As the centre of global commercial cinema, Hollywood has a long-term appeal for many Chinese actors. However, historically, very few (with the exceptions of Anna May Wong and Bruce Lee) have managed to achieve stardom in America. This situation seemed to change in the 1990s when Hollywood saw an influx of Hong Kong film stars, including but not limited to Chow Yun-fat, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh. A number of factors have contributed to this change. First, the prosperity of Hong Kong cinema and the rise of other East Asian film industries during the 1980s captured global attention. Through video circulation, film festivals and art-house releases, East Asian films found a strategy for entering the American film market. Although the distribution of those films was limited, it cultivated a group of cult fans in America. Through those films, Hong Kong film stars demonstrated their cross-racial and cross-cultural appeal.

Secondly, a shift in consumer power was taking place in the American and global film markets. Whilst the rapid growth of the Asian economy over the past three decades has enhanced the status of the East Asian film market in Hollywood's global distribution strategy, the demographic structure of Hollywood's domestic market has also changed. The population of Chinese migrants and their descendants, for example, was increasing at a rate between four and five times faster than the growth rate of the total population of the United States (Skeldon 2004). In comparison to the older generation of Chinese migrants, an increasing number of new Chinese migrants started to work in high-status jobs as lawyers, businessmen and scientists as a result of America's new rules on immigration, particularly the Immigration Act (1990). Such a shift meant that the Chinese community started to possess new and increasingly significant powers of consumption in the American domestic market.

However, the employment of Chow, and of other Hong Kong stars, has proved to be a challenge to the status quo in Hollywood, not only because the Asian presence has long been marginalised in Hollywood, but also because stars like Chow already enjoy huge popularity in the Asian film market.