of Best Original Song for the film Eighteen Springs both at the Golden Horse Film Festival and Hong Kong Film Awards. He was again nominated for the Best Actor and Best Original Film Song award for the film City of Glass in 1999, but he only won the award for the latter, which he shared with Albert Leung and Dick Lee.

Lai was considered by Lee Ang to act as Li Mu Bai in the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but he had to turn down the offer as he had an advertising contract and live concert about to start, which would not match his shaven head look as was required for the role.

He collaborated with Cecilia Cheung in 2001 for the first time in the Wong Jing directed romantic comedy film, Everyday Is Valentine. In the film, Lai played a serial liar.

In 2002, Lai took the spotlight at the Golden Horse Awards, the Chinese-language version of the Oscars in Taiwan. He won Best Actor for Three: Going Home. Lai played a minor role as Superintendent Yeung Kam Wing in Infernal Affairs III in 2003. In 2004, he starred with Faye Wong in the romantic film Leaving Me, Loving You, the story of which he co-wrote with Wilson Yip and he was also the creative/production controller of the film. However, the movie was a flop as it raked in HK$10,529,501 at the box office. Still in that same year he was ranked 8th on the China Celebrity 100 list released by the Chinese edition of Forbes.

In 2005, Lai acted as one of the seven warriors in the Tsui Hark directed wuxia film Seven Swords. In the same year in the film Moonlight in Tokyo, he played a developmentally challenged Chinese man who pretends to be a Korean gigolo in Japan.

In 2006, Lai starred alongside Fan Bingbing and Rene Liu in a love and horror, thriller film titled The Matrimony where he played a cinematographer Shen Junchu. The film was released on 8 February 2007.

In 2007, Lai starred alongside Kelly Chen, Donnie Yen and Guo Xiaodong in the Ching Siu-tung film An Empress and the Warriors. He acted as a woodland medicine man who has a romantic relationship with a princess. Lai and Kelly Chen sang the theme song, "Fly With Your Dreams" written by Albert Leung and composed by Mark Lui.

He underwent training in Peking Opera for playing the lead role as Mei Lanfang in the biographical film Forever Enthralled which was directed by Chen Kaige. He directed the music video for the film where he and Zhang Ziyi sang the theme song, "You Understand My Love". For the first time in his career, Lai played the role of a beggar in the Peter Chan directed film Bodyguards and Assassins. For his success, a wax figure of Lai was revealed at Madame Tussauds Hong Kong.

Community

Apart from being an actor and singer, Lai is actively involved in the Community Chest. In the 1990s, he began serious charity work when his father was diagnosed with rectal cancer. The doctors said it was incurable. After the surgical operation, his father survived. When the Cancer Research Foundation and the UN organization approached him for help, he started getting actively involved in charity work.

His first work with UNICEF was a China polio eradication project in 1993. He raised substantial funds accruing from his supporters, fans, and concert ticket sales. In July…