Writer/Actor/Director/Producer
Brett Horton plays the lead role of Elias in the Fortune Cookie Teller. He was born on the edge of Kansas City and grew up in a small oil town called Ponca City, Oklahoma and the more metropolitan Wilmington, Delaware. At age 12, he worked as a paperboy, then later, in the circulation room of the newspaper. At age 15, he began a music career playing the local venues and bars of Oklahoma and has since traveled and moved extensively. He has also worked as a gas station clerk, a seasonal cook, a folk musician in an Alaskan vaudeville show, a foreign English teacher, a TV show host, a barista, and a free-lancer. Previous movies include Only An Impression and ? the Movie, which feature the band, the Gardes. For film credits, he often uses the guise of Alexander Anonymous.
Please check out more at: www.bretthorton.org
Wei Lin was born in the village of Beichuan in the Sichuan Province of China. She went off to boarding school when she was 12 years old in the city of Mianyang. Later, she graduated from SISU (Sichuan International Studies University) in Chongqing and worked as a translator in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan and largest city in Western China. After moving back to Mianyang and working as a free-lance English teacher and interpreter, she ended up translating the Fortune Cookie Teller script. She stars as Elle in her debut acting role.
Brian Hallett hails from Dunfermline, Scotland, which is a town in Fife. He has spent time visiting and living in various countries, like China, where he and Horton met each other as roommates, herded together by the same agency. Not long after, Brian returned to Scotland. By sheer happenstance, he was able to play the role of the character based on himself while making a brief return visit. Previously, he played amateur football (soccer) whilst at university, where he attended the University of St Andrews and also Edinburgh Napier, where he qualified with an honours degree in Marketing Management. Whilst a youth he had taken part in plays, both in and out of school. His only other video role prior to this was in a Chinese Heavy Metal rock band’s video. The random casting in this video was how he met Paul Chen, who was soon introduced to Horton who from there met the Mianyang music scene.
Chad Hammond is from Toronto, Ontario. He plays the role of Alex, who is an English teacher by day and attempting to make a documentary in his free time. Hammond has had various acting roles in indie productions when he lived in South Korea and these days, when not acting or teaching English, he is contemplating starting his own restaurant pub in an Asian city and getting into the importing/exporting business. In between all this, he is an avid card player.
Maxine Liang was born in Mianyang, China and majored in acting at Sichuan Normal University in Chengdu, China. She has starred in many roles in plays and independent short films around Sichuan Province. She and Horton met when they were featured in a short video one day directed by their mutual friend. Her role in the Fortune Cookie Teller is that of Yang Hua Li.
Neil Oxley, before traveling around Asia, lived in London where he acted in a number of productions. He plays the role of Randy, a recently arrived American in China. He has also done some time as a foreign English teacher while exploring the Far East, plays in a band (lead singer and guitarist of the Canadians, an all-foreign band in Mianyang, however, there is only one real Canadian in the band, who also has a part in this movie) and helps host a weekly football match between the expats of the city and the Chinese. Currently, he is developing a travel show and writing a play, amongst other things.
Rishu Sinha is from an area of India near Kolkata and later worked as a computer engineer in China and San Francisco. His behind-the-scenes camera work and direction helped with various scenes, and he also plays the role of himself in a scene as the friend of Elias and Elle.
Paul Chen is a native of Mianyang, China. He is a professional musician, a virtuoso at the keyboard. A full-time house musician at various venues around the region, as well as concert performer, he is also well-connected with the few foreign musicians that are in the city. During a hotel engagement, he taught himself how to speak English and mastered it. When not in China, he visits Los Angeles and Thailand. During the hot summer months of Sichuan, he spends all day by the swimming pool. He plays a fictional version of himself in the movie.
Bill Zou went straight from high school to running a guitar store in downtown Mianyang. Though he never majored in it, he naturally learned how to speak English in a city where most of the population speaks very limited to none. He as well plays a fictional version of himself in the movie. Becoming a maestro on the guitar and bass as he has the fortunate opportunity to play all day everyday, at night he plays in different bands and also performs in Chengdu and around Sichuan.
Pu Han is a professional vocalist-guitarist from Mianyang, China, and he plays a fictional version of himself in the movie, Han. He majored in music at Mianyang Normal University, and now he teaches music at Sichuan University of Arts and Culture. At nighttime he is a regular fixture at the downtown music venues, where he often performs solo folk shows and sometimes collaborations with others. Han resided and performed in Beijing for one year. His musical influences are vast, ranging from Chinese folk and rock to a wide appreciation of Western music, folk, rock and blues. Some well-known Western musical influences include Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Velvet Underground, Beatles and Nirvana.
Heidi Qin joins her fellow musicians, Han, Paul and Bill in a role as Pancho. She studied drums at a music university in Beijing and plays frequently in the venues of Mianyang with a revolving group of musician friends. Her Chinese name is Qin Haiti, as the family name in China comes first, so her English name and Chinese name are basically the same. Though she plays a part of a character who knows no English, in real life, she speaks it quite well. She likes to ride her bicycle around the city from gig to gig.
Alex Li plays the character whose English name is Tony, inspired by real life family friend and now husband of Wang Qiong, Yo Wan Bi, whose English nickname is Tony. Alex also speaks English in real life though his character speaks none. He is an English teacher in Mianyang.
Angel Feng plays the role of the Waitress. She has had a varied career as a tour guide, English teacher, pub singer, and assistant and manager of a restaurant/bar. Angel sang vocals on a couple of songs on Horton’s solo album, Airs. She likes music, wine, travel and freedom .
Yang Wei plays a character known as Vivi, which is the English moniker she goes by in real life. She comes from Pingwu, a village known for the pandas, mountains, forest and river. Her major was in Communication Science at Sichuan Media College in Chengdu, where she interned at Sichuan Television and later at Mianyang TV. Also, she was camera operator for the village/country scenes.
Zhao Liang (English name: Leon) has a cameo appearance in this film. He is a professional independent actor and has acted in many short films and short videos (what are called microfilms in China) as well as starred in full-length independent films all around Sichuan. Horton met a lot of the actors and actresses in this film through Liangzi. The two of them met when Horton, along with Pu Han and others, were the house musicians at what was then called Box Music Bar, where Leon was the nightly MC. After the bar changed management, Leon went on to pursue his acting career full-time and has since been constantly busy and working in different cities around China. In between filming, he resides in Mianyang.
Dreamstar has the role of the Thief in the Fortune Cookie Teller. He is a professional actor and singer from Mianyang who keeps very busy around Sichuan Province. In the past, he has also been employed as a clown. He is Leon’s protege.
Kevin Welch was born and raised in Sylvan Lake, Alberta until moving to Mianyang in 2016 after graduating from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Education degree. He plays the role of the Zone Informant in The Fortune Cookie Teller. Beyond acting, this self-proclaimed Renaissance man enjoys playing music (as the one true Canadian in the band ‘The Canadians’), studying philosophy, and competes in powerlifting at the national level.