Profile | How Myolie Wu went from Hong Kong TV stardom to mainland China fame

One of TVB’s ‘Five Great Actresses’, Wu also found considerable success on mainland Chinese screens, though her music career was short-lived

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Myolie Wu’s adaptability and language skills have propelled her acting career beyond her initial fame in Hong Kong. Photo: Wang Wen

Published: 7:15am, 21 Nov 2025

This is the 64th instalment in a biweekly series profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades.

The language barrier has often been a hindrance for Hong Kong actors and actresses seeking to broaden their careers in mainland China. Myolie Wu Hang-yee, whose fluency spans Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Japanese and Taishanese, proved an exception.

She garnered praise in 2020 during the second season of the reality show Everybody Stand By for her seamless use of China’s Anhui dialect while re-enacting a scene from the 2014 film Dearest, ultimately winning the competition.

“[Mastering] the dialect was the biggest challenge, [but] I forced myself to learn it. I also kept watching the original movie,” she told the Post in a 2020 interview.

Her most successful year came in 2011 at Hong Kong broadcaster TVB after she starred in three dramas – The Rippling Blossom, Ghetto Justice and Curse of the Royal Harem – that ranked in TVB’s top five by viewership that year.

At the 2011 TVB Anniversary Awards, Wu made history by becoming the first TVB actress to win three major accolades – best actress for Curse of the Royal Harem, my favourite female character for Ghetto Justice, and an audience vote for most extraordinary elegant actress – in a single ceremony, which saw her crowned “Triple TV Queen”.

SCMP Series

Hong Kong’s pop culture icons

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