Roy Cheung Yiu-Yeung is one of the more underrated actors in Hong Kong. While he's never been a member of the A-list, he has built a solid career out of strong supporting roles and memorable villains. He was born in Hong Kong on July 20, 1963. As a child, he idolized Bruce Lee but never considered becoming an actor. After a brief stint in modelling, he caught the attention of Ringo Lam, who would launch Cheung's career as a movie villain. His breakout role was the corrupt prison guard in Lam’s Prison on Fire (1987), a role that earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Hong Kong Film Awards. He also appeared in Lam’s Wild Search (1989), and the two other films in the “on Fire” series, City on Fire (1986) and School on Fire (1987).

Since then, Cheung has generally been typecast in villain roles and has rarely stepped outside of the crime/triad genre. When he appeared in the third installment of the Young and Dangerous series, the HK Film Critics Society's comment was, “at last!” Cheung has also appeared in unofficial spin-offs, like Once Upon in a Triad Society 2 (1996), and has taken part in a number of acclaimed films, like Beast Cops (1998) and The Mission (1999), which have been credited with breaking new ground in the crime genre. He won the Golden Bauhinia Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in The Mission. His best performance to date was in Jiang Hu – The Triad Zone (2000); it brought him another HK Film Award nomination.

Cheung is reportedly a man of few words offscreen, and this seems to have been incorporated into his recent performances too. His largely silent character in Infernal Affairs II (2003) has been described as being a direct contrast to Chapman To’s loquacious Keung. Said one reviewer, "Not a word of dialogue and a miniscule amount of time onscreen, yet I could still get a strong sense of his character."

Cheung has recently amassed quite a following in Taiwan. Among the most rabid of his fans is Taiwanese pop-idol Yuki Tsui Huai-Yu. At the 2000 Golden Horse Awards, Tsui took the opportunity to publicly declare her love to him onstage, when they presented the award for Best New Performer together. (Yinique 2003)