Eddy Ko Hung
Eddy Ko Hung is an actor, born 1947.
More than 150 film and television roles, by his own Wikipedia count, starting in 1969. Eddy Ko Hung was born in Zhongshan, in Guangdong province, and built all of that in Hong Kong, across martial arts pictures, genre oddities and the crime films that came later.
The physical work came first. The Avenging Eagle in 1978 and Duel to the Death in 1983 use him as a fighter; We're Going to Eat You and The Butterfly Murders put him in the fast, strange, genre-mashing corner of Hong Kong film at the turn of the eighties. Heroes Shed No Tears in 1984 gave him Chan Chung, the role his reputation at home still rests on.
As he aged he became the authority figure, and that is where he is most useful. He is Boss Lung in The Mission, Eye Ball in PTU and The Chief in Mad Detective, three Hong Kong crime films across eight years in which he plays men whose word closes an argument. Western audiences met him elsewhere: as Hong in Lethal Weapon 4 in 1998, then as Guo Ming in The Martian, a small late part in a very large American film.
He has kept working into his seventies, mostly on Chinese television and features: Candle in the Tomb: The Lost Caverns and Heroes in 2020, The Legend of Condor Hero: What is Love in 2025.
Movies (63)
- The Martian (2015)
- The Mission (1999)
- Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)
- Mad Detective (2007)
- The Legend of Condor Hero: What is Love (2025)
- Swordsman III: The East Is Red (1993)
- Kung Fu Dunk (2008)
- Evil Black Magic (1992)
- Justice, My Foot! (1992)
- We're Going to Eat You (1980)
- Duel to the Death (1983)
- Heroic Trio 2: Executioners (1993)
- The Peacock King (1988)
- The Miracle Fighters (1982)
- PTU (2003)
- The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch (2008)
- Mad, Mad 83 (1983)
- Heroes Shed No Tears (1984)
- The Bride with White Hair (1993)
- Cheetah on Fire (1992)
- Casino Raiders (1989)
- Lee Rock (1991)
- The Butterfly Murders (1979)
- The Bride with White Hair 2 (1993)
- The Champions (1983)
- Burning Ambition (1989)
- The Avenging Eagle (1978)
- Dreaming the Reality (1991)
- The Sword (1980)
- Shaolin Drunkard (1983)
TV (59)
- Rise & Fall of Qing Dynasty (1987)
- Police Cadet (1984)
- Reincarnated (1979)
- Heroes (2020)
- On The Waterfront (1980)
- Love & Passion (1982)
- The Legendary Four Aces (2000)
- Police Tactical Unit (2019)
- The Monkey King: Quest for the Sutra (2002)
- The Turbulent Decade (1986)
- King of Gambler (1996)
- Who's The Winner (1991)
- The Black Sabre (1991)
- Heroic Legend of The Yang'S Family (1994)
- Deadly Secret (1989)
- The Gentle Crackdown (2006)
- Legend of Dagger Lee (1999)
- The Sword Stained With Royal Blood (1985)
- Lethal Weapons of Love and Passion (2006)
- The Unyielding Master Lim (1986)
- Fist of Fury (1995)
- Au Revoir Shanghai (2008)
- The Saga of The Lost Kingdom (1988)
- The Undercover Agents (1984)
- Candle in the Tomb: The Lost Caverns (2020)
- Fated Love (1997)
- Qiu Jin: A Woman To Remember (1984)
- The Foundling's Progress (1987)
- Zheng Cheng Gong (1987)
- Killer And Healer (2021)
Where to start with Eddy Ko Hung
Skip the obvious entry. Heroes Shed No Tears carries the reputation but it is a rough, brutal watch and a strange first impression. Begin instead with The Mission, where Ko plays Boss Lung and the tension is built almost entirely out of men standing still in rooms, then follow it with PTU for the same register at night.
For the earlier physical work, Duel to the Death is the most spectacular thing in his filmography and The Avenging Eagle the most classical. We're Going to Eat You is for anyone curious about the genuinely deranged side of that era. Lethal Weapon 4 is where most Western viewers first saw him, and it is worth a look for how much presence he carries in a part written thin. Kung Fu Dunk is for completists only.