Steven Ma - Life and Career

Life and Career

Ma was born in a family of "grassroots" background. He was raised in the Pak Tin Estate in Sham Shui Po and lived with his father, a bus driver, his mother, three older sisters, and one younger sister. He attended the Pak Tin Catholic Primary School and later the CMA Secondary School.

In 1993, Ma won first place at an annual singing contest in Hong Kong, also winning a record deal. He released his debut album, Lucky for Meet You (幸運就是遇到你), that December. To promote the album, his record label created the slogan "He's not Leon Lai, he's not Jacky Cheung" to describe Ma's singing talent, which caused their fans to criticize and badmouth Ma. However when Ma's contract terminated, Warners did not want to renew their contract.

At around the same time, Ma signed a per series contract with TVB and portrayed minor roles in various television dramas. In 1994, Ma was cast as the supporting character Dr. Stephen Chan Cheuk-yiu in the fourth installment of the popular legal drama File of Justice series. The drama was a popular success, and Ma gained his first footstep into TVB series. His portrayal of the intelligent Hong-hei Emperor in the 1998 remake of the popular wuxia novel The Duke of Mount Deer garnered even more interest from critics and producers alike, and Ma began earning leading roles.

In 1998 Ma filmed the ever popular TV series, "Healing Hands 1", but unlike his carefree and sunny disposition Dr. Joe character in the said series, from 1998 until his mother's death, Ma was actually deeply depressed over the rapidly declining health of his mother, a cancer patient of 22 years. His mother's death in July 1999 totally devastated him. For months he isolated himself in his bedroom to deal with the pain of losing his beloved mother. Ma eventually put aside his pain to get on with his life. In 2002 he set up a publishing company, and in the same year he published the first of his book series of: Steven Ma's True Tales of Society with "Why Suicide? (2002) followed up Steven Ma's Tales of Society: I Am the Patient's Family (2003).

Ma's portrayal of the historical figure Cho Chik in the drama Where the Legend Begins (2002) was both a popular and critical success. Following Where was the popular but critically mixed Perish in the Name of Love (2003), a 30-part television drama remake of the famous Cantonese opera Di Nü Hua. Gradually, Ma began filming more dramas with historical or period backgrounds, in which Ma subsequently became known for. Ma is also the first actor to win the My Favourite Male Character award at the 2006 TVB Anniversary Awards through his performance in the 2006 low-budget period drama Safe Guards (2006). Ma left TVB and joined Hutchison Telecom in January 2012, however he has continued to work with TVB independently, currently starring in their new series Property Protector.