Crouching Tiger Actor

What Crouching Tiger Actor Plans on Doing With His $715M

Chow Yun-fat says his wife is OK if he gives it all to charity when he dies

By Jenn Gidman

Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-fat smiles during an interview at the opening ceremony of a Hugo Boss store in Hong Kong on March. 27, 2014.   (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)

Amid the stories of good fortune emerging at the end of the year, one more to wrap things up—this time, involving a famous Hong Kong actor and some eventually very lucky recipients.
The Guardian reports that Chow Yun-fat, the 63-year-old star best known here in the US for his role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has announced he'll be donating his fortune to charity after he dies, and there's quite a lot to give as of now: about $715 million. "You can't bring the money in your bank account with you after you die," he tells the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation. "When you're gone one day, you have to leave it to others to use it."

Chow, who debuted on the Forbes list of highest-paid actors in 2015, adds that his wife of 30-plus years, Jasmine Tan, "strongly supports" his decision. Per Shanghaiist, Tan had previously revealed her husband lived on about $100 a month and clung to a Nokia flip phone for 17 years (it eventually died). He's also been known to take public transportation and to get in the queue to buy tickets at the theater for his own films.