Felix Wong Yat-Wah 黄日华
For years after The Legend of the Condor Heroes, people on the street still called Felix Wong "Guo Jing." His portrayal of Jin Yong's simple-hearted hero was the last to realize he was being deceived and the first to rush to the rescue. Fourteen years later, Wong played Qiao Feng in The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, endowing the man destined to lead an entire alliance of beggars with the same stubbornness. Wong himself rewatched his early series without much indulgence. He said he laughs at himself when he sees how he acted early in his career.
Wong Yat-Wah was born on 4 September 1961 in Kowloon City and grew up in the Tsz Wan Shan district of Hong Kong. He had two older sisters and a younger brother. From childhood Wong played football, and after school he tried out for the youth team of South China. As he recalled on a TVB programme, of the four players who made it to the final stage, he was the only one not taken. So he applied for the TVB acting classes. He had an interview in the morning, and that evening he got a call saying he had been accepted.
Wong and Michael Miu graduated from the TVB acting classes in 1980. Both were from the ninth intake. Even while still a student, Wong ended up among the extras on The Bund and in a single day could change costumes several times, moving from one set to another alongside Chow Yun-Fat. In February 1981 came The Lonely Hunter, where Wong already had the lead — a young man groomed since childhood to avenge his father. As he told Mount Trio in an interview, Kwan Hoi-San taught him how to break down a role and make notes in the script, while Carol Cheng once snatched the script out of his hands right on the soundstage and told him to come to shoots with his lines learned from then on. After Soldier of Fortune (1982), Wong firmly established himself among TVB's leading actors. That same year he played the Shaolin monk Xuzhu in the series The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils 2.
In 1983 TVB aired The Legend of the Condor Heroes in three parts. The quick-witted Huang Rong, played by Yung Mei-Ling, would work everything out long before his Guo Jing did, and that was the charm of their pairing. Shooting went on day and night. Wong recalled that at times he managed to doze off between two of his own lines right on camera. By his account, he only realised how big a hit the series had been on the mainland in 1988, when passers-by began calling him Guo Jing. In an interview with Ming Pao Daily News, Wong said that in his youth he played Guo Jing as almost the same person he was himself. Later he refused to play Guo Jing again in other adaptations, afraid of spoiling viewers' memories of that series.
In the autumn of 1983, Wong, Michael Miu, Kent Tong, Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai performed an acrobatic routine on television. Thus the "Five Tiger Generals of TVB" were born. They rarely came together as a five in series, but made an exception for the anniversary production The Yang's Saga (1985). Wong played the fifth son of the general, and two years later, in Genghis Khan, he was given the role of Jamukha, the rival of Temujin. Of Wong's roles from the end of the decade, viewers especially remembered the elder brother in the family drama Looking Back in Anger (1989). His Ding Youjian takes it upon himself to care for the family and keeps trying to bail out his younger brother long after everyone around can see where the latter's ambition will lead him.
When Wong asked for a raise, TVB, by his account, offered him a new five-year contract that would have paid him five hundred Hong Kong dollars more a month. He turned it down and in 1990, once his contract had run out, moved to Asia Television. In those years he also worked in Taiwan. In 1992 he and Kathy Chow played the leads in the series Mo Dai Huang Sun. In The Sliver Tycoon (1993) he played a film producer ready to do anything for revenge. That same year Wong returned to TVB and played an entrepreneur obsessed with the idea of opening a racetrack in Racing Peak. Many years later Wong said this was his favourite of all the series he had appeared in. His most notable film work of those years was The Tigers (1991), which once again brought the whole group of five together. Wong played the only policeman who refused to take the gangsters' money. In HKCinema's review, his character and Michael Miu's are called the most likeable in the film, though most of the attention there goes to Lau and Leung.
In 1997 TVB aired a new version of The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. This time Wong played Qiao Feng (also known as Xiao Feng), the leader of the beggars' alliance, who has to find out why people who trusted him only recently now regard him as an enemy. In the 1982 version the role was played by Leung Kar-Yan. In Wong's hands, Qiao Feng from the very first scenes carries himself as a man used to being responsible for others, and the hardest thing for him is to doubt his own rightness. In an interview with Ming Pao Weekly Wong admitted that he had hoped to win a TVB award for this role. He was pleased both with how he handled the dialogue scenes and with how the fights turned out.
In the early 2000s Wong left TVB and began to appear less often. On the mainland, he said, they paid several times more, but a series would have meant leaving home for four months, or even six. In films he took small roles. For Golden Chicken (2002) with Sandra Ng, Wong found himself among the contenders for the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor. In the fairy tale Wait 'Til You're Older (2005) he played the father of a boy who turns into an adult overnight. The grown-up hero is played by Andy Lau. In Brothers (2007) Wong was given the role of Ghost, the loyal right-hand man of the gang boss played by Miu. Once again four of the "tigers" came together. According to Andy Lau, one of the reasons Leung could not take part was his shooting schedule.
Miu persuaded Wong to return to TVB to appear in Gun Metal Grey (2010). They played old partners. The policeman played by Wong is released after fifteen years in prison for someone else's crime and, back on duty, gradually gets used to taking justice into his own hands. When neither actor was invited to TVB's anniversary gala, Wong accused the channel on Weibo of ignoring the series. Miu backed him up. A TVB representative explained that the channel had considered it inappropriate to turn police work into an entertainment number. Wong, who was nominated for the role, did not attend the TVB awards ceremony. He later worked for Hong Kong Television Network, where Paranormal Mind came out in 2015, with his daughter also in the cast. In 2017 he appeared alongside Andy Lau twice more, in Shock Wave and Chasing the Dragon.
Wong met actress Leung Kit-Wah early in his career. According to Ming Pao Weekly, they met at TVB acting classes, while Apple Daily says it was on set in 1980. They broke up in the mid-1980s, got back together in 1987, and married in December 1988. In 1990 their daughter Adrian Wong was born. Leung eventually left television and went to work for an insurance company. In 2000, Apple Daily published photos of Leung with a colleague and suggested they were having an affair. Wong responded that he saw nothing unusual in their interactions and had no doubts about the strength of his marriage. The next day the couple showed up together at an insurance company event and posed for a photo with that same colleague. Leung later said that after this episode she and her husband grew closer.
In 2013, Leung was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Wong put work on hold for a time and cared for her. After chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant she improved, but in 2018 the illness returned. Leung died on May 26, 2020, at the age of 59. Her husband and daughter were by her side. Adrian later explained that the family tried to say as little as possible about the diagnosis publicly so that Leung could receive treatment in peace. Wong said in an interview with Mount Trio that his wife watched every one of his works and told him what worked and what didn't. After her death he would sit at home alone for long stretches, and Michael Miu would invite him almost every day, now to lunch, now to play football.
Wong has played for the Hong Kong celebrity football team for many years. In November 2023, in a friendly match in Hong Kong, he kicked a player from the Rongjiang team. The footage spread across social media, and Wong publicly apologized to his opponents and the fans. In December 2025 he told journalists that he was turning down acting offers. In the summer of 2026 Wong sang at a concert in Foshan, after which the press began talking about a comeback, and a rumor spread online that he had run out of money. Wong said he had performed by invitation, had no plans to resume his career, and that his finances were fine. He now devotes most of his time to the football team, traveling with them to matches.
