How Charlie Young, actress and singer, became one of Hong Kong’s most versatile stars, and worked with Donnie Yen, Leon Lai and Wong Kar-wai

Known for her versatility, Hong Kong actress and singer Charlie Young has taken on a wide variety of film roles, from a lesbian prostitute to an assassin seeker

Young has worked with internationally known actors including Donnie Yen and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, and calls it ‘very rewarding’ to work closely with such stars

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Actress and singer Charlie Young, pictured at an event in August 2005. Young projected a wholesome image when she emerged in the 1990s, but did not let that limit her choice of screen roles. Photo: SCMP

Published: 4:15am, 9 Jul 2023Updated: 7:00pm, 17 Jul 2023

Hong Kong actress and singer Charlie Young, also known as Charlie Yeung Choi-nei, has been described by the Post as the “wholesome” star of the 1990s, and is known for her courtesy – Tsui Hark, who directed her in her biggest hit The Lovers (1994), once referred to her as polite.

But Young, who achieved fame as a teenage model before making it big as a Cantopop idol, did not let her image limit the kind of roles she played.

She essayed a lesbian prostitute in Jacob Cheung Chi-leung’s delicate film Intimates, and a girl trying to hire an assassin in Wong Kar-wai’s labyrinthine wuxia film Ashes of Time. Young excelled in the art-house film After This Our Exile, and wrote and directed her own film, Christmas Rose, in 2013.

Young has often checked in with the Post, and these are some of the things she told us over the years:

(From left) Aaron Kwok, Gouw Ian Iskandar, director Patrick Tam and Charlie Young promote “After This, Our Exile”, in March 2006. Photo: SCMP

On her aspirations to be a performer as a child, in 1994:

“In my youth, my mother rarely complimented me. I would always hear about her friends’ daughters and how pretty or talented they were. My mother encouraged me but never stroked my ego.”