Chin Han - biography

Named one of Asia's 25 greatest actors of all time by CNNGo (a division of CNN) alongside stars like Hong Kong's Tony Leung Chiu Wai, India's Amitabh Bachchan and Japan's Toshiro Mifune, Chin Han's 20 year career in Asia has spanned theater, television and film. Beginning as a teen actor in stage classics like Moliere's L'Ecole des femmes and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, he went on to star in Singapore's first English language television series Masters of the Sea produced by ex-Lorimar exec Joanne Brough (Dallas, Falcon Crest). A spin-off series Troubled Waters was to follow, which he also starred in. In 1998 Chin Han made his US film debut in Blindness an Official Selection at the 2nd Hollywood Film Festival in a leading role opposite Vivian Wu (Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book). Soon after, he starred in the Singapore mini-series 'Alter Asians' which won the 2001 Asian Television Award for Best TV Movie of the Year. As a director, he has helmed acclaimed Asian Premieres of plays like David Hare's The Blue Room and co-produced the official Musical adaptation of Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet. A pianist himself, Chin Han has also produced concerts for Tony Award winners Jason Robert Brown (The Last 5 Years), Cady Huffman (The Producers) and Lillias White (Disney's Hercules) in Asia. In Los Angeles, he served as Associate Producer (credited as Chin Han Ng) on the 2006 Asian Excellence Awards which featured stars like Jackie Chan, Maggie Q, Quentin Tarantino and Danny Devito. Returning to the big screen, his strong supporting performance in Thom Fitzgerald's (The Hanging Garden) 3 Needles with Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, and Chloe Sevigny led one movie reviewer to note that for his 'small but important role, (Chin Han) delivers in spades' (I-S Magazine). In 2008, Chin Han took on the pivotal role of Lau in the summer blockbuster movie The Dark Knight and was described by director Christopher Nolan as having 'a great presence... it was exactly what the character required' (South China Morning Post). The following year, he joined John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Woody Harrelson in Roland Emmerich's epic disaster movie 2012 which has grossed more than $750 million worldwide to date. Chin Han can next be seen in Gus Van Sant's highly anticipated Restless, produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, and Steven Soderbergh's star-studded biohazard thriller Contagion from Warner Bros in 2011. He resides in Los Angeles. ((Bio from IMDB))