I’d like to put Brad Allan in the category of, “One to Watch”, as I think he will be providing us some fantastic Stunt Sequences over the next couple of decades, but truth-be-told, I’ve been watching him for some time already and have enjoyed his work over the years.
I first noticed him on Jackie Chan’s documentary, Jackie Chan: My Stunts (1999) where Jackie uses Brad to showcase the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and their facility. It’s really an amazing introduction to the world of stunts if you don’t get another chance to view anything else about how stunts are done.
Brad stands out in the documentary and has gone on to do some amazing things over the last 15 years since. Here’s his bio, to give you an idea of his experience:
Born with an inherent fascination of all things Chinese, Brad Allan started studying martial arts, boxing, gymnastics and Chinese circus arts from the age of 10 years. At age 15 years, Brad met two of China’s greatest wushu athletes Liang Chang Xing and Tang Lai Wei of the renowned Beijing Wushu Team (the same team as Jet Li). Under their expert guidance Brad quickly rose to become one of Australia’s top wushu athletes.
At the age of 22 years Brad returned to Australia after several years studying language and martial arts in Asia. It was in his home town of Melbourne that he met his mentor and master, Jackie Chan. A chance encounter gave Brad an opportunity to demonstrate his skills to Jackie and his team; a dream come true that would change his life forever. As the first non-Asian member, Brad would spend the next 12 years traveling and performing around the world as part of the illustrious JACKIE CHAN STUNT TEAM. It was during this time and under Jackie’s direct guidance that Brad would progress from stunt performer, to action choreographer, to stunt coordinator and finally action director.
Now, Since I saw his work on Jackie Chan: My Stunts, he’s done some fantastic stunt work the Jackie Chan films along with the Jackie Chan Stunt Team on Mr. Nice Guy, Who Am I?, Gorgeous, Shanghai Noon, The Accidental Spy, Rush Hour 2, The Tuxedo, and The Medallion. He moved into Fight Choreography starting with Shanghai Noon and The Accidental Spy and about this time did the choreography for the first two films outside of the Stunt Team with Peter Pan (2003) and The Chronicles of Riddick (2004).
He was definitely on his way up, when he got his first official Stunt Coordinator credit on Rush Hour 3 (2007) and then on Hellboy 2 (2008) the very next year. He started getting more and more work outside of the Stunt Team for his Stunt Coordinator work from then on but added Second Unit Director (often called the Action Director) for the films Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010), Chinese Zodiac (2012), The World’s End (2013), Cuban Fury (2014), and most notably on Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015).
If you’ve seen any of those last 5 films, you will see a fantastic library of work that has been critically praise universally for it’s incredible fighting and visual style as well as it’s great second unit work. It’s easy to see why he’s One To Watch…I think we’re going to get a lot more fantastic films out of Brad Allan in the next couple of…decades!
Check out our new Book, 100 Years of the Best Movie Stunts!