Uğur Rıfat Karlova

Uğur Rıfat Karlova — Biography

Uğur Rıfat Karlova is a comedian, actor, host and writer known in Taiwan by the stage name Wú Fèng. He is one of the first foreigners to perform stand-up entirely in Chinese, and the first foreign entertainer to win a hosting prize at Taiwan's Golden Bell Awards, often described as the country's Emmys.

He reached Taiwan in 2006 on a government scholarship after studying Sinology at Ankara University, and completed a master's degree in political science at National Taiwan Normal University. Spotted on the street and invited to a casting, he played the missionary George Leslie Mackay in the documentary drama The History of Taiwan People. In 2008 he played Alaeddin, an engineer helping survivors of the Gölcük earthquake, in Faysal Agabey, produced by the Buddhist channel Great Love TV. Roles in Hakka TV's The Pioneers and in the widely watched 2011 drama The Perfect Man followed, and his first film part was a foreign news anchor in Black and White.

Since 2009 he has performed solo shows barefoot at the Comedy Club in Taipei, entirely in Mandarin, with more than a hundred performances to his name; in 2010 he took second place at an international stand-up contest in Hong Kong. In 2011 he began hosting the travel programme iWalker, which brought his 2012 award. In 2013 he presented MTV Taiwan's MTV Movie Chart and interviewed Tom Cruise and Will Smith; getting Cruise to sign his head made headlines in Turkey and Taiwan. He holds Turkish and Taiwanese citizenship, and wrote the book Çin Modern Tarihinde Yolculuk.