On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland, the 12th Beijing International Film Festival (BJIFF) specially invites Aaron Kwok, the ambassador of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, to be the promotion ambassador, making him a dual ambassador for two annual festivals.

These productions are of different genres, ranging from commercial blockbusters to literary masterpieces. Aaron Kwok showed himself in various characters, from a mythical big shot to a nobody at the bottom of society, and from a police elite to a detective down on his luck, and made remarkable accomplishes.

As an all-round hard-working artist, Aaron Kwok showing pioneering spirit on the acting journey is a role model for new generation artists to follow. Let’s try to recall his screen career over the past three decades with four of his musical masterpieces.

The “four heavenly kings” of the Canto-pop world in Hong Kong are known to generations from baby boomers to Gen Z, spanning half a century.

However, many people may know little about a trivia, that is, unlike Andy Lau, who made his debut more than 40 years ago, and Leon Lai, who’s the youngest in the four and debuted by winning the third place in a singing contest in 1986, Aaron Kwok in the “four heavenly kings” is the most recent one to debut.

Although Kwok joined the dancer training course at TVB in 1984, appeared in Anita Mui’s music video, and danced for Leslie Cheung at a variety show, he started his career as a walk-on part in TV dramas only after joining the TVB artist training class in 1987.

In 1990, Aaron Kwok shot a car commercial in Taiwan, China, in which his long 4/6 hair bangs became the trend of the time and was copied by both sexes. Riding on the popularity due to this commercial, he released his debut Mandarin album Loving You Never Stop.

There’s no need to even go into how popular the album’s eponymous title track, as well as the iconic dance in the music video, was. With the success, Kwok released two Mandarin albums in 1991 and won the RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards for Best New Prospect (Gold).

In 1992, Aaron Kwok started his career as a singer in Hong Kong. Coming up from behind, he was ranked as one of the “four heavenly kings”, really ringing up the curtain of his career as an artist without ending for 30 years.

The golden rule of the entertainment world in Hong Kong, China is to turn from a singer to an actor – which even is a touch-stone for popularity. After Aaron Kwok had built momentum for years in the circle of singers and became one of the “four heavenly kings”, it’s a natural thing for him to see movie offers come.

In 1991, the star-studded film The Banquet was a charity film made to raise funds for the floods in the Chinese mainland, with participation from more than 200 celebrities. As many Hong Kong movie fans know, this film was viewed as a handover between the two generations of comedy kings in Kong Kong, where Michael Hui plays opposite Stephen Chow. Aaron Kwok had not yet officially returned to the entertainment industry of Hong Kong at that time, but the fact that he was invited to star in it shows that he had become a popular star that was reckoned with.

Saviour of the Soul, another film Kwok performed in that same year, made him first-ever nominated for the Hong Kong Film Awards, and thus began a bitter-sweet romance between him and the Awards.

In the early 90s, Aaron Kwok was still focusing on his singing career, and most of his movies were commercial comedies, showing his vitality and youthfulness as an idol forward in front of the audience.

Starting with 2000 A.D. (2000), a film by Gordon Chan, Aaron Kwok’s film works were frequently released in the Chinese mainland. The increase in film works has also urged him to put more into his performance.

For the love of film, there has always been a fire in Aaron Kwok’s heart. For each film, he hones in on the role and pulls out all stops. In 2005 and 2006, he won the Best Actor award at major film festivals for two consecutive years for his films Divergence and After This Our Exile respectively, which marked the beginning of his luck in award winning.

In 2006, he was nominated for the Hong Kong Film Awards again for Divergence in 14 years – Best Actor this time, but not Supporting Actor for last time. From Divergence onwards, he, setting all by the ears, was a four-time nominee for the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Actor for After This Our Exile, The Detective, and Murderer in five years.

All things come to those who wait. In 2016, Aaron Kwok won the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Actor for the first time – a trophy for which he waited long enough and that lived up to his reputation. The rivals competing with him at the same Awards were all somebody out of the ordinary: Tony Leung, who is a three-time Best Actor winner, Andy Lau and Nick Cheung, both of whom are two-time Best Actor winners, and Jacky Cheung, who had only scooped Supporting Actor once, but has had an accumulative total of ten nominations.

After this win, Aaron Kwok is still on his way, and was nominated for Best Actor of the Hong Kong Film Awards again for two years in a row in 2019 and 2020 with Project Gutenberg and I’m Livin’ It, respectively.

If we look at Aaron Kwok’s film works in recent years, we can find that he not only appeared in higher grossing blockbusters like the Cold War series, The Monkey King series, and Project Gutenberg, but also tried many different characters.

For example, in Empire of Silver directed by Christina Yao, Aaron Kwok played as a Jin merchant heir; in Love for Life directed by Gu Changwei, he starred as a village youth; and in Chen Kaige’s Monk Comes Down The Mountain, he is a worldly Taoist priest.

Among the directors Aaron Kwok has partnered with, there are veterans during the Hong Kong New Wave such as Patrick Tam, pillars of strength in Hong Kong’s film industry like Johnnie To, and Benny Chan, and even new directors including Sunny Luk, Longman Leung, Roy Chow, and Danny Wong. Not only does Kwok continue expanding the frontiers of acting, but also he, as a superstar, guides younger generation to help young directors to complete their works.

Although the traditional commercial genre of police films remain at the center of attention in Hong Kong’s film market, the police films starring Aaron Kwok are slightly different. For example, both The Detective 2 and The Detective helmed by Oxide Pang Chun mix with horror and suspense elements, the Cold War franchise focuses on the power game among the high-ranking police officials, and Project Gutenberg is as mentally absorbing as a puzzle film.

Aaron Kwok is full of energy.

In the singing world, he, known for fast singing and dancing, is dubbed the “Asian dance king” and has been dancing in ways no one else is for 30 years.

In the film industry, he has scooped a number of awards for the best actor at film festivals, and works tirelessly with diligence, gradually cultivating himself from an idol style to a capability style of acting.

His youthful and fashionable look and introverted and calm interior are aligned with what the BJIFF wants to shape itself into.

Aaron Kwok will join hands with us to welcome the 12th BJIFF setting sail.