Soon after all the money had been squandered and Lam had to work various odd jobs to make a living.
In the mid-eighties he got employment on movie sets through the help of friends. He has done different roles, from lighting and props to stage manager and set and script supervisor.
Lam gradually developed an interest in acting and by his own account, pestered various directors until they relented and gave him tiny roles. There are two pivotal persons in Lam’s acting career. The first is Stephen Chow, who befriended him in his early days as a crew member and cast him in movies like The God of Cookery (1996) and Kung Fu Hustle. The second person is director Johnnie To. Lam has been in over 80 films since 1996 and at least 20 of those have been directed or produced by To. Known for his weight and size, his roles are often as a bumbling secondary character providing comic relief from the most intense nature of To’s films. He is perhaps most famous for his various supporting roles in To’s films, notably as the bumbling taxi driver Yip in the award winning film Breaking News (2004).
The most notable To-Lam collaborations include The Mission, which garnered Lam Best Supporting Actor nominations at the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Award, and PTU. Lam was nominated for a Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actor and took home the Golden Bauhinia Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in PTU. He has also had interesting roles in movies like Wu yen (2001), as the effeminate Prime Minister, and in Diva – Ah Hey (2003), in which he played Charlene Choi’s loving and supportive father. Lam has been married for almost a decade. His wife is 10 years his junior and is from the same hometown.
Caught in the middle of a fierce gang war in Macau, a corrupt cop named Sam (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) handles negotiations between two Triad leaders who plan to join forces. He meets a suspicious bald man named Tony (Lau Ching-wan), who keeps following him around and disrupting his personal business. But when Sam finds out he’s a suspect in a nightclub owner’s murder, he’s sure his stalker has something to do with it.
Nobody (Nick Cheung) is a top gambling whiz who falls in love with blind model Candy (Shu Qi). Nobody uses his skills to fix card games in Shenzen, but when Candy’s father (Hui Siu-Hung) gets involved, Nobody turns on his bosses – with devastating results. A fallen man, Nobody struggles back to reclaim his pride and reputation, but will Candy ultimately pay the price?
He Is My Enemy, Partner and Father-In-Law is a Hong Kong Action Comedy starring Danny Lee and Nick Cheung. Sgt. Bruce Lee is on the lookout for a serial killer. To entice the killer out, he says that a small-time thief named Stallone is the only witness to the killer’s most recent crime.
A female police officer goes undercover as a beauty pageant contestant to protect a key witness.
A young woman keeps her true persona a secret in this martial arts action-romance written and directed by Jing Wong
Kit comes from a very fortunate family, with an outstanding police officer father When the family starts to break up, Man impulsively shot Kit’s mother. After Kit’s parents divorced, Kit viewed Man his father as an enemy. As an adult, he vowed to become a police officer, and to join Man’s team, hoping that Man will pay for what he has done. Kit’s cousin, Chi falls for Kit since childhood, but Fung falls for Chi … Read more
As befits a full-blooded Jiang Hu (underworld) antic, COTL takes place over the course of a short, frenetic period, feeling to all intents and purposes like one night. It encompasses plenty of gore and cadavers (unless you get the sanitized, inferior mainland version), relying to a large extent on so-called triad codes of honor and organizational culture. At its core resides old boss Dragon Brother, done by Eric Tsang in a repast from his barrage … Read more
A seven-part anthology film exploring the history of Hong Kong from the 1940s to present day.
A woman is revisited by the ghost of her ex-boyfriend, three years after a car crash took his life.
Ho Sheung Sang finds himself wrapped up in another cat-and-mouse game, this time against a tricky magician.
Police inspector and excellent hostage negotiator Ho Sheung-Sang finds himself in over his head when he is pulled into a 72 hour game by a cancer suffering criminal out for vengeance on Hong Kong’s organized crime syndicates.
May is a martial artist and Chinese medicine practitioner who resides in a temple in Omei mountain. Under the threat of her lovelorn master, Misery, she decides to seek the help of infamous womanizer, Tiger Hung, who she had helped earlier, in order to experience heartbreak and master the “Heartbroken Sword” technique to defeat her.
A car accident gives a spoiled, troubled young woman the ability to see ghosts, including one of a former classmate.
Fresh from a prison term, a former Triad boss resides in a hotel in Macau, where he befriends its owner and her young son.
The most renowned and feared chef in the world loses his title of God of Cookery because of his pompous attitude. Humbled, he sets out to reclaim his title.
Laughing is judged guilty of murdering gang lord Michael So and is sentenced to life imprisonment. Locked up behind bars, he meets the seemingly benign inmate Fok Tin Yam, a university professor in criminal psychology who is jailed for drug possession. Highly intelligent and manipulative, Fok reveals the power of his mind games by effortlessly subduing the violent prison bully. He also deduces that Laughing is sent to the prison on an undercover mission to … Read more
The remarkable true story of the early life of Ip Man, the formidable kung fu genius who would become Bruce Lee’s mentor; beginning at the start of his journey from his initial training through to the ultimate battle to become supreme master of the art of Wing Chun.
