Max Huang on ‘Mortal Kombat II,’ Jackie Chan and His Fight Philosophy

The plan was simple, if audacious. Max Huang had prepared a showreel, traveled to a Berlin red carpet, and waited six hours for Jackie Chan to arrive. Chan, surrounded by bodyguards, was unreachable. So when Jaden Smith wandered over to sign autographs, Huang handed the reel to him instead.

A month later, he got an email from Jackie Chan.

“I think the way I got into the Jackie Chan Stunt Team was a miracle,” Huang says. The timing was almost absurd – Huang had just arrived in Shanghai to study martial arts at the Sports University when the message came. A few days later he was on his first film, “Chinese Zodiac,” starting at the very bottom of the team’s hierarchy.

That was over a decade ago. Today, Huang is Kung Lao in “Mortal Kombat II,” the Simon McQuoid-directed sequel that pits Earth’s champions against the dark rule of Shao Kahn in the tournament that fans of the franchise had been waiting for since the 2021 original. He arrived at the role carrying 25 years of martial arts experience – competitive Chinese kickboxing, performance Wushu, a gold medal at the German Nationals and a World Championships appearance in Jakarta in 2015 – and spent a year training in Shaolin Kung Fu under monk Shi Yan Lin specifically to deepen his portrayal of the character. Around eight months before filming, the stunt team – led by second unit director Kyle Gardiner and fight coordinators Michael Lehr and Malay Kim – showed him the previs, giving him time to shape the sequences and add Kung Lao’s signature Wing Chun punches and teleportation movements. “I sprinkled my own flavor into the choreography,” he says.

Central to those sequences is the dynamic between Kung Lao and Liu Kang (played by Ludi Lin). “The sequel raises the stakes not only in terms of action, but also emotionally, and building that relationship was very important,” he says. He and Ludi Lin trained together extensively to bring authenticity to their scenes. “Ludi Lin did an amazing job,” he says.

The fight sequences in “Mortal Kombat II” are the product of a philosophy Huang has spent years developing, one he calls “Creating Controlled Chaos.” The idea, rooted in the Taiji principle of Yin and Yang, is to make choreographed movement look genuinely reactive – the way real fighting looks. “Many fight scenes nowadays look choreographed, and the actors are anticipating each other’s movements,” he says. Real fighting, he argues, is not a dance. “If you look at real fighting, it’s reactive and happens in the very moment – just like acting.” The goal is a state of being rather than performing, with the hat – Kung Lao’s signature razor-edged weapon – treated not as a prop but as an extension of the character’s body.

It is a philosophy shaped in part by a background that has never fit neatly into one tradition. Huang was born in Germany to Chinese parents, trained at the Shaolin temple at 14, competed for Germany on the international stage and spent a decade working inside the Hong Kong action system under Chan. “In my life, I always felt like I had to choose between the East and the West,” he says. “But what I came to realize is that I embody both worlds, and there is no need for me to choose.” He is equally admiring of Western action’s directness and impact and of the technical complexity and spiritual dimension of Chinese martial arts – and sees his own style as a synthesis of the two.

That synthesis is already visible in his next projects. “7 Dogs,” which teams him with Monica Bellucci under “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, is a large-scale Saudi Arabian production with stunts from 87Eleven, the team behind the “John Wick” franchise. Huang plays the villain Lee Chang, unrecognizable beneath blond hair and blue eyes. “I love exploring different characters, and this role was so much fun because I could fully disappear into it,” he says.

“Kung Fu Deadly,” a martial arts comedy made with Jason Tobin, allowed him to showcase a different register entirely. The action director on that film was his brother Lee Huang, also a Jackie Chan Stunt Team veteran. “We started filming our own fight scenes together in the backyard when we were kids,” he says.

Beyond both of those, Huang is preparing to make his feature debut as lead actor and action director – an original project he is currently writing and developing. What he wants to bring back to the screen, he says, is the spirit that too much contemporary action cinema has lost. There is a term he uses for what’s missing: “empty movement.” Choreography, he argues, is only as meaningful as the feeling behind it. “It’s the same as with great dialogue. As actors, we learn the lines, but eventually we have to forget about them and communicate the deeper meaning and emotion behind them.” The choreography, he says, is the lines. What’s behind them is the art.

“I don’t care that much about choreography itself,” he says. “It’s not about what punch or kick you do – it’s about how you do it.”