Jason Chan's Journey From Green Power Ranger to Singapore Filmmaker and Cinewav Co-Founder

A familiar superhero with a new role in Singapore

Jason Chan played Cameron Watanabe, the Green Samurai Ranger, in Power Rangers Ninja Storm in 2003. More than two decades later, fans still recognise him on the street, while his work in Singapore now stretches from making films to developing technology for outdoor cinema.

Chan is the co-founder of Cinewav, a Singapore startup that lets audiences watch a film on a large screen while listening to synchronised audio through their smartphones and headphones. The idea grew from a problem he encountered while screening his own film: impressive pictures could be undermined by poor sound, while loud speakers could disturb nearby residents.

Cinewav brings together interests that have run through Chan's working life. Before becoming an actor, he trained and worked as a doctor in Australia. After moving to Singapore, he built a filmmaking partnership with Christian Lee, producing Asian dramas in English for audiences beyond the region. Their work eventually led them into cinema technology.

As of August 21, 2025, Chan is in his early fifties, married to Sang Min Lee and the father of an eight-year-old son. He continues to act, write and direct, alongside his business ventures. His Power Rangers role remains a connection to viewers who grew up watching him, particularly Asian fans who rarely saw someone who looked like them portrayed as a superhero.

His career has involved several changes of direction, each with practical costs. Leaving medicine meant giving up a stable profession. Acting brought concerns about typecasting and limited opportunities. Filmmaking and technology gave him more ways to create work of his own, and to bring it to audiences.

From Kuala Lumpur to medicine in Perth

Jason Keng-Kwin Chan was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1971. His family moved to Perth, Australia, when he was five. Like many children in immigrant families, he was encouraged to choose a career associated with security and respect.

Chan enrolled in medical school at the University of Western Australia, but the arts remained part of his life. Alongside his academic studies, he studied ballet, contemporary dance and jazz at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. Medicine and performance were competing interests long before he became known on television.

He graduated as a doctor in 1994 and worked as a general practitioner for three years. The long hours and emotional demands of medical work left him feeling unfulfilled, and he began taking acting classes at night. Performing became something he wanted to pursue as a career.

Chan, reflecting on his decision to move from medicine into acting, described the need for creative expression in personal terms:

Some people are born to act, and if they don't express themselves, it will trouble them for life.

He left his regular medical career and enrolled at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. His medical qualification still helped him pay his way: he worked as a locum doctor on weekends, temporarily filling in for other doctors while pursuing his acting studies.

The Green Samurai Ranger and the limits of recognition

Chan landed the role of Cameron Watanabe just a year after graduating from acting school. Power Rangers Ninja Storm was filmed in New Zealand and reached viewers around the world in 2003. His character, usually called Cam, became a fan favourite.

Cam combined martial arts with intelligence, wit and technical skill. As the team's technology expert, the character also connected with Chan's own longstanding interest in technology. Preparing for the role involved demanding training with a Japanese stunt team, followed by long days on set.

Chan embraced the work despite warnings that appearing in Power Rangers could lead to typecasting, where an actor becomes closely associated with one kind of role and finds it harder to get others. He kept souvenirs from the production, including toys and his original costume. His likeness was also used for a Green Ranger figurine.

Power Rangers was both a television phenomenon and a franchise designed to sell toys and inspire young viewers. For many Asian viewers, Chan's role carried a more personal meaning: an Asian character could be a capable, distinctive superhero rather than a marginal figure.

Chan, speaking about the appeal of his Green Ranger character to Asian audiences, recalled:

Seeing an Asian superhero, especially one as sarcastic, tough, and edgy as the Green Ranger, was empowering.

International recognition did not translate into a wide range of opportunities in Australia. Power Rangers Ninja Storm was not shown on free television there, and Asian actors often found themselves offered stereotypical parts. Chan's success with a global audience existed alongside a more restricted acting market at home.

A move to Singapore opened up leading roles

In 2006, a family friend working as a casting agent in Singapore encouraged Chan to relocate. The move gave him access to leading roles in local productions and a chance to move beyond the constraints he had encountered in Australia.

Singapore became the base for a broader creative career. Chan appeared in films including The Leap Years and Sing to the Dawn, as well as Mediacorp dramas such as My Sassy Neighbour and Parental Guidance. He also continued developing skills behind the camera.

Chan met Christian Lee, another actor and filmmaker, in Singapore. Their partnership led to the creation of BananaMana Films in 2009, with a specific aim: to make Asian dramas in English for a global audience.

The company allowed Chan to take on several parts of the production process. He wrote, directed and edited projects, and composed music for many of them. Instead of depending entirely on available acting roles, he and Lee could develop their own stories and decide how to bring them to the screen.

BananaMana Films took its stories abroad

BananaMana Films' first series, What Do Men Want?, was adapted into a television series and aired in 2014. It won an outstanding directing award at LA Webfest, giving the company's work recognition beyond Singapore.

Their next project, Perfect Girl, became the first Singaporean drama acquired by Netflix. It received seven international awards from sixteen nominations. The acquisition gave an Asian drama made in English a route to viewers through a global streaming platform, matching the ambition behind BananaMana Films.

