Hui Shiu-Hung

The Supporting Player with the Luxury Car

Hui Shiu-Hung showed up at the TVB studios in 1972 driving a Mercedes-Benz. At the time, almost nobody in Hong Kong's television industry could afford a luxury car, and the nickname Benz Hui stuck with him forever. He didn't have the square-jawed good looks of a leading man, nor did he go after the romantic hero role who rescues the girl at the last minute.

And that was the best thing that could have happened to him.

In his early years, he played a string of neighborhood cops, noisy neighbors, and clumsy sidekicks. He worked nonstop because he understood that film in the British colony was a business of volume and speed. During the 80s, he appeared in dozens of productions and honed a dry style that worked just as well in crime dramas as in low-budget physical comedies.

Johnnie To's Blessing

His career picked up speed when the directors of the New Wave started looking for faces that brought authenticity. In 1999, he starred in Running Out of Time under Johnnie To's direction. His performance as Inspector Wong earned him a nomination at the Hong Kong Film Awards and proved he could hold his own opposite stars of Lau Ching-wan's caliber without breaking a sweat.

He never sought absolute stardom.

He preferred to be the glue holding together the supporting storylines in films that are studied today. In 2000, he worked on Needing You… and handled the pacing of the romantic comedy with surgical precision. Because Hui Shiu-Hung has always known that a good supporting actor is one who makes the lead shine while seeming to do almost nothing.

Goddess of Justice

In 2012, he won the Best Supporting Actor award at the TVB Anniversary Awards for his work in L’Escargot. It seemed like the final recognition of a steady career, but the real breakthrough was still two years away. In 2014, he played the gangster Foon Hei Gor in the series Line Walker, and the audience reaction was so massive that the production company had to change its original script plans.

The Foon Hei Gor Phenomenon

So the actor played the character again in the film version of 2016 and in the TV prequel of 2017. Despite rumors of a possible retirement in Singapore, his schedule showed no significant breaks. In 2019, he joined the cast of the series The Defected, and in 2020 he returned for the third installment of Line Walker: Bull Fight, keeping the same on-screen effectiveness.

In 2023, he took part in the action production The Invisible Team, playing Gu Sir. Distribution records from that period confirm that his name remains a safe bet for attracting funding in mainland China's markets. His contract with Shaw Brothers guarantees his appearance in three feature films with budgets above 50 million local dollars.