American Commando 9: Guns to Heaven

Another cut-and-paste action flick from IFD Films, this one splices together scenes from the Taiwanese film "Underground Wife" aka "Kill Butterfly Kill" with new footage featuring actor Mike Abbott and a bunch of other doofuses.

An American and the owners of a dance studio face off against a druglord who has his sights on the property to further his opium trafficking enterprise. Hong Kong cut and paste edit of the 1982 Taiwanese Film "心愛的人 " (Spoony Love) with new scenes.

Crime boss Barton's (Mike Abbott) reign of terror is about to end. John Foley (Mark Watson), called in to avenge the death of an innocent man, was trained by the elite American Commandos in Nam. Since the war, he's put his special skills to work many times. But never like this. When John Foley enters the steamy, seedy realm of the underworld, survival is the name of the game and do unto others before they do unto you is the only rule to live by. Hong Kong cut and paste edit of the 1982 Taiwanese Film "我要做好子 " (I Want To Be A Good Person) with new scenes.

Japan, a world of evil, where young girls are forced into prostitution and violent death is a fact of life. When Hank, trained in the art of survival by the elite American Commandos in Viet Nam, meets Janis, he never suspects her past. Until a shocking turn of events. Hong Kong cut and paste edit of the 1987 Korean Film "삿뽀로 밤사냥 " (Hunting Night) with new scenes.

After her father dies, Nora is caught up in a world of prostitution and robbery. Who will help her escape the criminal underworld? Hong Kong cut and paste edit of the 1983 Taiwanese Comedy Thriller Film "誘惑 " (Temptation) with new scenes.

Ruthless drug baron Lamar is determined to drive out a rival gang headed by a tough and beautiful businesswoman, Mandy. Two lovers who work for Lamar become disillusioned with the life of crime, but when Lamar kills Jane, Nick is wild with rage and vows to eliminate Lamar and his evil henchmen. Hong Kong cut and paste edit of the 1983 Taiwanese Film "鄉下阿郎 " (The Boy from the Dark Street) with new scenes.

Devil worshippers devise a scheme to bring Lucifer to the world, by taking advantage of mentally and emotionally women to rack up a body count.

Victor Smier and Shojin run a prostitution racket that even the police can do nothing about. American Commando, Aaron, is brought in to deal with the evil organization and finds himself embroiled in a romance with Victor's ex-, Jennifer, who is then assassinated by Victor's hitman Victor. Also after the gang’s blood is the leader of the red Rose gang, Sharon Tong, who was raped by Shojin years before. She is captured by the gang, but escapes and kills Shojin. In the meantime, Aaron confronts Victor and Manson for a battle to the death.

The Hotel featured 12 site-specific performances and art installations created by Wong, which wowed the thousands who attended. This 17-minute video is both document of and art which captures the manic beauty and chaos of Wong’s mise en scène event.

This three-channel installation, from the Modern Television Loop Series, utilizes the qualities of real and edited time. “Three views of Toronto’s underground action; trains pull in, pause, doors open, crowds exchange places, whirl off into oblivion. It is mesmerizing, this subsurface world. You could sit and watch for hours as the hypnotic qualities of TV sets and passing trains act together”. - Peggy Gale, 1977, Only Paper Today.

“Early in the morning on Thursday Feb 26, 1976, a young First Nations man named Eugene Lloyd Pelly was fatally stabbed in an apartment at 4272 Watson Street, east of Main near 28th. After escaping out a window Pelly collapsed in the middle of the road and, as snow fell, succumbed to his injuries. That same morning Jeanette Reinhardt noticed Pelly’s bloody body from her window. Paul Wong, whom she was living with at the time, shot a roll of 35mm film documenting the scene – first from their window, and later at roadside. The quiet violence of the scene captivated Wong, and together with collaborator Kenneth Fletcher, the two embarked on a project to research the crime in full detail." – Allison Collins & Michael Turner, Mainstreeters: Taking Advantage 1972-1982

Ooooo Canada is a 30-minute edited version presenting highlights from the five-hour live webcast on February 13,2010. Ooooo Canada was the first in a series of five site-specific projects presented during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter games in Vancouver. The broadcast was co-hosted by Skeena Reece and Paul Wong. It is an alternative critique of corporate, mass, pop and nationalist culture in the 21st century. Reece and Wong provide illuminating, personal, political, aboriginal, and comedic perspectives.

