Wo Fat

Wo Fat is the name of a fictional villain in the long-running CBS series Hawaii Five-O. On the show, Wo Fat is the nemesis of Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord and Alex O'Loughlin), the head of Hawaii's (fictional) state police force.

The character appeared in eleven episodes of Hawaii Five-O including the TV-movie pilot and the final episode. Two of his appearances were in two-part episodes and three were two-hour specials later re-edited into two-parters for reruns. The character evolved from beginning as a master spy for China, later into an extremist Chinese agent working with a hawkish Chinese general. The general opposed peace discussions with the United States in the early 1970s. By the end of the series, Wo Fat had become an international super-criminal out for his own interests. In the last episode, Wo Fat is finally arrested and jailed after 12 years as a wanted criminal. However, in the final shot, he smiles and craftily produces a file hidden in his shoe. It remains a perpetual cliffhanger.

In the original show, Wo Fat was portrayed by actor Khigh Dhiegh (born Kenneth Dickerson) who, despite looking sufficiently Asian for the role, was actually of mixed English, Egyptian, and Sudanese ancestry. Actor and martial artist Mark Dacascos, who had Filipino and Chinese ancestry, portrayed the character in the 2010 reboot.

Leonard Freeman, the producer of the series, took the name for the character from the now-defunct Wo Fat restaurant in Honolulu's Chinatown. The Wo Fat Building is in the Chinatown Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In the first four years of the show's existence, Wo Fat made nine appearances. In Hawaii Five-O: Cocoon (September 20, 1968), the series pilot, Wo Fat, as a Chinese spy, uses sensory deprivation to crack the most loyal U.S. intelligence agents to give up top secret information. He was absent from the show for a year, but then made eight appearances over the three-year period from October 1969 to October 1972. In these appearances, Wo Fat continues his position as a top Chinese intelligence agent in the Pacific, whose duties include running Chinese spy missions in Hawaii. Wo Fat's appearances during this period are: "Forty Feet High and It Kills!" (October 8, 1969), "A Bullet for McGarrett" (October 29, 1969), "And a Time to Die..." (September 16, 1970), "F.O.B. Honolulu: Part 1" (January 27, 1971), "F.O.B. Honolulu: Part 2" (February 3, 1971), "The Ninety-Second War: Part 1" (January 18, 1972), "The Ninety-Second War: Part 2" (January 25, 1972), and "The Jinn Who Clears the Way" (October 10, 1972),

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