Wong He (born 27 July 1967), sometimes credited as Wong Hei, is a Hong Kong actor, singer, and presenter. He is best known for his firefighter roles in TVB's Burning Flame trilogy. As a former police officer, Wong has acted primarily in law enforcement roles during his career at TVB, which gave rise to rumours that his stage name is based on the Cantonese term "皇氣" (lit. "royal air"), a slang term for the Royal Hong Kong Police. Wong is a practising Buddhist, having converted in 2000.[1]
Early life and police career
Born in Hong Kong as Kwong Ngai-yee (鄺毅怡), Wong He grew up in Lam Tin where he attended SKH Kei Hau Secondary School. He has an elder sister and a younger brother. He served in the Royal Hong Kong Police as an airport officer and a Police Tactical Unit member before entering the entertainment industry.
On 24 July 1989, in a case of attempted murder on police officers, Wong charged into a burning building on Nathan Road and saved three of his colleagues from the fire. This incident was remembered as one of the top ten heroic acts within the Hong Kong Police Force in 2010.[2]
Entertainment career
Wong began his entertainment career in 1992 as a radio host for Commercial Radio Hong Kong and later as a host for ATV. It was during his radio days that he picked the stage name "Wong He" for himself, named after a waiter in the novel To Live.
In 2000, Wong launched an "au naturel" pictorial book, "Access Wong He," the proceeds of which were all donated to the relief fund for Taiwan's 1999 Jiji earthquake. Wong has also made a number of film appearances in Hong Kong. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the fifth Golden Bauhinia Awards for The Boss Up There. In addition, he has starred in several TV series in Singapore, Taiwan, and Mainland China.
As a popular TVB actor, Wong signed a recording contract with Avex Trax. In 2001, Wong released his debut EP, Xi Xin Chang Ge (喜新唱歌), featuring "Love is the Sea," the ending theme song from A Matter of Customs. With the success of his debut EP, Wong released his debut album I Believe...Wong He in February 2002. In September of the same year, Wong released another album Call Me in the Morning. In addition, he sang the theme songs for several of his TV series, Doomed to Oblivion, Net Deception, Shades of Truth, and Twilight Investigation.
In 2004, Wong played a computer hacker in TVB's Net Deception, which was released overseas in 2004 and in Hong Kong in 2006. He won the My Favourite Shot Award for his role in Net Deception at the 2005 Astro Wah Lai Toi Drama Awards in Malaysia. Later in the same year, Wong starred opposite Chilam Cheung in Shades of Truth.
In early 2016, Wong's face was blurred out in a state-run mainland television program (the CCTV adaptation of Korea's Infinite Challenge) following revelations that he had used social media to call attention to a new book that suggested former mainland leader Zhou Enlai might have been gay.[4] Wong had previously generated controversy about saying "you China Telecom" during a visit to the mainland in 2015.[5][6]
