27th February 2021 – (Hong Kong) The 70-year-old Hong Kong veteran actor, Ng Man-tat finally succumbed to liver cancer and passed away today in the presence of his family members. His good friend, Tin Kai-man, also an actor revealed to the media that Ng had unfortunately suffered from liver cancer a few days ago.
He underwent surgery and received chemotherapy two months ago, but his condition turned critical today and he fell into a coma. He was transferred to the ICU and the doctor notified his family members to be mentally prepared. Recently, many friends visited him. Ng kept telling his friends that it was a painful ordeal. At that time, he took morphine every 4 hours to relieve the pain, but it was no longer effective.
His ex-wife, two daughters, current wife and his son were present. The wife of Kwan Hoi-san, another veteran actor, Felix Lok and wife, Wilson Tsui and wife and Tin Kai-man said goodbye to him at his bedside before he passed away.
Tin Kai-man spoke to media reporters at 5.18pm today. When he was interviewed, he said: “Ng has just passed away peacefully. There will be a funeral committee, and it is expected that a memorial service will be held and the details will be announced.”
Meanwhile, Stephen Chow, his co-actor in many comedies said that, “I have just learned of the tragic news. Although I have been paying attention to Ng’s condition during this period and I have made some mental preparations, the news was still very sad. He has been my movie partner and old friend for so many years, and I just can’t accept his death for now.”
Ng Man-tat (born 2nd January, 1951) was a Hong Kong actor originally from Fujian, China. He was a veteran actor in the Hong Kong film industry, with dozens of awards, including Best Supporting Actor at the 10th Hong Kong Film Awards for his role in A Moment of Romance.
Although Ng Man-tat owed much of his popularity from co-starring in comedy films, he had shown to be a versatile actor to successfully portray various roles. An example of such is in his portrayal of Sister 13’s father in Portland Street Blues, where he played a man who could not feel anything but abuse and rejection. It proved to be the perfect complement to his usual “mo lei tau” style with Chow. He also played Andy Lau‘s sidekick in the Lee Rock series in a more serious role, which won him Best Supporting Actor at the 10th Hong Kong Film Awards. In Hong Kong, Ng was often known as “Uncle Tat”, a nickname most likely influenced from his roles as Stephen Chow‘s sidekick (often as his uncle) in their films. Ng was sometimes credited as Richard Ng.
Ng was admitted to the hospital in 2013 for heart failure due to a viral infection. Since then, he had been in poor health. Lately in Feb 2021, it was reported that he had liver cancer. He had undergone surgery in Dec 2020 to survive the crisis and was receiving chemotherapy.