AllMovie

Chinese-Canadian actor Terry Chen first achieved international recognition at the dawn of the millennium, when he appeared in two very different A-listers: Romeo Must Die, an avant-garde, martial-arts-saturated take on Romeo and Juliet (starring ill-fated pop diva Aaliyah and DMX); and Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe's nostalgic coming-of-ager about the early experience of a rock journalist-cum-roadie. Despite occasional dips into more conventional material -- a Dean Koontz telemovie, the glamorized spy film Ballistic (2002) -- Chen remained generally selective about Hollywood parts. He was memorable as a Merc Pilot in The Chronicles of Riddick, as Chin in the futuristic Will Smith sci-fi film I, Robot (2004), and as Tom Lone in War (2007), an action-filled tale about an FBI agent enmeshed in a battle between rival Asian gangs. Over the coming years, Chen would remain active on screen, appearing in movies like The A-Team and on series like Combat Hospital.