Huang Lee

For the character in GTA Online, see Huang.

“I buy ALL my friends. Makes life easier.”

—Huang Lee

Huang Lee (Simplified Chinese: 李黄, Traditional Chinese: 李黃,^[1] Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Huáng) is the protagonist of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.

Prior to his physical debut, he was briefly mentioned in Grand Theft Auto IV.

Background

Overview

Huang is the spoiled son of a Triad leader who, for most of his life, never had to solve any problem himself, always relying on his family's fortune and connections to get him out of trouble. However, when his father is murdered for mysterious reasons, Huang travels to Liberty City to deliver the Yu Jian Sword, a family heirloom, to the family's new patriarch, Huang's uncle Wu "Kenny" Lee.

Upon arrival, Huang is attacked by unknown assailants who steal Yu Jian and leave him for dead. By sheer luck, Huang survives and subsequently begins a quest to find those responsible for Yu Jian's theft and his father's murder. This leads him to become heavily involved with the Liberty City underworld as he works for various prominent crime figures in exchange for answers.

Early Life

Huang Lee was born in China c. 1983. He owes his status as a Triad member to his father, a Triad boss from China, though Huang himself had very little interest in this type of life prior to his arrival in America. Instead, he was more focused on spending his father's money and getting into other types of trouble, never having to work a day in his life thanks to his family's fortune and reputation.

Due to his lifestyle, Huang developed the reputation of being a spoiled, rich kid. As a result, he never made any real friends, at one point claiming that he "bought" all of his friends, just like everything else, since it was easier than forming connections with people.

Huang was mentored to some extent in the Triad ways by his father, becoming a competent gangster. While Huang's exact relationship with his father is never detailed, Huang appears to have a positive opinion of him, describing him as "a good guy, for a philandering, drug addled murderer." However, it is also possible that Huang was somewhat neglected by his father, who indulged in many of the same vices as his son, including drugs and prostitutes.

While Chinatown Wars implies that this is Huang's first time in America, he has in fact visited Liberty City at least once before 2009. By his own accord, the visit left a negative impression on him, as he caught crabs after an encounter with a Swiss tourist.

In Grand Theft Auto IV, Huang has a criminal record in the LCPD Database, according to which he was arrested twice: once in 2002 for trademark counterfeiting, and a second time in 2005 for grand theft auto. This could imply that he has visited Liberty City multiple times prior to the events of Chinatown Wars.

Losing His Father

In 2009, Huang's life takes an unexpected turn after his father is suddenly murdered, and Huang is tasked with flying to Liberty City to deliver the Yu Jian Sword, a "family heirloom", to the new patriarch of the family: his uncle, Wu "Kenny" Lee. Having sworn on his father's grave to avenge him, Huang accepts the mission and boards a private jet to Liberty City. He would later admit that he did so to score a good grade within the family and hopefully inherit his late father's assets.

Plot

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

Main article: War in Chinatown

The story of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars begins with Huang's arrival in Liberty City to complete his assignment from Kenny. However, what was supposed to be a simple delivery job turns into a dangerous adventure after Huang's escort is killed and he is shot by assailants waiting for them at Francis International Airport. The assailants steal Yu Jian and, believing Huang to be dead, dump his body in the water. Huang manages to survive and finds his way to Kenny's restaurant. Kenny explains that he wanted to give Yu Jian to Hsin Jaoming, the aging leader of the Liberty City Triads, but has been dishonored by the sword's loss, forcing Huang and Kenny to work together to keep their business afloat.

Huang begins to make several criminal contacts in Liberty City, such as Ling Shan, one of Kenny's employees, who is tragically killed by a rival gang; Zhou Ming, a high-ranking Triad boss also eyeing the position of Hsin's successor; and Chan Jaoming, Hsin's incompetent son and the first in the line of succession. Huang begins working for both Zhou and Chan, but during a job for the latter, he is intercepted by Wade Heston, a corrupt LCPD detective under observation by Internal Affairs. Heston proposes an alliance, since he needs a 'big bust' to get Internal Affairs off his tail, and he and Huang begin working together to find Yu Jian's thief. Heston suspects the Koreans to be behind the theft and has Huang investigate them. Eventually, Huang creates a distraction to allow Heston to bug the Koreans' headquarters, whereupon the pair learn of a splinter group within the gang called the Wonsu Nodong. They conclude that the Wonsu leader is behind Yu Jian's theft and has also been causing problems for the Triads with the help of a police informant.

