Ted Duran

Ted grew up acting. At 2 years old his parents got him on the books of a Brighton based acting agency. He appeared as a child in various clothing adverts, Casualty and the hit BBC drama "Inspector Poirot". Training in drama began at 6 years old at Brighton Steiner School, then following that at Michael Hall in Forest Row, Sussex. Later on he gained an MA in Acting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. At 20 years old, Ted decided to go to China to train martial arts at Shaolin Temple, and later studied Chinese and Chinese drama. He ended up living, studying and working in China as an actor and fight performer for over 10 years, appearing in over 20 Films, TV dramas and advertisements. One role of particular note is China Film Group's 2012 feature film "Beginning of the Great Revival", a historical drama set in 1921 about the first meeting with Russian Communist party members in China, with Chairman Mao (Played by Liu Ye) as one of the attendees. Ted plays a Russian communist party delegate also at the meeting, tasked with meeting with Chinese officials which would prove to fuel the cultural revolution. He had to act in Mandarin Chinese and Russian for the role. The film features a huge cast of over 30 of China's most famous Actors such as Chow Yun Fat, John Woo and Liu Ye. In the martial arts world Ted is also known for his lead role in the 50 episode TV series "The Legend of Bruce Lee" in which he plays "Blair", an enemy and later friend of martial arts icon Bruce Lee. The series became the most popular Chinese TV series to date with over 400 million viewers in China alone, and followed with similar success internationally. Ted appears in 27 Episodes of the series which recently released on Netflix. More recently he can be seen in 2019 feature film "The Longest Shot", filmed in Shanghai and Melbourne. He plays the role of "Paul" , a 1920's cockney gangster and bodyguard to a local Shanghai Mafia boss. Ted recently finished post production of his first film: "The Gong Fu Connection", which he wrote, Directed and acted in. He devised all the fight scenes with Russian martial artist Sergey Kryukov. The film stars Hong Kong actor Wang Yiu Wong and is due to premier at Film Festivals in 2020. Ted has also worked in other areas of post and pre-production for various Hollywood, UK and Chinese Film production companies. Ted has trained with over 15 Martial arts masters in China and elsewhere. Most notably, he studied at Shaolin Temple for a 6 months intensive in 2002. He is an accomplished athlete, as Winner of 2 Gold, 1 Silver and 2 Bronze medals at the 2007 and 2011 Hong Kong International Kung Fu competitions. Character actor with a current passion for Michael Chekhov work.