Elvis Tsui
Known by many Western viewers as "that one bald guy from all those Category III movies," Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong is one of the most prolific actors in Hong Kong, with over one hundred films to his credit. It may surprise fans of his more graphic work that he actually trained to be a painter -- in fact, he came to Hong Kong from the Mainland to study the art, but soon fell into acting in order to pay the bills.
Tsui's strong looks and natural athletic ability made him a perfect fit for martial arts films, and he made his screen debut with 1981's Shaolin Vs. Wu Tang. More kung fu films followed, and in 1987 Tsui expanded his range by appearing in the Chow Yun-Fat movie Rich and Famous, from which he became a steady performer in crime and action films, where he almost always appeared as a villain, usually a very nasty one. However, Tsui has almost always managed to tinge even the most villainous characters with a bit of humor, a trait which has endeared him to fans.
1992 was probably Tsui's watershed year. He appeared in All Men are Brothers: Blood of the Leopard, an adaptation of a popular novel in which he plays a troubled monk. Tsui's performance was so strong that it gained him a Best Actor nomination for the Hong Kong Film Awards. However, it is probably Tsui's other milestone that most fans remember; a role in the Cat III erotic romp Sex and Zen where he got to get "up close and personal" with notoriously busty actress Amy Yip's "giant boobs," among other salaicious scenes. Even though he had appeared in other Cat III (the Hong Kong equivalent of NC-17) movies before, the role cemented him as one of the top actors in the exploiation genre, an area where he finds steady work to this day.
Other notable roles for Tsui include The Eternal Evil of Asia (1995), where he gets turned into both a "dickhead" and a Hellraiser-style "pinhead," and A Chinese Torture Chamber Story (1994), where Tsui combines sex and wire-fu in a scene that must be seen to believed. Like many Hong Kong actors, Tsui tries to keep his resume varied, and so not all of his movies involve gratuitous sex. He has also appeared in many high-profile big-budget films, such as Royal Tramp and Dragon Inn (both 1992), where he displays both his acting talent and action ability.
Offscreen, Tsui leads a fairly normal life, at least compared to his hijinks on the screen. He is married to Teresa Lau (1999's Miss Asia), with whom he recently had a son. Tsui has also pursued his other artistic interests as well -- he has had some public exhibtions of his paintings and has published a book of his photography called Man of Heaven and Earth. Of course, he still appears in a steady stream of movies and television shows, and seems to be fit to remain the "King of Cat III" for years to come.