Kent Tong Chun-Yip 湯鎮業
Kent Tong was one of TVB's "Five Tigers" and played Duan Yu in The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. At the same time, he appeared for Patrick Tam in Nomad, where his character drives a taxi and is nothing like a television princeling. In the 1990s the five reunited on the big screen, and The Tigers earned Tong a Hong Kong Film Award nomination.
Kent Tong was born in Hong Kong in 1958. His father sold dried seafood, and there were eight children in the family. Tong graduated from the TVB acting class in 1979 and soon appeared in the series The Bund, where he worked with Chow Yun-Fat. In The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, Tong played Duan Yu, a young prince from a novel by Jin Yong. Duan Yu is more interested in people and books than in glory in battle. Tong recalled that at the time he was travelling from one set to another and sometimes slept on the way. It was also then that he worked with Patrick Tam on Nomad, where Hong Kong was something else entirely. His Pong drives a taxi and grows close to Kathy. Meeting her and the other young characters lets him briefly imagine a life in which there is something to think about besides where to drive after the next shift.
Tong had to prepare for his first big roles without a break from filming. In an interview he recalled that he took ballet lessons and could sleep in the dressing room on set until he was called before the camera. Television in those days gave a young actor plenty of work, but there was almost no time to get into a role before shooting began. In 1983 TVB brought Tong to the stage together with Felix Wong, Andy Lau, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Michael Miu. They were presented as the "Five Tigers". On television their paths often crossed: they had to combine shooting series with appearances at which they performed stunts. It was also on the set of The Legend of the Unknowns that Tong met Yung Mei-Ling, who had become famous for her role as Huang Rong in The Legend of the Condor Heroes. In May 1985 Yung died. The press long discussed their relationship and Tong's role in what happened. Many years later Miu said that by that time Yung and Tong had already broken up. Tong thanked him for those words. He himself said that after Yung's death it was hard for him to find work and that his brother helped him out in that difficult time.
In 1991 Eric Tsang brought the five together again in The Tigers. They played policemen who decide to keep the money found during an arrest. At first it seems that all five need only stick to one version of events. Gradually each begins to wonder who will be the first to give the others away. Tong recalled how he and Miu shot the final fight and got it done in three takes. For this work Tong was nominated for a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. In the following years he worked both in Taiwan and in Hong Kong, and then increasingly on the mainland. In Number One in the World he played a powerful relative of the emperor. Later he played Kangxi in Palace, and in Chasing the Dragon he once again shared the screen with Andy Lau.
Tong has children from previous relationships. In 2008 he married Jiang Kun, whom he met while working in advertising. They have two daughters. Later his wife began helping him with work matters. In a joint interview in 2025 they talked about how they choose offers and how Tong still repeats his lines for a long time before filming. On mainland sets he had to get used to Putonghua and to the fact that in some roles his own voice is heard, while in others he is dubbed after filming. In 2025 Moonlight Mystique was released with Tong. In March 2026 the crime film Crush the Wicked opened in cinemas with him in the cast.