When the women of her time had their feet bound to please men, Qiu Jin was already questioning the sexual inequality of feudal traditions. Free-spirited and well-educated, she grew up practicing martial arts and was as well versed in poetry as she was in sword-fighting. When this rebellious girl moved to Beijing with her husband, she witnessed how her country was raided and ravaged by foreign powers. With the encouragement of her neighbor Wu Zhiying, … Read more
Princess Pearl of Flowerland is sent to Midland at a young age to learn her ceremonials duties. Her mother, the Queen Mother misses her daughter very much that the King orders his sister, the princess, to return home. However, the princess has fallen in love with General Wing of the Midland army and is reluctant to part from him. As their boat approaches the Flowerland border, Pearl and Wing save the life of a girl … Read more
Ying is a single parent who’s having a tough time disciplining his wild teenage daughter Ellen.
“Master Q” is a popular comic book series character in Hong Kong. Each comic book is usually made up of many different situational stories, with 8 frmaes making up a story in 1 page. In short, it is like the newspaper comics that you see in America but in a book form. The movie is about how Master Q and his 2 friends Mr. Chung and Potato are out looking for jobs but accidentally cause … Read more
After being sidelined by the gymnastics team, Yu quits and reinvents himself as a Latin dance instructor. He assembles a group of children to compete in the Latin dance competition.
A cop, a lawyer, and an assassin cross paths after the murder of a federal witness and the kidnapping of a famous pop star.
Warlords, warriors and statesmen wage a battle for supremacy in this fantasy tale based on the hit video games and the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.”
Wah and Kinki both working at the same department of a computer company. Both of them are not getting on very well initially, but friendship develops when they get to know each other after a while. When Wah starts to realize his emergent fondness for Kinki, his ex-girlfriend reappears and plans to gain back his affection. In addition, he notices that his ex-girlfriend arranges a guy to pair up with Kinki. At the same time, … Read more
After the death of her policeman father, Xiaomai (Angelababy) begins to look over his old journals filled with notes about the cases he investigated over the years. The mention of a purple scarf in the notes particularly catches her attention, prompting her to purchase a similar scarf from a mysterious website that claims to sell everything, as long as one can pay the price. Soon after, Xiaomai’s close friend (Rayza) is found dead, strangled by … Read more
In the first of a two-part film project, three short stories from acclaimed Hong Kong horror writer Lilian Lee are adapted for the big screen in this horror anthology.
As election time nears, current Triad chairman Lok (Simon Yam) faces competition from his godsons. At the same time, Jimmy (Louis Koo) looks to increase his business relations with mainland China.
Johnnie To’s character-centered drama follows a Hong Kong firefighting crew as they take on harrowing rescue missions and navigate personal dilemmas.
The film revolves around a group of individuals who are all connected by a lost bottle of breast milk
In order to preserve the value of his assets, the Lo’s family a patriarch (Francis Ng) spends all his saving’s and his father’s retirements pensions to purchase an old-age flat in the middle of a noisy neighborhood, cohabiting with his neurotic wife (Anita Yuen), unemployed son (Ng Siu-hin), daughter (Jocelyn Choi) who is going through puberty and his elderly, disabled father (Cheung Tat-ming).
Mainlander & financial analyst Cheng Zixin (Gao Yuan-Yuan), who followed her then boyfriend Owen (Terence Yin) to Hong Kong, runs into her ex-boyfriend while riding the bus. Owen is now with his pregnant wife and when his wife spots Owen talking to his ex she she freaks out. Cheng hurriedly gets off the bus and, being in a daze, is almost run over by a car. A haggard drunk named Fang (Daniel Wu) then saves … Read more
Tensions flare between PTU officers and the Complaints Against Police Officers unit when a security camera captures a triad member being brutalized by PTU officers.
Kei (Simon Yam) is the experienced leader of a team of pickpockets — also known as “Sparrows” in HK slang. He enjoys a carefree lifestyle taking photos. One day a dashing beauty, Chun-Lei (Kelly Lin), suddenly appears in Kei’s viewfinder. Kei is mesmerized. But behind Chun-Lei’s attractive facade lies a mysterious past and a mission to set herself free.
Run Papa Run is a 2008 Hong Kong comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Sylvia Chang, and based on a novel by Benny Li. It was produced by JCE Movies Limited, with Jackie Chan serving as an executive producer. Featuring an ensemble cast, the film stars Louis Koo as Lee Tin-Yun, a Triad boss who struggles to hide his criminal lifestyle when he is faced with raising his daughter.
A rookie cop teams up with a former detective with a supernatural gift to hunt down a serial killer.
Struggling movie producer To Wai-Cheung (Chapman To) is hardly able to make ends meet, yet his daughter (Fiona Sit) hopes to one day sees him being interviewed on TV. In order to fulfill his daughter’s dream, he meets Tyrannosaurus (Ronald Cheng), a Guangxi based triad head and a movie investor with a peculiar taste. Tyrannosaurus wants to remake a category III movie starring his childhood idol Siu Yam-yam called Confessions of Two Concubines.
A former smuggler attempts to start his life anew and repair his relationship with his estranged brother after his release from prison.
