Biography

Maria Tran is an award-winning and multi-talented US-based, Vietnamese-Australian actor, filmmaker, and martial artist. She has worked in various mediums including film, TV, stage and fight action choreography. Her international film credits include Fist of the Dragon (2014), Death Mist, and Truy Sát (2016).

In 2013 she won the Breakout Female Performer award at the International Action on Film Festival and, in 2016, was awarded Female Action Performer of the Year at MartialCon. She is also the director and producer of Hit Girls (2013), a female-led action comedy. In Australia, she has appeared on several TV shows, including My Place (2009), Maximum Choppage: Round 2 (2010), Street Smart (2018), and Fat Pizza: Back in Business (2019).

Maria has also worked as a stunt performer on movies such En eaux troubles (2018) and in Jackie Chan's Bleeding Steel (2017).

In 2022, five months after moving to the United States, Maria landed her breakthrough role as Madame Tien on the Paramount+ Australia drama series Last King of the Cross (2023), starring Tim Roth. She has also been involved in stage productions, including as a fight director and performer for Bell Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' and her own theater production 'Action Star' which premiered at the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide in 2022. She has received the prestigious $50,000 Create NSW Western Sydney Arts Fellowship award and established Phoenix Eye Films, a female-led film and art collective based in Western Sydney.

Maria is also known for her documentary filmmaking work, including My Mother, the Action Star (2020) which won Best Film at the WIFT-V Fest Film Festival.

Occasionally, she also works as an action fight director for films such as Ayotti (2021) and the "Terror Zone" proof-of-concept.

Maria's micro-budget action thriller Echo 8 (2024) has won several awards including Tokyo Film Awards for Best Film, Winner for Best Feature Film - Women's Film at the World Carnival-Singapore Film Festival. Maria is a trailblazer who is known for her community, cultural, and development practices in the film, TV, and entertainment industry.

- IMDb mini biography by: M. White