Actor, b. 1930, said to still be alive.

Burt Kwouk was born in England, but spent most of his childhood in Shanghai. His acting career took him first to roles calling for a "typical Chinaman" and then to filling the need for a parody of the martial arts movies made popular by Bruce Lee. This led to his most well known role as Cato Fong in the Pink Panther films. Cato was the karate expert hired by Inspector Clouseau as houseboy and... well, to keep Clouseau sharp by attacking him without warning no matter what the circumstances. Their epic battles would invariably destroy Clouseau's apartment and would end only when the phone rang.

"Inspector Clouseau's residence...
Yes, just a moment please."

Kwouk's roles outside of Blake Edwards' Pink Panther franchise would mainly take the form of action films in which his martial arts abilities would take a more prominent role than his comedy. He would take roles in television as well as film, and in 2001 appeared in two films, although he has now taken to the role of the wise, elder Asian advisor.

Check out Revenge of the Pink Panther and pay close attention to what becomes of Burt Kwouk's Cato when he comes to believe Clouseau is dead...

Some information garnered from allmovie.com and other randomly stumbled upon sites as well as personal memory.

Burt Kwouk ("The thinking man's David Yipp" - Harry Hill) has performed a wide variety of roles on television, radio and film, which interestingly seem to have shifted depending on the public mood towards the Chinese in the West, as is to be expected for one of very few prominent British Chinese film actors. During the 1960s he played a number of Communist Chinese dignitaries and generals in supporting roles (speaking almost no pronouns for the entire decade), in addition to his most famous role as the kung-fu expert Cato (above).

In more recent years he has played a more down-to-Earth middle-aged father in a BBC TV drama (Peggy Su), himself in Harry Hill's Fruit Corner ("I will catch me that chicken!") and Harry Hill (the original TV series -"Hey Harry, I liked this show better when it was on the radio!"), and voiced one of the 'Japanese' announcers in Channel Four's Banzai!. ("What you waiting for? Bet! Bet! Bet!") He also appears briefly in Jet Li's Kiss Of The Dragon, and anything on British television to do with Peter Sellers or Bruce Lee.

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