Wong Kam-kong

Biography

Wong Kam-kong is an American-Chinese actor and artist born in 1951 in Shanghai, raised in mainland China before settling and building his career in Hong Kong. Hailing from a Chaozhou, Guangdong family, he was sent to the countryside in Anhui province during the Cultural Revolution. Passionate about painting from a young age, he taught himself art and continued practicing secretly even under the most difficult circumstances. In 1974 he moved to Hong Kong and held his first solo art exhibition in 1979 at Hong Kong City Hall. He worked as an art designer for several leading dance and theatre companies, then transitioned to cinema in the 1980s as an art director for Shaw Brothers and D&B Films. He gained widespread recognition as an actor through his roles in "From Beijing with Love" and "God of Gamblers Returns" in 1994. In 1989 he emigrated to the United States and became an American citizen, continuing his artistic and curatorial work there. He returned to hold exhibitions in Hong Kong multiple times, most notably the "Forty Without Doubt" exhibition in 2019 marking forty years of his artistic career. In 2024 he published a portrait painting album titled "Stars Shining for a Hundred Years" featuring 132 portraits of Hong Kong film stars.