Lin Oeding

Lin Oeding is an American film director and stunt coordinator whose career spans more than two decades across Hollywood blockbusters, television series, and award‑winning shorts. Born on August 9, 1977 in Sacramento, California to a German‑Dutch father and a Taiwanese mother, he was raised in Houston, Texas, where his early fascination with combat sports and gymnastics laid the groundwork for his later professional pursuits. He earned a BFA in screenwriting and film directing from the University of Texas at Austin in 2001, but his training in Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu‑Jitsu and wrestling had already given him a formidable physical skill set; he compiled an impressive 16‑2‑1 record over 19 mixed‑martial‑arts bouts and even competed in pay‑per‑view Bare‑Knuckle events. Oeding’s first break came in 1993 when he worked alongside Chuck Norris on Walker, Texas Ranger, leveraging his martial‑arts expertise to choreograph fight scenes. Over the next ten years he apprenticed under renowned directors on high‑profile projects such as The Last Samurai, Inception, and Star Trekk, absorbing a breadth of cinematic techniques while also serving as a stunt performer on titles including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Ant‑Man. His reputation as a versatile stunt coordinator grew with work on Straight Outta Compton, The Equalizer and Olympus Has Fallen, where his pre‑visualization for a Ferrari chase caught the eye of director F. Gary Gray, leading to a second‑unit directing assignment. The success of his short film Lifted (starring Joel Edgerton) propelled him into feature‑film directing, culminating in the 2018 action thriller Braven starring Jason Momoa and Stephen Lang, which earned praise for its fluid action blocking and sharp camera aesthetic. Since 2015 Oeding has directed television episodes, notably the reboot of Magnum P.I., and continues to blend his theater‑directing background with stunt expertise to craft compelling, kinetic storytelling across media.