Daniel Wu Yin-cho is a Chinese American actor, director and producer, and as of 2015, starring as Sunny in the AMC martial arts drama series Into the Badlands. Since his film debut in 1998, he has been featured in over 60 films. Wu has been called "the young Andy Lau," and is known as a "flexible and distinctive" leading actor in the Chinese-language film industry.
Wu was born in Berkeley, California, and raised in Orinda, California. His parents, Diana, a college professor, and George Wu, a retired engineer, are natives of Shanghai, China. His father immigrated to the United States after the communist revolution in China in 1949, and met his mother in New York, where she was a student. After marrying, they settled in California. Wu has two older sisters, Greta and Gloria. Wu developed an interest in martial arts when he saw Jet Li in The Shaolin Temple and Donnie Yen in Iron Monkey, and consequently began studying wushu at age 11. His childhood role model was Jackie Chan, a man who now considers Wu "like a son." Wu attended the Head-Royce School in Oakland, California and later majored in architecture with Tony Salas at the University of Oregon. While there, he founded the University of Oregon Wushu Club in 1994 and served as the team's first coach. During this time, Wu also took film classes and frequented local theaters, and came to enjoy the works of filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and Luc Besson, whom he describes as "men of vision." Following graduation, Wu traveled in 1997 to Hong Kong to witness the handover of Hong Kong, with no intention of taking on a movie career. At the suggestion of his sister, Wu began modeling. Four months later, film director Yonfan, after seeing Wu featured in a clothing ad at a railway station, approached Wu about starring in an upcoming movie.
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