In this
Hong Kong name, the
surname is Ng. In accordance with Hong Kong custom, the Western-style name is Richard Ng and the Chinese-style name is Ng Yiu-hon.
Richard Ng Yiu-hon (27 December 1939 – 9 April 2023), also known as Richard Woo, was a
Hong Kong actor known for playing comedic roles, particularly in Hong Kong films of the 1980s and 1990s.[1]
Ng's first role was in the 1976
Michael Hui comedy film The Private Eyes. It was the first of many films Ng would appear in with
Sammo Hung throughout the next 30 years.
In 1979, Ng made his only film as director, Murder Most Foul. He also starred in the film and co-wrote it with
Wong Jing.
In 1983, he appeared as "Exhaust Pipe" in Hung's film Winners and Sinners, a template to the Lucky Stars series. He would go on to appear in all of the subsequent Lucky Stars films throughout the 1980s, in fundamentally the same role, though his character name in the later films was "Sandy".
Ng came to the fore in all 4 of the
Pom Pom series, alongside fellow Lucky Star,
John Shum. The Pom Pom films were something of a spinoff from the Lucky Stars series, though more comedy than action-orientated. Sammo Hung worked as
producer on the first three, and as action director on the first two, and all four films were released by Hung's production companies, Bo Ho Films and D&B Films. The first film, Pom Pom! featured cameos from Sammo Hung,
Charlie Chin and
Stanley Fung as their characters from Winners and Sinners. Jackie Chan and
Yuen Biao, who had also appeared in the Lucky Stars films also made cameo appearances. In the series, Ng plays "Ng Ah Chow" (or Ng Ah Chau), whilst Shum plays "Beethoven", a pair of inept and lovelorn cops. The first three Pom Pom films fared well at the domestic box office, taking between HK $17 and HK $20 million each, a sum comparable to contemporaries such as the original Lucky Stars trilogy, Chan's Project A and Hung and Biao's Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain.
As of 1997, Ng moved from
Hong Kong to
London,
England[2] and was said to be semi-retired. However, he was clearly still very active, having made several appearances on
British television since that time, and he also continued to work on
Hong Kong films.
Since it started in 2002, Ng appeared in several episodes of the ongoing
BBC Scotland soap, River City (under the name Richard Woo). His character was "Johnny Wu", the owner of the "Wok My World" takeaway.
In 2009, he played in
Red Dwarf: Back to Earth as Swallow the Nose Maker, a maker of prosthetics.
Ng could be seen on British television, playing a shopkeeper in an advertisement for
RAC, alongside
Lennox Lewis, and in another advertisement for satellite television, dressed as an eskimo. He also played the emperor of
China in a
Channel 4 docu-drama, The Great Wall of China. It was first shown on 1 October 2007 at 9pm. In 2008, he appeared as Sifu Chien, the
Shaolin master of Hong Kong policeman, Terry Phoo (
Eddie Shin) in the
pilot episode of the
BBC Three program, Phoo Action.
In 2000, Richard Ng appeared alongside his son,
Carl Ng, in the film Love at First Sight a.k.a. Sausalito. The two have since appeared together several more times, including in
Dante Lam's Jiang hu: The Triad Zone (2000), Lemon Crush (2002), Sammo Hung's Legend of the Dragon (2004) and the
Jingle Ma film, Happy Birthday (2007).
Ng and son would also appear together in three forthcoming films. The first of these is Magazine Gap Road, which is completed and due for release in 2007. This would be followed by Bodyguard: A New Beginning, and in 2008, Jessica Caught on Tape.
Ng had a cameo appearance in the 2016 film
Skiptrace.
Ng was married to his wife, Susan, a
British woman who was a stylist for Vidal Sassoon in
London and
New York. She ran HAIR BY SUSAN,
where she worked as
Bruce Lee's hair stylist in the 1970s.[2] Together, they had four children, live event producer Alex Ng who runs a concert production company INTERNATIONAL FIXER, Zoe Ng, a professional dancer who studies nature and travels the world, Louise Ng who is a professional photographer, and mother, and actor
Carl Ng.[4]
In March 2021, one of his daughters was arrested for trafficking marijuana in a
village house.[5][6][7] Later on 26 March 2021, Ng's second daughter was arrested.[8][9][10][11]
Ng died at the age of 83. He had been suffering health problems for years. In 2019 he disclosed he had to undergo dialysis treatments daily due to kidney problems. In 2021 he told media that he had undergone surgery for a cardiac embolism.[12][13] According to Hong Kong media outlet HK01, which was first to report his death, doctors advised Ng's family members to visit him in hospital on 9 April to say their last goodbyes. Ng was hooked up to several tubes and his family prayed for him. A family member was told that the doctors tried to resuscitate Ng after his heart stopped, but to no avail. Later papers were signed by the doctors to confirm his death.[13][14]