Jiro Wang

Life

Jiro Wang was born August 24, 1981, in Taiwan. He graduated from Fu Shin Trade and Arts College with a degree in Advertising Design. Wang's father died when he was 18, leaving him and his mother stranded with the family debt. To pay off the enormous debt, Wang worked three jobs at a time, which variously included flyer distribution, dressing up as a mascot for Taipei's Zoo Mall, waiting tables at a bar, a fashion retail assistant, a part-time model, and even hard labor work as a construction worker. Upon graduation from arts college, he entered the commercial and modeling industry. BMG, the label that signed him, planned to package him with Jay Chou and Jordan Chan under the "3J Plan", but when BMG's stocks crashed following 9/11, the 3J plan was scrapped. Wang then decided to continue his career in the industry via commercial modeling and working backstage in fashion design. He was approached again around 2004, launching the start of his acting career.

He speaks fluent Taiwanese and Mandarin, and understands conversational English.

Wang used to play with an underground band named Karma and was their lead singer. Wang also composed the lyrics to their song, "人間逃亡記" (Rénjiān táowáng jì). The band later changed its name to Dong Cheng Wei (東城衛).

In 2013, between his filming commitments, Wang also held solo concerts in the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo in Japan, and Beijing and Shenzhen in China.

Apart from sharing work and lifestyle photographs, Wang uses his Weibo account to advocate various charitable causes, especially those relating to aiding aged war veterans (like Wang's own father) and elderly street hawkers, and animal welfare, amongst others. His early difficult financial circumstances made him a firm believer in helping those in need and the privilege of being able to give. Though he has used his celebrity status to aid charitable organizations such as Taiwan's Syinlu Social Welfare Foundation to raise funds and awareness for those with intellectual disabilities—such as shooting the micro-film entitled Seeing and designing packaging for the sale of their handicrafts—he remains largely low-profile about his personal charitable contributions. Some of his acts of goodwill only come to light when organizations publish a list of their donors, for instance.

On 14 February 2010, Wang started his own fashion label M JO (http://mjo.com.tw/index.html). In line with its founding date on Valentine's Day, the label's slogan advocates, "Enjoy Love, Life, and Peace." As a design graduate with a passion for art, Wang personally designs the caps, clothing, and accessories, which are characterized by bold, vibrant and colorful designs. Wang, who is well known in the industry for his filial piety, credits his mother for his artistic gifts and love of design. She was a tailor / custom dressmaker and Wang learnt part of his craft from watching her work when he was young. He was partly motivated to create the fashion label as a gift to his mother. In 2014, Wang designed an exhibit for World Trade Centre (Hong Kong), in line with the 2014 FIFA World Cup, where Wang's artwork, M JO products, and his label's iconic JO robot were on display from 30 May - 17 July 2014. In 2014, Wang was invited to design the "M JO - JO Robot" series of virtual stickers/large-sized emoji for Line (application), making him the first Taiwanese celebrity to design purchasable stickers for the company. Using his fashion line M JO's iconic JO robot as his theme, he designed a series of 40 virtual stickers, which was released in LINE's sticker store on 24 April 2015.

Jiro Wang jointly invests in WoMen Hair, a stylish hair salon in Taipei, with his good friends and fellow Fahrenheit (Taiwanese band) mates, Calvin Chen and Wu Chun. On 6 May 2014, they attended the opening ceremony of WoMen Hair, which is run by their longtime friend and colleague, Sam Chen.

Wang's interest in art and Japanese manga includes a NT$10 million (approx. US$315,000) investment in exclusive agent rights for Chibi Maruko-chan merchandise in Taiwan. His love of the series began as a child, when he would hurry home after school in order to catch the television series over his meal-time. Through his friend Ivan Wang's introduction, Jiro Wang flew to Japan at the end of 2013 to meet with the manga artist, Momoko Sakura, creator of the series Chibi Maruko-chan. Momoko Sakura was impressed with Jiro Wang's gift of his personal artwork, which led to a collaboration featured in Chibi Maruko-chan's 30th anniversary publication entitled 《恭喜》, published both in Japanese and traditional Chinese. Jiro Wang and Momoko Sakura's collaboration is featured as part of the series' larger 30th anniversary exhibit, which was variously on display in Japan (6–20 August 2014; 27 December 2014 - 12 January 2015) and Hong Kong (3 November 2014 - 4 January 2015). In 2014, Jiro Wang and Ivan Wang established Toyu / 東友企業 (a synthesis of their Chinese names) and became exclusive agents for marketing Chibi Maruko-chan products in Taiwan. They have plans to make a Chibi Maruko-chan movie and Jiro Wang may possibly play Maruko's father or her classmate Kazuhiko Hanawa, depending on Maruko's age in the movie.

In his spare time, Wang takes an avid interest in putting Gundam models together and also in cosplay—a pastime he has enjoyed since his art school days, when he used to make his own costumes—and frequently shares photos on his Instagram and/or Weibo account in various roles as manga or anime characters, or Western superheroes, including Ironman, Wolverine, Batman, and Captain America.

