Actor and stuntman from Britain Darren Shahlawi, who lived such a short life (only 42 years old), gained his fame with the roles of "bad guys." For many years he was seriously interested in martial arts. And he reached unprecedented heights in this. He managed to make his way from the usual bouncer in a club to the set of Olaf Ittenbach's horror films. He starred even in episodic roles, dubbed other movie stars, performed tricks that were most difficult in terms of their technical characteristics. In January 2015, media reported about his death.
Little lion cub
Darren Majan Shahlawi was born into a modest family of immigrants from Ireland, on the fifth day of August 1972. And it happened in England, Cheshire, Stockport. "Majan" in translation from the Persian language means "our lion cub". The choice of this second (or, as they say, middle) name was associated with the zodiac sign under which Darren was born. And this name paid off one hundred percent.
From Judo to Setokan
Little Shahlavi began to learn the art of judo very early - he only recently turned seven at that time. For all classes, he came to a rented hall in the building of a functioning movie theater. The boy tried every time to come as early as possible to see what is shown on the screens. It was then that Darren Shahlawi saw stunning action games in which the great Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan starred. And the idea came to him at least someday to get into the huge world of cinema - into this magical world of cinema - and find himself on the same set with them.
Darren Majan never stopped his grueling workouts. At the age of fourteen, future actor Darren Shahlavi begins to study very seriously one of the main styles of Japanese karate called setokan. His spiritual mentors (sensei) were Dave Maurice and Horace Harvey. A little later, the guy switched to kickboxing, boxing and Muay Thai (Thai boxing). These classes were held at Master Toddy's simulator in Manchester.
The first steps to making dreams come true
Darren Shahlavi already celebrated his sixteenth birthday when his movie career finally began, as he had planned many years ago. In the very beginning of the nineties, he accidentally was lucky enough to catch the eye of one of the Hong Kong experts in action films - Bey Logan, who made a significant contribution to the creation of Dante Lama's film “Gemini”, which was released in 2003.
Master Tai Chi, as Darren was then called, spent a lot of time at that expert’s house. He reviewed a huge number of paintings from the personal collection of Bey Logan and very carefully tried to copy every movement of karate actors.
In one of the many interviews, the then-young actor Darren Shakhlavi, whose biography could be a prime example to everyone in that only thanks to his own work, all dreams can come true, shared that Logan wrote a very interesting script for him. In it, Darren is given the main role. But time passed, and the film never appeared on the screens. And to this day it is not clear whether it was a newspaper duck or a kind of advertisement for the actor himself.
A little later, a colleague Bey from Britain and kung fu expert “Hungar” Mark Khoton, who was approved for the role of a star, turned to Shakhlavy with a proposal to work as a stuntman in the film.
Hong Kong 90s
In the mid-nineties, actor Darren Shahlawi, whose photo always depicted a strong and handsome man, moved to Hong Kong, where he continued to develop his career in cinema. After some time, the talented young man was seen by the battle director and director Yuen Wo-pin. It was he who invited Darren to the role of a “bad guy” named Smith in the comedy action “Tai Chi Master 2”.
The actor agreed, because that was what he was so eager for. But not everything worked out smoothly. It was during this period that Shahlavi worked as a bouncer in one of the elite night clubs and guarded celebrities.
"Blood Moon" - a step towards the fulfillment of dreams
After this film was endlessly played in Hong Kong cinemas, director Tony Leung Siu Hung turned his attention to Darren, who liked the game of Shakhlavy. He considered the young actor significant potential and signed a contract with him for the shooting of the American-Hong Kong thriller "Bloody Moon".
Thanks to this, Darren Shahlawi, whose films are distinguished by the special beauty and technique of performing various battle scenes, was able to work on the same set with Chuck Jeffries and Gary Daniels.
In "Blood Moon", the actor played a killer maniac, who opened a fierce hunt for great masters who are engaged in martial arts. They, who had once already proved their superiority in the ring, were forced to fight to the death with the crazy hero Shakhlava. Many of the moviegoers who were especially partial to the tapes on the subject of various martial arts are sure that this film is the best among hardcore films.
Tricks, dubbing and episodic roles of the actor
Gradually Darren Shahlawi in his ending career moved to the horror genre. He collaborated with director Olaf Ittenbach, whose films were often banned from showing because there were too many violent scenes in each of them.
The actor often starred and fought in many films himself. Unfortunately, some of them are almost impossible to see in the original version, which was not cut by censorship.
If he was invited to the projects of famous film studios, for example, “Night at the Museum”, “The Chronicles of Riddick” or “300 Spartans”, he agreed to perform various tricks. And in one of the fantasy films, Shakhlavy was even involved in the episodic role of a sleeping guard. He starred in action scenes with D. Statham, was an understudy of R. Liott.
One day, giving an interview to a magazine, Darren admitted that he really wants to work on martial arts films again. Just at that time, he completed the next work on the film with Mark Dakaskas, starred in the television series “In the Service of the Devil”.
Five years before his death, Shahlavi gets a leading role in historical action, where, according to the plot, he should appear almost in the last part of the picture. Around the same time, the actor starred in the horror fantasy "Little Red Riding Hood" with Amanda Seyfred.
Tragedy
More than one and a half years have passed since that day, as an actor, stuntman and just a handsome man left this mortal world forever. In the first days after the incident, most of the media trumpeted that the cause of death was contained in drugs that became intolerable to Darren’s body. Other media outlets approached this topic with a great deal of imagination and said that Darren Shakhlavi, whose death stirred up not only fans of his stunt talent, but also other people, died from an overdose of drugs or alcohol. But actually it was not so.
