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The
prodigal son of the Hong Kong entertainment circle, Nicholas
Tse Ting-Fung was born on August 29, 1980. Tse spent most
of his formative years in Vancouver and Phoenix, Arizona,
but Hong Kong audiences became acquainted with him as
a child because of his parents, veteran actors Patrick
Tse and Deborah Li. Both revelled in being the focus of
media attention and often brought out Tse and his sister
to pose for holiday family photos, which were published
in HK magazines. As a result of the early attention, Tse
became accustomed to being in the public eye and it seemed
inevitable that he would follow in their footsteps—in
more ways than one.
Starting out initially in
music, Tse made his first venture into the movies with
his role as a young Chan Ho-Nam in Young and Dangerous:
The Prequel (1998). His performance earned him a Hong
Kong Film Award for Best New Artist. He followed this
with strong outings in the drama Metade Fumaca
(1999), and in commercial productions like Gen-X Cops
(1999) and My Schoolmate, the Barbarian (2001).
In addition, he had a scene-stealing cameo in Comic
King (2000), and wrote and co-directed a short with
fellow actor Stephen Fung for the anthology film Heroes
in Love (2001).
However, while Tse is considered
to be one of the most promising actors of his generation,
it is his off-screen escapades that have garnered the
most attention. He’s kept the press busy ever since stepping
foot in Hong Kong as a singer in 1996, from criticism
of him riding on the coattails of his parents to news
of rivalries with other male entertainers. In addition,
his on-and-off-again relationship with older woman Faye
Wong has been prime water-cooler discussion fodder. Not
afraid to share his opinions, Tse has also gained negative
attention for his outspokenness in interviews. At one
point, he was frozen by TVB after criticizing them in
an inteview with TimeAsia.com.
More recently, it was Tse's
penchant for speed that put him in hot water. His now
infamous perversion of justice case—in which a chauffeur
for entertainment company EEG attempted to take the blame
for an accident that Tse caused—was headline news
for many months. The courts handed Tse a guilty verdict
and he spent two weeks in jail before being sentenced
to 240 hours of community service, a decision that incited
much public uproar. Tse took a six-month sabbatical after
the trial but returned to the entertainment circle in
March of 2003. (Yinique 2003) |
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