Gordon Liu was born in Canton in 1955. Being trained by master of Liu's Hung martial arts, Liu Cham, during his early childhood, Gordon was greatly impressed by Liu's skills and adopted the new name Liu Chia-hui.
Liu started his movie career as a stuntman and got promoted to martial arts instructor afterwards. His debut project was Shaolin Martial Arts in which he played a supporting role. In the Challenge of the Master, director Liu Chia-liang successfully moulds him to be a "Hero of Kung-fu" and he was the main cast for the movie too. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin marked the success of Liu and he followed the role and made several Kung-fu movies; amongst those, he always portrayed himself as the "Kung-fu Monk."
From the end of the 80's to the early 90's, with the revival of the Kung-fu movie, Liu returned to the big screen. Liu also appeared in a TV series drama. In 2002 Liu was cast by internationally-renowned director Quentin Tarantino to take up 2 roles in his Kill Bill series.