Ngo The Chau was born in 1977 in Hanoi, Vietnam. Due to his father's Chinese heritage, the family faced the threat of expropriation and persecution in the late 1970s. After the unexpected death of his father in an accident, the family fled to Hong Kong. Unlike most refugees who moved to the US or the UK, they eventually settled in Germany. In Berlin, the family opened several restaurants, with Ngo The Chau's older brother, Ngo The Duc, becoming a highly successful restaurateur and a prominent TV chef.  

Ngo The Chau, however, pursued a career in film. He initially found success in theater while in high school, and after graduating in 1996, gained his first experience in film as a lighting assistant for Detlev Buck's "Liebe Deine Nächste!" (1996) and Anne Høegh Krohn's "Fremde Freundin" ("Unknown Friend", 1999). In 1999, he successfully applied to the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb), where he studied cinematography until 2004. In 2002, he won the Golden Tadpole Award at the Camerimage Festival in Łódź for his work on "Hing Bong – Shadow" (directed by Robin von Hardenberg). At dffb, he received the Michael Ballhaus Prize for his cinematography in four student films, including the feature films "Detroit" (2003) and "Mitfahrer" ("Traffic Affairs", 2004). For "Detroit", he also earned a nomination for the German Cinematography Award. While still a student, Ngo The Chau worked on music videos for artists like Herbert Grönemeyer and Sido ("Fuffies im Club").    

After graduating, Ngo The Chau became a freelance cinematographer and also worked as a guest lecturer at the International Film School Cologne. In 2005, he won the German Television Award and the German Cinematography Award for his work on the "Tatort" episode "Scheherazade" and the film "Folge der Feder". 

Throughout his career, he contributed to a wide range of TV and cinema productions. In cinema, he worked on films such as the children's and youth film "Max Minsky und ich" ("Max Minsky and Me", 2007), the hooligan drama "66/67 – Fairplay war gestern" ("66/67: Fairplay Is Over", 2009), the subversive comedy "Schwerkraft" "Gravity", 2009), the historical migration story "Almanya – Willkommen in Deutschland" ("Welcome to Germany", 2011), the thriller "Banklady" (2013), and the comedy "Happy Burnout" (2017). His work on the psychological thriller "Stereo" (2014) earned him another nomination for the German Cinematography Award.  

His television work includes multiple "Tatort" episodes, the family drama "Es ist alles in Ordnung" (2013), and the fairytale film "Rübezahls Schatz" (2017). He won the German Television Award for both the police thriller "Zum Sterben zu früh" (2015) and the series "Bad Banks" (2020).  

Ngo The Chau made his directorial debut in 2018 with the ZDF fairytale film "Schneewittchen und der Zauber der Zwerge", which won the Grand Jury Prize at the San Diego International Kids Film Festival. He went on to direct other fairytale adaptations, including "Die Hexenprinzessin" (2019), "Zwerg Nase" (2021), and "Das Märchen vom Frosch und der goldenen Kugel" (2022), which was again awarded in San Diego. Since venturing into directing, he has worked less frequently as a cinematographer for other directors but did contribute to films like Kida Khodr Ramadan's gangster drama "In Berlin wächst kein Orangenbaum" (2020) and Ed Herzog's historical drama "3½ Stunden" (2021).   

Ngo The Chau, who often acts as his own cinematographer, continued his directing career with the "Zimmer mit Stall" episode "So ein Zirkus" (2022) and the "Tatort" episode "Das Mädchen, das allein nach Haus’ geht" (2022), marking the final case for Berlin's detective duo Rubin and Karow. In 2023, he directed five episodes of the German action series "Drift: Partners in Crime", starring Ken Duken and Fabian Busch. In October 2024, his fairytale-inspired film "Der Buchspazierer" ("The Door-to-Door Bookstore") —based on the novel by Carsten Sebastian Henn—was released in cinemas.