How Hong Kong actor and filmmaker Nick Cheung reinvented himself during a 4-decade career
biweekly series profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades.
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Hong Kong users of the social media platform Threads recently might have encountered a certain Choi San-keung, a sleep-deprived, middle-aged taxi driver who regularly engages with other internet users and shares his nightmares with them.
Choi, who has been active since March, has also been spotted on in the Hong Kong subway on an MTR train, on the streets and in cinemas.
This eccentric influencer is the alter ego of veteran actor and filmmaker Nick Cheung Ka-fai, who plays Choi in new horror thriller film
Peg O' My Heart , which he directed and co-wrote. It is the fourth movie Cheung has directed.
Nick Cheung as Choi San-keung in a still from the film Peg O' My Heart, which he also directed and co-wrote. Photo: Handout
Cheung's activity on Threads may just be part of promotion for the film, but his social media fame represents yet another achievement in a successful career that has seen him repeatedly reinvent himself.
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Born in 1964 in Hong Kong, Cheung grew up poor with his mother and three sisters in Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon, after his father abandoned the family when he was around five years old.
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