Berant Zhu

Berant Zhu Xuan-yang (born 4 April 1999) is a Taiwanese actor best known for his role as Chang in the crime mystery film Bad Education (2023), which earned him Best Supporting Actor in the 59th Golden Horse Awards.

Biography
Zhu was born on 4 April 1999 in Taichung, Taiwan. He studied at Shin Min High School and took horticulture classes due to the influence of his father, who loves gardening. When he was in high school, a junior student recommended him to an artist agent who visited their school to look for talents. He was chosen and made his debut in a minor role in the 2018 romance film How to Train Our Dragon. He moved to Taipei alone at the age of eighteen to pursue studies at Shih Chien University, majoring in fashion design. Zhu auditioned while studying in university and landed a lead role as Tung-hao, a high school basketball player competing with his half-brother on a rival team played by Fandy Fan, in the 2019 sports film We Are Champions. He received nominations for both Best Supporting Actor and Best New Talent in the 22nd Taipei Film Awards and began receiving film role offers after the release of the film.

Zhu starred as Jim, a young husband searching for his wife when a virus that caused people to become cannibalistic broke out, in the 2021 horror film The Sadness. The same year, he was cast as Pi Tse, a tuxedo tailor, in the fantasy series The Magician on the Skywalk, and credited his performance as drawing inspiration from Tony Leung Chiu-wai's character in the 1990 film Days of Being Wild. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series in the 56th Golden Bell Awards. Zhu was also cast as the co-leading actor in the crime thriller series Danger Zone (2021 TV series) later in the same year. He portrayed Ren Fei, a rookie police detective alongside Christopher Lee, who played his veteran supervisor. Zhu performed his own stunts in the series and earned a nomination for Best Male Lead in a Television Series in the 57th Golden Bell Awards the following year. Zhu suspended his university studies after the production of Danger Zone to focus on his acting career. He landed a main role as Lin Shan-jun in the 2022 medical drama Mad Doctor alongside Janel Tsai, and is set to reprise his role in the upcoming sequel.

In 2022, Zhu received his breakout role in the crime mystery film Bad Education as Chang, a high school graduate who becomes entangled with a gang boss alongside his two friends played by Kent Tsai and Edison Song. John Berra of Screen Daily noted that despite being a fresh-faced lead, Zhu acquitted himself well with his "ringleader" character traits, and lauded the collective strength of the trio's performance. Hai Nan, writing for The News Lens, praised Zhu's performance in the final scenes of the film, which maintained the momentum of the entire "bad education" narrative. Zhu won Best Supporting Actor in the 59th Golden Horse Awards and received a nomination for Best Actor in the 25th Taipei Film Awards for his role. In 2023, Zhu starred in the Netflix romance anthology series At The Moment alongside Gingle Wang as a pair of young bird lovers in a pandemic era. He is also set to star in a lead role alongside Kai Ko and Leon Dai in Giddens Ko's upcoming fantasy action film Kung Fu.

Personal life
Zhu splits his time and work between Taipei and Taichung. Zhu began dating media personality Cindy He prior to his acting debut. On 28 March 2024, Zhu was spotted by paparazzi dating singer Julia Wu in Taipei while He was out of Taiwan for work. Zhu ended his five-year relationship with He before the news was publicly released in April.