Meanwhile, Hsin contacts Huang, concerned about the news of a traitor within his syndicate, and has him investigate this mole. However, Hsin soon grows frustrated with Huang's slow progress and eventually comes to suspect that Huang himself is the traitor. Just as Hsin is about to kill Huang, Kenny comes to his nephew's rescue and convinces Hsin to give Huang more time to find the real traitor. Hsin then orders Huang to follow two leads: the Koreans and the Angels of Death. Huang contacts Lester Leroc, an informant among the Angels, and continues his own investigation of the Koreans. During his search, Huang is thrown off course by Rudy D'Avanzo, a Triad-hating mobster who lies to him that the mole works for the Messina Crime Family. Hsin exposes the lie, and Huang kills D'Avanzo as a result.

When the Koreans and the Angels of Death are both proven innocent, Huang takes a new course in the investigation and helps Heston with several jobs for his FIB contact, who offered to help them identify the informant. After most of their work proves fruitless, Huang decides to hack into the FIB servers while Heston is forced to back down due to pressure from Internal Affairs. The data Huang recovers from the FIB names both Zhou Ming and Chan Jaoming as police informants and traitors to the Triad cause. After talking with Kenny about what to do with this information, Huang presents it to Hsin, who is disgraced by the possibility of his son betraying the Triads and steps down as leader, appointing Kenny as his successor. Kenny then orders Huang to kill Zhou and Chan, which he accomplishes, despite both men denying their guilt.

Heston later calls Huang to reveal that the information Huang uncovered was fake and that the Wonsu leader is having a meeting with his allies, which they infiltrate. Huang is shocked to find Kenny, who confesses to being the Wonsu leader and the mole, but before he can reveal more, the police bust the meeting. Kenny tries to escape but Huang and Heston chase him across town, eventually cornering him at Hsin's penthouse. There, Kenny admits that he killed Huang's father, his own brother, in order to secure Yu Jian for Hsin, who promised to appoint him his successor. However, Kenny later realized that Hsin would have never kept his word, and orchestrated Yu Jian's theft to disgrace Hsin before working from the shadows to undermine him, all the while framing Chan and Zhou to cover his tracks.

As Hsin confronts Kenny over his treason, he demands that the latter hand over Yu Jian. Kenny responds by slashing Hsin with the sword, and proceeds to attack Huang, who kills him, avenging his father at last. The police then arrive at the penthouse and attempt to arrest everyone, but Heston insists that this is his 'bust' and orders that Huang be left alone since he is a 'good kid'. Before being taken into custody, an injured Hsin praises Huang's loyalty and offers him the position of Triad boss, to which Huang has no immediate answer.

Huang is later contacted by one of Kenny's associates, Xin, who instructs him to steal a Rhino to distract the police from a planned robbery. However, the cops ambush Xin; Huang attempts to take him to safety, but he succumbs to his injuries. Before his death, Xin reveals that he is the brother of Ling Shan, the girl Huang had met shortly after arriving in the city. Huang mourns for both of them.

Description

Appearance

Huang is a young adult of visible Asian heritage. He has a somewhat lighter than average skin-tone, and short, medium-brown hair. He has facial hair in the form of some hard-to-spot chin stubble and a soul patch beneath his lower lip. He almost always carries an expression of bored indifference, only showing significant emotion during very few cutscenes in the game, as well as a harsher, angrier expression in the game's official artworks.

His attire remains consistent throughout the game, likely due to the top-down view making character customization rather pointless. He wears a green overcoat overtop of a red button-up tee, which is worn over top of a plain white tee-shirt. His red shirt is always open in-game, and he wears his collar up, leading to the misconception that the red shirt is actually the inner lining of the overcoat. It is seen buttoned up only in the official artworks. Additionally, Huang wears blue jeans, which aren't significantly visible, if at all, in any of the game's cutscenes, and lastly, artworks depict him as wearing two different kinds of shoes: a pair of green-and-white high-top sneakers, and a pair of brown boots, which may simply be an unintentional inconsistency on the artist's part.

