Although his family was wealthy due to his grandfather being a landowner with farmland and villages, his father moved them to the slums of Diamond Hill when he was six years old so he could receive a bilingual education to improve his English.

He made a guest appearance in one of Susanna Kwan's music videos in 1981 and caught the eye of the manager Teddy Robin, who gave Lau his first minor role in the film, Once Upon a Rainbow.

[24] Since the early 21st century, Lau has started working with filmmakers from China and beyond, notably in Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Feng Xiaogang's A World Without Thieves (2004).

In 2006 he starred in the pan-Asian blockbuster A Battle of Wits (2006), followed by a series of big-budget historical films such as The Warlords (2007), Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon (2008), and Tsui Hark's Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010).

[28] In 1991, Lau set up his own film production company, Teamwork Motion Pictures, which in 2002 was renamed to Focus Group Holdings Limited.

[3] The films Lau has produced include Made in Hong Kong, A Simple Life, A Fighter's Blues, Crazy Stone, Firestorm and Shock Wave.

[29] The following year, he released the single "The Days We Spent Together" which topped Hong Kong's music charts and was an international hit across Asia.

[30] His subsequent albums brought him further recognition spawning hit singles such as "Ice Rain" (1993), "Forget Love Potion" (1994), and "Stupid Fellow" (1998).

His popularity as a music artist was such that Lau was dubbed as one of the Cantopop Four Heavenly Kings along with Jacky Cheung, Aaron Kwok, and Leon Lai.

[31][32][33] At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Lau sang "Please Stay, Guests From Afar" alongside Jackie Chan and Emil Chau during its closing ceremony.

In addition, Lau, who has been supporting disabled athletes in Hong Kong for more than a decade, was appointed as the Goodwill ambassador for the 2008 Summer Paralympics.

He has held concerts in Asia, North America, Europe, and Oceania, and continues to tour with an upcoming Mainland China leg set for Summer 2024.

[37] In September 2024, Andy Lau almost fell through an open trapdoor during a concert in Shenzhen but quickly recovered, continuing the show without injury.

Following the example of Jackie Chan and Joan Lin, they signed a symbolic “marriage certificate” that held no legal validity in Taiwan.

She revealed that they had agreed to meet again ten years after their breakup and Lau honored the pact by visiting her home in Los Angeles, ringing the doorbell, and claiming that media reports about his relationship with Chu were untrue.

[46][47][48] Yu's mother later alleged that all 5,000 copies of the memoir sold in Hong Kong were purchased in bulk to prevent them from reaching store shelves.

[49] In 2008, Lau secretly married Carol Chu in Las Vegas and acknowledged his marriage the following year, ending decades of speculation over their relationship.