Actress Sandra Oh was born and raised by Korean-Canadian parents in
Nepean, Ontario, where she began her career as a dancer studying and
performing ballet for fourteen years. She left home in 1991 to study at
the National Theatre School in Montreal where she acted in eight plays.
Outside the NTS, she was cast as Caddy Banks in Peter Hinton's play The Witch of Edmonton where she was thrilled at the role of a chubby little boy. In 1991 director Sturla Gunnarson and executive producer Maryke McEwen launched a national talent search to find an actress to star in CBC's The Diary of Evelyn Lau. Oh was chosen from among 2,000 hopefuls, only after her sister convinced her to audition. Oh's performance won the FIPA d'Or for Best Actress at the 1994 Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels at Cannes, France.
In the fall of 1993, Oh played Adrienne Clarkson on CBC's Adrienne Clarkson Presents, a short drama about the TV broadcaster's life. In Mina Shum's feature film Double Happiness, Oh plays the feisty and irreverent Jade Li, a Chinese-Canadian woman torn between the life her old-world family wants for her and her own needs and desires. She won a Genie Award for Best Actress for this role.
Stephen Chang was born in Shan-Tong northern China in 1944. In the tradition of his family, he was trained in martial arts by his father. When Stephen was eleven, he moved to Hong Kong and studied alongside Bruce Lee, who was fourteen at the time. They were sparring partners and rivals. Later they vied for the Mr. Hong Kong title; Chang had to settle for second place behind Lee in that contest.
In 1977, Chang was spotted in a televised martial arts tournament by a Los Angeles production company and was cast as the first Chinese ever in a Coke commercial. He played a "Bruce Lee" type character in the internationally seen advertising spot , which was shot in Vancouver's Chinatown.
Since then he has been in more than 35 television and film productions. His credits include the VietCong commander in Sylvester Stallone's First Blood, roles in the British films Slowburn and Brothers in Arms, and a starring role in the Canadian-Vietnam co-production Vietnambo.
In 1988 he starred in Saigon Special in Vietnam, which had cinematic releases in the Soviet Union, Cuba and China. In 1991, he was invited by the Chinese National Film Bureau to star in their 70 mm feature International Rescue. That film was shown in 30,000 cinemas in Asia. It broke all previous Asian attendance records with ticket sales of over a billion.
In Mina Shum's dramatic-comedy feature Double Happiness, Chang has closeted his martial arts bad guy image. He stars as Dad Li, Sandra Oh's authoritarian immigrant-Chinese father. It is his first non-martial arts dramatic role. When he's not in production, Chang, a kung fu master, runs a martial arts studio in Vancouver.
Alannah Ong was born in Macao and was raised in Hong Kong with her actor mother and military father. She later moved to England to study music at the Royal College of Music in London. Her acting debut came in the stage production of Bamboo Shelter. She returned to Hong Kong after her studies and began working in radio and television and taught piano and music.
In 1969, she emigrated to Canada with her husband and two children and furthered her studies at Calgary's Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, where she earned a diploma in TV, Stage, and Radio Arts.
She and her family later moved to Ottawa, where she graduated from the University of Ottawa with a B.A. (Theatre) Honours. She also became the first female member of the Canadian Central Band after joining the Canadian Armed Forces. In 1977, Ong was awarded the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal for distinguished service to music.
Since 1980 Ong and her family have lived in Vancouver. Her North American TV debut was in the CBC movie Chung Chuck. She subsequently landed numerous principal roles in television shows including Neon Rider, Northwood, The Black Stallion, 21 Jump Street, The Beachcombers, and Danger Bay. Her film roles include Miles to Nowhere, The Accused, and Friday the 13th--Part IV.
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