Cecilia Cheung

In 1998, Cheung was cast in a television commercial advertising lemon tea, which caught the attention of Stephen Chow. Cheung made her film debut as a call girl in Chow's King of Comedy (1999), which became the highest grossing local film of the year and shot Cheung to fame. She then starred in Fly Me to Polaris (1999), for which she sang the theme song. She was nominated for Best Newcomer at the 19th Hong Kong Film Awards for both King of Comedy and Fly Me to Polaris, and won for the latter. In the same year, Cheung released her first album Any Weather (1999).

Cheung made inroads into the Korean market with Failan (2001) co-starring Choi Min-shik. The film earned her a nomination at the Grand Bell Awards for Best Actress. She then starred opposite Louis Koo in the comedy film The Lion Roars (2002), for which she won the Most Popular Actress award at the Chinese Film Media Awards.

Cheung reunited with Louis Koo in Derek Yee's film Lost in Time (2003), for which she won the Best Actress award at the Hong Kong Film Awards. She followed with crime thriller One Nite in Mongkok (2004) by Derek Yee, where she played a prostitute who crosses paths with an assassin (played by Daniel Wu). She was nominated for the Best Actress award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for the third time.

Cheung played old Shanghai diva Zhou Xuan in TV series The Wandering Songstress (2008), after which she took a break from acting and gave birth to two sons. She made a comeback in 2010, but her films were commercially and critically unsuccessful.

In 2013, she announced a one-year break from acting and relocated to Singapore. Since then, Cheung switched her career focus to variety shows in mainland China. She has earned 70 million HKD in 2014, ranking number nine in the top ten list of Hong Kong's highest celebrity incomes in 2014. In early 2021, Cheung joined the second season of Chinese reality series Sisters Who Make Waves.