James Hong

Hong was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father, Frank W. Hong, immigrated from Hong Kong to Chicago through Canada and was a restaurant owner. For his early education, Hong moved to Hong Kong, and returned to the United States at age ten. He studied civil engineering at the University of Southern California, but later became interested in acting and trained with Jeff Corey.

His career in show business began in the 1950s when he redubbed soundtracks of several Asian films, including the redubbing of characters Ogata and Dr. Serizawa in the 1956 Japanese film Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. Hong was one of the original founding members, in 1965, of the East West Players, one of the first Asian American theatre organizations. He has appeared in myriad supporting character roles in films and television his Internet Movie Database filmography contained 300 credits as of October 2006. He was a frequent guest star on the 1972-1975 television series Kung Fu, and is perhaps most widely known as the immortal ghost sorcerer Lo Pan in John Carpenters Big Trouble in Little China (1986), the eye manufacturer Chew in Blade Runner, the low-rent private eye in Black Widow and the obtuse at the Chinese restaurant in the famous Seinfeld episode The Chinese Restaurant. He also played a flight attendant in the original 1979 film The In-Laws. Hong had a small role in the 1998 independent film, Broken Vessels. Recently, he played the role of Mr. Takato in the movie "Chasing Zoey". He was a "not existing" man who taught Michael Barret how to drive in stick shift.

Hong was the voice of Daolon Wong, an evil wizard in the Jackie Chan Adventures TV series. He was the voice of Chi Fu in Disneys Mulan, Mandarin in Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, and Professor Chang in Teen Titans. He made a cameo appearance in the TV series Las Vegas as a cheating holy monk.

Hong's voice also appeared as Colonel Zhou Peng in the video game Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, Dr. Chan in 2007's Def Jam Icon, Ancient Wu in True Crime: Streets of LA, and reprising his role as Chew in the video game of Blade Runner. He recently appeared in two movies Balls of Fury and Kung Fu Panda.