Lam was born at South Wall Road in Kowloon City[2], He graduated from TVB's 15th Artist Training Class in 1988. For the next seven to eight years, he was no more than an extra in most television productions. It wasn't until Lam's impersonation of Jacky Cheung that he began to catch the attention of Hong Kong audiences.
Lam was soon offered more supporting roles and the first TV series he starred in, Time Before Time, was one of the most popular serials of 1997. At that time, he has had the opportunity to appear in films as well, with small roles in Gen-X Cops (1999) and The Kid (1999). After leaving TVB in 2001, Lam became a contracted artiste under Andy Lau's Topman Global, and began to fully concentrate on his film career. Lam appeared in supporting roles in a number of Lau's films such as Dance of a Dream (2001), Infernal Affairs (2002), Jiang Hu (2004), Yesterday Once More (2004) and Wait 'til You're Older (2005). Some of his other known film appearances include Johnnie To's Election film series (2005-2006), Exiled (2006) and Mad Detective (2007).
In 2013, Lam played a subsidiary role in Lau's 2013 film, Firestorm, which was a box office success, and subsequently led him to many leading film role offers.