Acting career

Wang is most well known as the male lead in the Taiwanese drama KO One (終極一班) (in which he plays the character Wang Da Dong, where he got his nickname, as it is quite similar to his real name, Wang Dong Cheng) and its sequel The X-Family. He is also known for roles such as Ah Jin in It Started with a Kiss, as Jin Xiu Yi in the live-action Taiwanese drama, Hana-Kimi (花樣少年少女), and Huang Tai Jing in the Taiwanese adaptation of Fabulous Boys (原來是是美男).

On 3 May 2011, it was announced that Wang has replaced Wu Chun as male lead, "Night Tenjo", in a live-action adaptation of Japanese manga series Absolute Boyfriend, with Korean actress Ku Hye-sun as "Riiko Izawa".

When Transformers: Age of Extinction launched an online Chinese casting contest for roles in four different categories in China during the summer of 2013, Wang emerged as the most popular contestant in the "Action Guy" category, from amongst 70,000 entrants. More than 500,000 people voted online for their favorite contenders, with Wang consistently in the lead for the "Action Guy" category, with more than 133,000 votes. Despite his popularity, Wang regretfully chose to eventually withdraw from the contest due to a conflict in KO One Re-act's filming schedule and Transformers 4's training schedule, choosing to honor his prior filming commitments in order not to hold up KO One Re-act's production team—which was still filming scenes and had already gone on-air in Taiwan and online in Mainland China. In his statement of withdrawal, published on the casting contest's website, Wang explained: "I'm immensely grateful for all the support I've received during the Transformers 4 casting contest and am truly fortunate to have emerged first in the "Action Guy" category. I've been a Transformers fan since I was little, and closely followed the first three installments of the movie. Upon learning that M1905 Movie Web was organizing a casting contest for Chinese actors, I signed up immediately, hoping to fulfill my childhood dream of going into battle alongside Bumblebee (Transformers). I was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelming wave of support and votes I received, and was overjoyed to receive notification from the organizers to begin the second round of training. Unfortunately, because I'm still in the midst of an ongoing, prior filming commitment, I have to honor those unfinished work commitments in order not to hold up the entire production team, and will thus have to regretfully give this training opportunity up." During a media interview at a promotional event for the KO One Re-act television series, Wang reiterated his thanks for fans' warm support. Though his disappointment at the missed opportunity was palpable, he called the voting process a fantastic memory to have and to hold with his fans.

In 2014, Wang also became producer of the drama series The Crossing Hero (超級大英雄), in addition to his role as male lead. The series generated a buzz online prior to airtime: as of 18 March 2015, the topic #超级大英雄# (The Crossing Hero) was read more than 14 million times, with more than 39,000 people participating in the discussion on the popular Chinese micro-blogging site, Sina Weibo. The series hit 2.72 million views on its premiere episode within the first two hours, topping the "Hot Topics" list on Sina Weibo at the time. Viewership hit 4.33 million by the end of the first day on 23 March 2015.

Music career

Wang was the first member to join Fahrenheit. He is the baritenor vocalist of the group. He is the one that usually has the rap part in most of the songs due to his fluency in the language. His publicized temperature is that of hot (热; rè) summer, at 95 Fahrenheit.

Wang released his first solo album What Are You Waiting For (Chinese: 你在等什麼) on his 31st birthday, 24 August 2012.

Discography

Wang's new MV, "Exclusive Fort" (《專屬堡壘》)--theme song to the movie, Bloody Doll—was released on 9 February 2015.

Wang sings the opening theme song for his new drama series, The Crossing Hero. The song is entitled "The Great Hero" (《大英雄》) and an MV was released on 15 March 2015, one week before the online series goes on air on Tencent Video.

Films

Security, which was filmed in Sofia, Bulgaria last November 2015, will be his first U.S. film.

Solo Concerts

Television - Variety Programs (as co-host/regular guest)

Guest appearances

Wang also performed in numerous MVs and commercials before his rise to stardom. He appeared in Fish Leong's (梁靜茹) 分手快樂 MV when he was 19. After the debut of Fahrenheit, he starred with fellow HIM International Music artists, including MVs for Tank (Taiwanese singer) and Liu Li Yang, such as Liu's Smiling Tears (眼淚笑了). Wang has appeared in numerous MVs for Tank, including "If I Was the Memory" (如果我變成回憶), "Give Me Your Love" (給我你的愛), and "KO One" (終極一班). He also features in various S.H.E MVs and Rolling Love co-star Genie Zhuo's "Never Ending Rainbow" (Chinese: "永不消失的彩虹"). Wang also stars in his good friend and co-star Pets Tseng's first solo album MV, Just Lose It (不過失去了一點點), which was released on 9 December 2014, exceeding a million views within a month of its release, on both its official YouTube and YinYueTai (Chinese MV) platforms.

Publications

Other events/appearances