Shou didn't start attending martial arts classes until he was 19. He took Kempo (Karate) while attending Cal State. He soon realized the Karate did nothing for him so he decided to quit. A year and a half later, he saw a demonstration by a group of wu shu practitioners from Beijing. He said, "This is Chinese!" He was so inspired to train in this discipline that in 1981, just before starting his senior year at Cal State, he sold his car and used the money to spend a quarter studying wu shu in China. His parents did not know his true whereabouts until his aunt wrote Robin's mother telling her that her son was in Nanjing.

Shou returned to Cal State and got his B.S. in civil engineering. He spent a year and a half in this field and he was convinced he needed a different career. He found computer and electronics boring. He was always trying to follow the ideal; finishing school, getting a job, getting married… He was unhappy and the only thing that kept him going was martial arts.

At 25, Shou looked at his 37-year-old supervisor; he had a belly, was out of shape and had dandruff. Robin thought to himself, "Will I look like this when I am 37?" Shou soon took off to Hong Kong. Not planning to do anything but vacation and think. However, this was short-lived. Soon after his arrival, he was offered a chance to appear in a movie as a stuntman. He was offered job after job, and for his first two years in Hong Kong, he played bit parts in action films. He lived in a little Kowloon rooftop apartment for $250 a month.

Shou's first real dramatic role was in "Forbidden Love" in 1989, where he played opposite Melissa Gilbert. Though only a TV film, this was his first American debut, any surly a catapult for Hollywood. However, Shou went back to Hong Kong and continued making movies there. By this time, he was more choosy about the roles he would play. He wanted other roles besides that of a bodyguard or a stuntman. He began turning down roles and after nine years he was bored and ready to quit acting.

In 1994, Shou returned to L.A. to start an import/export business. Then he got the call from his agent, ranting about a perfect role for him in a movie called "Mortal Kombat". Robin was not interested, he assumed he'd be playing a villain who gets killed in the end. His agent begged him to audition. He did, along with other top contenders of the day; Jason Scott Lee (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story), Russell Wong (The Joy Luck Club), and Dustin Nguyen (21 Jump Street). Seven auditions later he was Mortal Kombat's Liu Kang.

"It's weird how things work, because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I went to Hong Kong, got into film. I wanted to quit. Now I came back here and got a big movie without really trying."--Robin Shou

The role of Liu Kang in "Mortal Kombat" was a unique one for Robin. It is rare to find Asians starring as heroes in martial art films nowadays. Also very uncommon about this film was that both he good guy and the bad guy at the end of the movie were both Asian.

When Shou is not making films he takes ceramic classes, paints, welds and does woodworking. He likes to do anything that involves working with his hands.