‘Amazing Race’ host: Filipinos are ultracompetitive

ALLAN Wu

Chinese-American celebrity Allan Wu, host of the reality spinoff series, “The Amazing Race Asia,” is currently a contestant in another cable show, “Celebrity Car Wars.” As part of both programs, he has observed that Filipino contestants are formidable and fierce competitors.

“They’re ultracompetitive—totally,” Wu, who was at Sony Pictures Television in Singapore, told the Inquirer in a phone interview. “The Filipino competitors in ‘The Amazing Race’ are vying for $100,000. In ‘Celebrity Car Wars,’ there wasn’t any money involved, just six celebrities racing around, doing car-related challenges. But they were so competitive.”

In “Celebrity Car Wars” (History, Sundays, 9 p.m.), his rival racers include Joey Mead King, Marc Nelson and KC Montero.

Wu, 44, related that hosting is more his speed. While he couldn’t divulge location details on this season’s “Amazing Race” (AXN, Oct. 13, 9 p.m.), the host hinted that the Filipino teams fared well in the globe-trotting tilt.

“The two Filipino teams are composed of spouses Eric and Rona (Tai), and beauties Parul (Shah) and Maggie (Wilson),” he said. “Teams from the Philippines have always done well. I can’t say how they did this time, but I’m pretty sure the Philippines will be happy with it.”

This time, the contest brings participants to more challenging places, according to Wu:  “People will probably not be familiar with them—they’re quite exotic. And there are still locations that viewers might be familiar with, too. But the most important thing is it’s one of the most visually compelling seasons.”

There is already a pair of victors, as filming recently finished, he revealed. “It’s all done. There are winners lurking in the shadows, from those 11 teams. We’re in the middle of doing post-production.”

Hosting the Asian edition of “Amazing Race” for the fifth time was still comfortable, added Wu, who’s also an actor and model. “It’s one of those things I haven’t done in a while, like someone took my bicycle away. Then, I got back on this bike and realized I can still ride it!”

The best thing about hosting the show this year, Wu said, is it offers him new opportunities that help establish him as a more “regional entity.” “I work here in Singapore a lot, doing television, film and hosting,” he elaborated.

The “Celebrity Car Wars” stint was one opportunity he did not anticipate, but he was nonetheless thankful for it.

“I think I had lost a lot of my competitive edge,” he confessed about his participation. “Being older and hopefully wiser, I just try to make it entertaining. I did a good job. I’ll give myself a pat on the back right now!”

On the continuing popularity of reality TV contests, Wu described it as a result of various factors. “In this day and age, there’s an open ocean of content—we can select anything we want,” he said. “You have cable channels that offer high production values. And you have the Internet with low-budget stuff you watch on YouTube. Because there’s such an endless supply of options, you have to bring top quality content to attract viewers.”

It’s a “very critical” time now for TV, Wu added: “What we’re doing now is setting the gold standard, with shows that people talk about the next day at the water cooler. I know we’ve done that this time.”