Storm, quite simply is a video recording of a car ride at night in hurricane forces. This is visual art that delivers us from the purely visual back to the world of the physical experience with all our senses awakened. Instead of bringing us the installation photographic image – or the digitally enhanced photographic simulation – these artists direct us from the world of images to the world of things, inviting us to grapple with them at first hand.

"Paul Wong’s Mahjong is rooted in the visual and oral sensuality of the game–the saturated colours of green in the game pieces and table top, the characters and names, floral patterns and coloured numbers on the dice and game pieces. It is this rich iconography that allows the participants to invent their own rules and play the game according to the images at hand." - Jordan Strom

Excerpts featuring Paul Wong as the Wiry Man in Season 3, Episode 19 of the X-Files (1996). Part of Paul Wong’s ‘5’, a series of site-specific events and installations commissioned by the City Of Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Programs.

Icon of Jesus is marched through town in the days leading up to Easter.

A couple of bumbling guys on a dark road in Nicaragua spot a snake. They bound after the serpent that has slitered into the tall grass. Using bare hands they seize the Diamondback Rattler.

A foreign landowner negotiates with the locals and oversees digging of a well on his property.

The artist records everyday activities in the streets and alleys around the Main and Hasting Street intersection. On the right, the view is from a fixed camera positioned on top of a dashboard in a moving car. On the left, he walks with a handheld camera with a wide angle lens. Along the way he encounters a street artist, engages with two women in Pigeon Park, crack users, dealers and homeless people.

"For those who came of age in the 1960s and 70s, glamour received its highest expression in fashion magazines like Vogue, where the representation of lives and those who lived them achieved perfection on every page. Prime Cuts is a work premised on the notion that the lives of magazine models are real (much like another Vancouver artist, Ken Lum, who as a child believed that the bedroom suites in the furniture store flyers that landed on his doorstep were real bedrooms). In exploring the lives of models (some of whom the Mainstreeters worked with through commercial projects), Prime Cuts does not so much imagine what these models get up to both before and after the lights, camera and action of the photo shoot casts them in amber, but extends the fantasy." – Allison Collins & Michael Turner, Mainstreeters: Taking Advantage, 1972-1982, Satellite Gallery, 2015

Miss Chinatown juxtaposes the views of eight subjects against the background image of a beauty pageant: the Miss Chinese-Vancouver 1996. The subjects are all full or part ethnic Chinese, together they represent a diverse face of the Chinese-Canadian community, they present different perspectives on identity, home, sex and race. The contestants are seen going through the paces in the cheong-san (traditional side slit dress) segment of the live television spectacle.

Approx. 6000 images, 1000 still photographs a minute flash on and off the screen. A year of pictures mash into an intense viewing experience. Using the iphoto software, Last Year is the result of compiling all 2009 photographs from several different computer sources onto one central database. The images were put into ‘a chronology’ according to iphoto logic. Part journal, part diaristic we see Wong’s incessant recording of everyday life from Chinese New Year celebrations in Vancouver, Beijing Olympics, artists, art exhibitions, architecture, friends, family, New York streets, parties, music concerts, film festivals, Calgary Stampede, Pride Parade, Toronto moments.

Sally is a portrait, a love ballad. The artist gazes at beautiful Sally as she relaxes in her bathrobe in the sumptuous suite of the China Club in Beijing. Always behind the camera, Wong is uninhibited as ever as he crafts an intimate portrait. Recorded in Hong Kong and Beijing.

The Mainstreeters initiated a number of commercial enterprises. Support Modelling was a modelling agency comprised of members of the local art and punk rock scene. To promote the project, Paul Wong made a three-channel video (later adapted to single channel) that featured certain Mainstreeters in various states of undress, accompanied by a disco soundtrack. Support Modelling also appears as a series of concept ads (weddings, funerals) in Ennui magazine.