‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ Star Chow Yun-fat Plans to Give His Entire Fortune to Charity

Chinese movie legend Chow Yun-fat says he plans to give his entire net worth, a whopping $5.6 billion HKD (that’s $714 million USD) to charity. “My dream is to be a happy and normal person,” Yun-fat recently told Hong Kong movie site Jayne Stars. “The hardest thing in life is not about how much money you earn, but how to keep a peaceful mindset and live the rest of your life in a simple and carefree manner.” The same site reported earlier that the actor claimed to spend only $800 HKD ($102 USD) per month.

Apparently, he stays frugal by taking public transportation as often as possible and doing charity work instead of spending it on himself. He also had a Nokia phone for



17 years (we can only assume it’s a flip phone), and only upgraded to a smart phone recently, when his Nokia one stopped working. He shops at discount clothing stores, because, he said: “I don’t wear clothes for other people. As long as I think it’s comfortable, then it’s good enough for me.”

A repeat player in John Woo films such as “A Better Tomorrow,” “The Killer,” and “Hard Boiled,” Yun-fat is best known to U.S. audiences for his role in Ang Lee’s martial arts film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which won Best Foreign Language Film at the 2000 Academy Awards. Yun-fat played Li Mu Bai opposite Michelle Yeoh (“Crazy Rich Asians”) as Yu Shu Lien.