Profile | Fast & Furious actor Sung Kang on opportunities for Asians in Hollywood and why his directorial debut, a horror comedy, is more funny than scary

Sung Kang is best known for playing Han Lue in Fast & Furious films. Discrimination in Hollywood left him unfulfilled and wanting to ‘get behind the camera’

The director talks about making his Evil Dead-inspired debut Shaky Shivers accessible, even to children, and learning from Robert Rodriguez and Denzel Washington

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Sung Kang is best known for his role in the Fast & Furious series. The Korean-American actor opens up about discrimination in Hollywood, and making his directorial debut, a horror comedy inspired by Evil Dead. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 5:15pm, 20 Sep 2023Updated: 7:05am, 21 Sep 2023

What is it like transitioning from a billion-dollar franchise to a microbudget indie film? Sung Kang knows the answer.

“Lunch on a Fast & Furious movie costs more than the whole budget for Shaky Shivers,” he says, laughing. “But at its core, filmmaking is still the same. You have a three-act structure. Actors have to hit their marks. Lights have to go up. You have to call ‘Action’ and ‘Cut’.”

A horror comedy set in northern California, Shaky Shivers marks Kang’s feature debut as a director. He took on the project while waiting for his next acting job.

“It was time to get behind the camera and start creating,” he says. “As a director, I can give opportunities to people who face the same struggles I face in Hollywood. It’s about paying forward and passing on knowledge.”

The son of South Korean immigrants, Kang became an international star as Han Lue in the 2006 film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Although the character died in the climax of that film, Lue was such a fan favourite that he was resurrected in later films in the Fast & Furious series.

Since then, Kang has worked steadily in film and television. Each new project gave him the opportunity to learn more about directing – filling his “toolbox”, as he put it.