Why Captain Kwong From The Last Of Us Looks So Familiar
The morality of the world of "The Last of Us" is painted in a dazzling spectrum of grays. Good guys and bad guys are luxuries that can ill be afforded in this brutal world. Morality is for suckers, peace is a tenuous plate-spinning act, and the only real positive may well be the act of keeping the monsters on the other side of the wall, literally and metaphorically.
It's an unenviable job, but someone has to do it. In episode seven of "The Last of Us," we meet that man, or at least "that man," specific to the gym class of the Boston Quarantine Zone. His name is Captain Kwong. His approach to discipline, compared to the ruthless world that is "The Last of Us," is honestly pretty lax. Still, school administration isn't a gig that comes with a lot of easy answers, and at least the good Captain seems comfortable in his own, so-far-un-mushroomy skin.
Maybe that's because he was played by Terry Chen, a character actor who's been in several high-profile films and television series. Here's a quick recap of some places where you might have clocked him before.
Terry Chen was very nearly a celebrity thanks to Almost Famous
Terry Chen had already landed a few big screen roles by the year 2000, but perhaps the most notable came when Cameron Crowe released his semi-autobiographical take on rock and roll journalism in the '70s. "Almost Famous" very nearly lived up to its name, losing an astonishing amount of money in its box office run. Luckily, it found a new and seemingly perpetual life as a cult classic addition to the movie collections of everyone you'll ever date that seems way too cool for you.
"Almost Famous" saw Chen playing Ben Fong-Torres, one of the film's very real characters drawn from Crowe's time working for Rolling Stone. In the movie, he's portrayed as the boss and editor of William Miller (Patrick Fugit,) but in real life, the character is even more interesting. For receipts, check out the documentary about his life, "Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres," which you can stream on Netflix.
Terry Chen kicked whatever the snake version of butt is in Snakes on a Plane
It was 2006, and there was perhaps no hotter role than a steamy kickboxer in the ensemble cast of "Snakes on a Plane." While times may have changed, we sincerely hope that Terry Chen never will.
Nobody could have expected what was coming in the mid-2000s, as internet comedy stumbled its way through a briar patch of Chuck Norris jokes in the hopes of finding forgiving green pastures of comedic clarity on the other side. Tragically, there would be no such verdant fields, for "Snakes on a Plane" was about to usher in a years-long tribulation of Mad Libsing an animal onto a mode of transportation.
Yes, "Snakes on a Plane" was the spiritual predecessor to the Snyder Cut. A studio full of people who didn't understand what the internet was elected to let it decide what would happen in their movie. The results were, with the benefit of hindsight, largely predictable. A snake bit a guy's private parts and Samuel L. Jackson used no-thank-you words. Still, there were moments of truly inspired excellence, like including Terry Chen as the heroic Chen Leong. Chen was the hero that the plane needed and the one those snakes deserved. He saved a chihuahua from plane snakes. It doesn't last, but still. He showed immense bravery in the most absurd and dangerous of scenarios. Surprisingly, Terry Chen won no Oscar for his part in the film, and neither did Samuel L. Jackson.
Terry Chen traversed The Expanse
It's a highly competitive field, but you'd have difficulty beating "The Expanse" in the arena of passionate science fiction fandoms. A bleak, visually stunning future, the looming threat of interplanetary war, and more than three times the daily recommended allotment of intrigue kept audiences coming back across six seasons and two networks.
In season two, viewers were introduced to one Doctor Praxideke, "Prax" Meng, played by Terry Chen. A botanist working off of Ganymede Station just a stone's throw from Jupiter, he's driven by a largely understandable desire to find his missing daughter, Mei (Leah Madison Jung), having greatness thrust upon him when it turns out that the little girl's pediatrician might have something to do with sci-fi superweapons and a whole mess of MIA children. While most of Chen's work on the show was bottled up in seasons two and three, he managed to nab a pretty choice return to the character in the show's final season. Even better, he witnessed some pretty horrific atrocities, which no doubt helped prepare him for a career with FEDRA on "The Last of Us."