During their years at the University of California San Diego, budding Chinese-American filmmaker friends Wesley Chan, Ted Fu, and Philip Wang, collaborated and produced a number of music videos and short films, along with input and support from their friends.
Eventually their skillful videos got picked up and were featured in a number of national and international film festivals, including the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, San Diego Asian Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival.
This landed them professional careers in the filmmaking business, as they made official music videos for established musicians, commercials for well-known companies, and video collaborations with other filmmakers. Soon this gave them opportunity to put up their media company, Wong Fu Productions.
Composed of mainly Chinese-Americans along with others of different Asian heritage, Wong Fu Productions gained Youtube celebrity status over the years 2008 and on. This was mainly due to their consistent high quality, well thought out, and entertaining Youtube videos. Their subjects vary from video to video, such as love, friendship, East and West culture, and many more. Wong Fu Productions' style is known to be very wholesome and ideal for all ages to watch, unlike other Youtube channels that are more suited to mature viewers.
Part of Wong Fu Productions' success might be because the cast and crew are full of attractive Asian-Americans.
One of their most popular videos is "Yellow Fever
", a comedic look at the Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow trope. It was uploaded on a friend's channel and garnered two million views. The most viewed video on their official Youtube channel however is the short film "Strangers, Again".
Collaborated with Ryan Higa on "Agents of Secret Stuff". Tropes pertaining to "ASS" should be placed in the appropriate area on the Ryan Higa page.
Examples:
- All Chinese People Know Kung-Fu: Discussed and invoked in Kung-Fooled.
- Asian and Nerdy: Once in a while, you'll spot one or more in a couple of their short films and skits, even occasionally applying to Real Life with the cast and crew.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In The End of Wong Fu, Phil wished that Wong Fu Productions never existed and he got to experience the not so distant future where Wong Fu Productions had disbanded and Phil, Ted and Wes had gone their separate ways.
- Big "NO!": Phil yelled this out when Ted died in his arms in The End of Wong Fu.
- Bilingual Bonus: Sometimes Wong Fu skits have spoken languages other than English, ranging from just a few words or phrases to whole dialogues in Chinese, Korean or Spanish. Or, you could say some skits went Suddenly Bilingual.
- Crossover: They are known to do this quite a lot with their friends and fellow YouTube celebs Nigahiga, Kev Jumba, Freddie Wong, and occasionally or once with Smosh, Community Channel, and DeStorm, to name a few.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Their older videos frequently played this trope straight, with their protagonists often getting rejected by the women that they’re interested in due to the All Girls Want Bad Boys trope. They eventually deconstructed this with their video series “Just Another Nice Guy”, where they explore the Entitled to Have You mindset that this trope often inspires.
- Freudian Trio: The Superego Wes is a perfectionist almost all the time, whether the situation calls for seriousness or fun, The Id Phil is the most energetic (at times hyper) and outspoken, and The Ego Ted is the calm, nonchalant wise cracker.
- Gambit Pileup:
- EVERYONE is trying to cheat each other in Kung-Fooled.
- Everyone is "secretly" trying to get together with Cathy in The Screen Test.
- Here We Go Again!: The ending of She Has A Boyfriend after Frank is walking away with his girlfriend, the two cupcake workers moan how another girl that they were interested in already had a boyfriend, similar to what Frank was doing in the beginning.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Bromance is all about this.
- Hilarious Outtakes: Blooper reels are actively uploaded on WFP's Youtube and website.
- Hopeless Suitor: Frank in She Has A Boyfriend has a montage of this where all the girls he was interested in already had a boyfriend by the time he met them.
- Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow:
- The focus of "Yellow Fever."
- Gender-Inverted in ''Home is Where the Hans Are" when the main character's white mother marries an Asian man. Played straight with the lead and his Asian step-sister. The younger brother also name-checks several films that involve this pairing.
- Minor Flaw, Major Breakup: The couple in Two Weeks Later: Resolution Fails start yelling about how they hate each other when both of them mess up cooking something.
- Monochrome Casting:
- Parodied in the "Saved by the Bell Remake", where they stated all the characters would be recasted with asian actors... Except for Lisa, because nobody messes up with the african-american community.
- Subverted otherwise, since most of the recurring cast are of asian-heritage, with few ocassional non-asians as guest stars.
- New Year's Resolution: Two Weeks Later: Resolution Fails mocks this trope and shows how each resolution fails spectacularly.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Phil's character in Hugger. His attempts to hug one person who Hates Being Touched are hilarious.
- Plot Allergy: The short skit The Allergy is a hilarious take on this.
- Put on a Bus: During the 2014 "Offline" series, Ted leaves the Wong Fu offices to look for other Awkward Animals. He returns in episode 10.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Awkward Animals in the official Wong Fu Store.
- Scary Black Man: Invoked in Kung-Fooled.
- Silver Fox: Ted stopped dying his hair, resulting in his new grey look.
- Shout-Out:
- Squee: Wes and Ted act like this over the discovery of a little baby possum in their office.
- Token Minority: Cleverly inverted in the mini-series Home is Where the Hans Are.
- The Triads and the Tongs: In The End of Wong Fu'', Ted borrowed money from the mob, leading them to hunt him down and shoot him dead when he was unable to pay off his debts.
- White Male Lead: Most of their films have Asian leads. However, Home is Where the Hans Are has a white male lead. Interestingly, Wong Fu has said that this was the show they'd make if they were interested in making something for regular TV.
- What the Hell, Hero?: In Ted's Best Man Friend, Wes delivers one to Ted when he discovers Ted had been manipulating them into being nice to him with the excuse of picking a Best Man. Ted only broke the news when the passive-aggresive war between Wes and Phil went out of control.Wes: What the f*, Ted?
