He owes career, and his life, to Jackie Chan: Hollywood action director Andy Cheng on Shang-chi, Dwayne Johnson and a stunt gone wrong

He was a stuntman for Jackie Chan in Hong Kong and Hollywood, then action director on Dwayne Johnson movies and Marvel’s Shang-chi. Andy Cheng looks back

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Andy Cheng grew up poor in Hong Kong before working as a stuntman for Jackie Chan – which eventually led him to Hollywood. Photo: Courtesy Andy Cheng

Richard James Havis

Published: 7:15am, 12 May 2023Updated: 7:12am, 15 May 2023

From humble roots in the Hong Kong neighbourhood of Kwun Tong, Andy Cheng Kai-chung has risen to become one of Hollywood’s top action directors and fight choreographers. He recently achieved international recognition for co-choreographing an innovative sequence in Marvel’s Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings.

For many, it was their first time hearing the name Andy Cheng, but he already has a list of credits that include being international taekwondo champion, a stuntman and stunt double for Jackie Chan, and a fight choreographer for martial-arts legend Sammo Hung Kam-bo.

He’s worked with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and was hired by art-house director Terrence Malick to choreograph the battle scenes between European settlers and Native Americans in Malick’s 2005 historical drama The New World.

In 2021, Cheng received the Bruce Lee Foundation’s Bruce Lee Award for “demonstrating innovation and excellence”.

Andy Cheng Kai-chung holding the inaugural Bruce Lee Foundation Award, presented to him at the 2021 Asian Film Festival for his excellence in the martial arts film industry. Photo: courtesy Andy Cheng

Long based in Los Angeles, 56-year-old Cheng was one of the first members of the Hong Kong film industry to move to the United States, relocating there in the late 1990s to work with Chan on the 1998 action movie Rush Hour, and to choreograph the fight sequences in Hung’s popular US television series Martial Law.

Unlike his “big brother” Chan, who learned martial arts at Hong Kong’s legendary Peking Opera School, run by Yu Jim-yuen, Cheng was a competition fighter before breaking into the entertainment world.