One of Hong Kong's most talented performers, Fu rose to prominence in the 1970s starring in a string of movies with the Shaw Brothers that accrued him international stardom throughout Asia and parts of North America.
The ninth of eleven children, he was born into a wealthy family as his father, Benton Cheung Yan-lung, was a businessman and politician from the New Territories who had served as a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.
[5][6] Unlike his male contemporaries Jimmy Wang Yu, Ti Lung, David Chiang, and Chen Kuan-tai, Fu's characters were irreverent and boyish which, according to Chang, had not been seen before at the time and as a result, made them all the more memorable.
In 1977, Chang returned to making wuxia films and Fu was once again cast as the lead role in four of the five Brave Archer movies, a multi-part series based on the 1957 novel and its sequel that similarly had a 'cast of thousands' production and was completed in a span of five years.
[5][9] Shot in San Francisco's Chinatown, his performance as the migrant worker-turned-criminal Tan Tung was praised by one American critic as being the actor's most mature as well as most heartbreaking work.
[10] Towards the late 70s, Fu collaborated with close friend Ti Lung in Sun Chung's The Avenging Eagle (1978) and The Deadly Breaking Sword (1979), once more to critical and commercial success.
However, Fu suffered a series of injuries on set that temporarily impeded his career: on September 17, 1978 while filming The Deadly Breaking Sword, he fell eight feet and smashed head-first into an urn from which he suffered bouts of dizziness for several months, and on September 19 the following year, while filming an action sequence in Heroes Shed No Tears, a harness suspending him broke, causing him to fall and shatter his right leg.
[5][13] The driver, his brother Horatio Cheung Chun Sheng, suffered serious head injuries in the accident and was found guilty of dangerous driving in a December hearing.
The South China Morning Post reported that 2,000 friends and relatives attended while some 3,000 fans gathered to pay their respects during the funeral procession in Hung Hom.
[5] At the time of his death, Fu had been filming Lau Kar-leung's The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter in which he co-starred with Wong Yue and his brother and fellow actor David Cheung Chin pang.
Fu's rebellious and boyish persona was attributed by Chang as being the progenitor for the xiaozi (Mandarin colloquialism for 'kid' or 'brat') genre and was likened as a vanguard for Jackie Chan, Stephen Chow, and Andy Lau.