Young was born in London in 1944 as Eric Young. He trained as an actor first at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and then moved to Los Angeles to study method acting under Shelley Winters and Lee Strasberg.
Originally, Young performed under his birth name appearing in TV shows in the 1960s and '70s such as The Saint, The Avengers, Blake's 7, The Tomorrow People, Somerset Maugham Hour, The Champions, Danger Man, The Chinese Puzzle, Are You Being Served? and Room Service.
Young has since appeared in many memorable roles, often as a villain. Some of the best-known are as Kao Kan in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, as Bruce Lee's father in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993), as Mao Tse-Tung in Nixon (1995), as General Chang Jing Wu in Seven Years in Tibet (1997), as Mr. Kwai in The Transporter (2002) and as Henry Lee in The Corruptor (1999).
Young's prominent television roles include a recurring role as Dr. Zhang Lee on the TV series Alias (2001–04). He is among the performers who can lay claim performing in both the original versions of the TV series The Saint (in 1964) and Hawaii Five-O (in 1976) and their updated versions Return of the Saint (in 1978) and Hawaii Five-O (in 2010).