Another noteworthy physical characteristic about Huang is his athleticism. He is adept in martial arts and other athletic maneuvers, such as rolling, and can vault over ledges much quicker than other HD Universe protagonists. Huang can outrun virtually every vehicle in the game, and he is also capable of knocking down street poles and destroying cars with punches alone; all three of these are things none of the other HD Universe protagonists can do.

Personality

Throughout the course of the game, Huang appears to be very cocky and quick-witted. He is portrayed to be much more intelligent than other characters in the game who seem to be oblivious to Huang's constant mocking and sarcastic remarks.

Huang does not value honor and tradition in the same vein as his uncle, at one point telling Kenny that "this is 2009 and not 1403". However, he is very loyal to his family and his gang, following their orders with little hesitation, even to the point he'd murder other Triads. Huang acknowledges that he is a "pampered little snot" in the opening cutscene, and he reveals that he has visited Liberty City before, where he "caught crabs off a Swiss tourist".

Huang seems to dislike most of the people he works for, but he shows the occasional respect for his Uncle Kenny (before finding out that Kenny had killed his father). He also develops an amicable relationship with Wade Heston, so much that Heston decides not to arrest Huang at the end of the game, thinking he is a 'good kid' and deserves to be free. Even after Chan and Zhou are revealed to have not been traitors, Huang never shows any remorse for killing them (especially given the fact that Chan often annoyed Huang).

Name

The correct pronunciation for the name Huang is Hoo-ang. People mistakenly pronounce the name Hoo-ong, which is incorrect. Huang translates to yellow if written 黃, but can be translated to anything that uses the same pronunciation.

Another area of confusion is the mixed use of Mandarin and Cantonese spellings in his name. Huang Lee hails from Hong Kong, where the Cantonese dialect is more commonly used, but "Huáng" (黃) is written in a Romanized Mandarin spelling when "Wong" should be used. This also happens with his surname as "Lee", and in extension the more commonly in pinyin spelling, "Lǐ", are pronunciations in Mandarin, whereas the correct Romanized writing should be "Lei". This means Huang Lee's name may also been purely referred -in Chinese name order- to as "Lei Wong" in Cantonese and "Lǐ Huáng" in Mandarin. His early background in Hong Kong remains largely unexplained. In some Chinese-language websites Huang Lee's given name is written 皇, which has the same Mandarin pronunciation as 黃 (huáng), but here it means "royal", "regal", "emperor", and commonly used in ways associated with royalty.

LCPD Database Record

Huang has a record on the LCPD Database in Grand Theft Auto IV.

A - E

F - J

K - O

P - U

V - Z

SURNAME

Lee

FIRST NAME

Huang

AGE

25

PLACE OF BIRTH

China

AFFILIATIONS

Known Associate of Wu "Kenny" Lee's Liberty City Triad Gang.

CRIMINAL RECORD

2002 - Trademark Counterfeiting
2005 - Grand Theft Auto

NOTES

- Nephew of Liberty City Triad Boss, Wu "Kenny" Lee.
- Believed to be working freelance for other organizations in addition to his uncle's.

Prominent Appearances in Gameplay

As the protagonist, he appears in all missions.

Gallery

Official artwork of **Huang** riding an NRG 900.

Official artwork of **Huang** kicking a man in the face.

**Huang** about to throw a molotov cocktail.

Trivia

"SHIT!" is Huang Lee's only quote where his voice can be heard when drowning inside a car. This quote can be heard from a random Triad pedestrian, present in Grand Theft Auto IV. He can be also heard coughing violently upon finding a moldy burger/hot-dog in a green dumpster.
Upon closer inspection, the player can notice that he reuses Niko Bellic's grunts when climbing over a ledge.
In the screenshots and trailers, Huang wears a white T-shirt, a red shirt, a light green jacket and blue jeans. However, on the Nintendo DS version, due to hardware limitations, his sprites are rendered in much simpler colors; he wears a gray shirt, green jacket and brown pants, and his red button-up missing entirely. On the PSP version, the portraits are rendered in full color, with no compromises.

References

↑ Official game description to Chinatown Wars - https://www.rockstargames.com/zh/games/chinatownwars

[1] Official game description to Chinatown Wars - https://www.rockstargames.com/zh/games/chinatownwars

[1]