Surface friction and wear are the main forms of mechanical parts failure and damage, which affects the service life of materials. The main traditional measure used to reduce material wear was to adopt liquid lubricant. However, in high temperature environment, vacuum environment, sea water and other environments, the grease could not give a full play. PVD hard wear-resistant and anti-friction coatings had been becoming the new achievements of lubricating material development, and widely researched and developed currently. In the field of marine industry, mud, algae, bacteria and other marine organisms attached to the surface of ship and marine equipment could not only lead to the reduction of wear-resistant performance and stability of ship equipment, but also cut down ships’ sailing speed and increase the fuel consumption, which was a serious threat to the safety of maritime navigation. Hard anti-fouling coatings could be well applied in marine equipment parts as a protection. The research progress of the self-lubrication, abrasion resistance, anti-bacterial and anti-fouling properties of the hard coatings incorporated with soft metal Cu by physical vapor deposition to expand the functions of hard coatings was reviewed. The influence of the introduction of Cu on the structure, hardness, tribological behavior and anti-bacterial properties of the PVD hard coating is emphatically introduced and the anti-friction and antibacterial mechanisms of Cu in the hard coating are discussed. The future development direction and application prospects of the hard coatings incorporated Cu by physical vapor deposition have been envisaged.