In 2017, the company released Jimami Tofu, a feature film set in Okinawa. It won the Audience Choice Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival. The film's success also inspired new travel links between Okinawa and Singapore, extending its influence beyond screenings and awards.

Chan's creative work has received other recognition, including the Platinum REMI at Worldfest Houston and awards for writing, directing and editing at LA Webfest. His work across those disciplines reflects how much of the filmmaking process he has taken on himself.

The major steps in his career span medicine, television, film and technology:

• 1971: Jason Keng-Kwin Chan was born in Kuala Lumpur, before moving to Perth at the age of five.
• 1994: He graduated as a doctor and went on to work as a general practitioner for three years.
• 2003: He appeared as Cameron Watanabe, the Green Samurai Ranger, in Power Rangers Ninja Storm.
• 2006: He moved to Singapore after encouragement from a family friend who worked as a casting agent.
• 2009: Chan and Christian Lee founded BananaMana Films.
• 2014: What Do Men Want? aired as a television series.
• 2017: BananaMana Films released Jimami Tofu, which won the Audience Choice Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival.

A screening problem became the idea for Cinewav

An outdoor screening of Jimami Tofu gave Chan the starting point for Cinewav. He noticed that the pictures could look stunning while the audio was poor. Outdoor screenings also brought a familiar difficulty for organisers: sound from large speakers could prompt complaints from nearby residents.

Chan and Lee developed a different way to deliver the soundtrack. Viewers would still watch the same large screen together, but each person would hear the film through headphones connected to a smartphone. The audio would stay synchronised with the picture.

Synchronisation means that a sound arrives at the moment the matching action appears on screen. Dialogue needs to match a character's moving lips, for example. Cinewav's technology is designed to maintain that connection while delivering sound separately to audience members' phones.

The approach gives viewers a personal listening experience within a shared screening. It also removes the need for large speakers, allowing organisers to bring cinema to places where broadcasting a soundtrack across the surrounding area would be difficult.

How the app changes the work of hosting a film

Cinewav's mobile app replaces a traditional speaker system and is designed to scale to accommodate any number of users. Its technology is patented in five countries. It has been used for events at Singapore's National Stadium, public libraries and community centres.

Organisers can use the system in settings such as parks, libraries, schools and busy urban spaces. Because the soundtrack reaches viewers through their headphones, screenings can avoid noise pollution from large speakers and make use of venues that would otherwise be less suitable for cinema.

Chan, explaining Cinewav during a fireside chat with the Asia Institute of Mentoring, identified several practical challenges the platform addresses:

• Delivering high quality audio that stays synchronised with the picture.
• Providing contactless ticketing and distributing content.
• Allowing flexible screen arrangements and audio that can serve different audience sizes.
• Providing transparent viewer reporting and ways to earn revenue while controlling costs.

Cinewav also offers a curated movie library with titles from leading studios. That gives organisers access to films as well as the technology needed to present them, allowing them to shape a screening around their venue and audience.

For organisers, the combination covers several parts of an event rather than sound alone. Ticketing, content distribution, screen arrangements and information about viewers all form part of the platform's approach. For audiences, the most immediate change is simpler: they gather in one place to watch a film, but hear it through their own devices.

Community screenings are part of the business

Cinewav's work also includes a social mission. The company donates screens to neighbourhoods where residents have low incomes and powers free screenings in Singapore and abroad. Chan sees the technology as a way to build and transform communities through shared experiences.

Free screenings and donated screens make cinema more accessible, while bringing people together around stories. The company's aim includes social connection and cultural exchange, extending the role of a screening beyond entertainment alone.

Chan, speaking about the community purpose of the company he co-founded, said:

Cinewav is a way to bring people together, to create shared experiences, and to make the magic of cinema available to everyone.

That aim aligns with the Asia Institute of Mentoring's mission to create a kinder, more inclusive and sustainable world through mentorship and social entrepreneurship. In Chan's work, filmmaking provides the stories and cinema technology provides another way for communities to encounter them.

Family life, persistence and a career across disciplines

Chan has made Singapore his home with his wife, Sang Min Lee, and their eight-year-old son. Despite his awards and ventures, he remains approachable and often engages with fans who recognise him from Power Rangers.

His career has been featured by major media outlets, and he remains a role model for aspiring artists and entrepreneurs. The choices behind that career, however, involved uncertainty: leaving medicine was daunting, especially against the expectation of a stable profession, and success as an actor did not remove the need to adapt.

Chan faced limited opportunities and typecasting in Australia, then moved into producing his own work in Singapore. Later, a problem encountered through filmmaking led him and Lee to develop a technology business. His progress has depended on repeatedly applying existing interests to a new kind of work.

Chan, describing the perseverance behind those changes, put it this way:

The progress is made by always putting one foot in front of the other.

His Green Samurai Ranger role gave Asian viewers a superhero they could identify with. BananaMana Films carried Asian stories in English to international audiences. Cinewav applies technology to the practical task of making cinema accessible in more places and to more communities.

Medicine, performance and entrepreneurship have each required different skills. Chan's journey brings together the empathy associated with caring for patients, the creativity of making films and the practical problem solving needed to build a business. His continuing work in Singapore connects those experiences through a common interest in people, stories and shared cultural experiences.

Key Points

• Jason Chan played Cameron Watanabe, the Green Samurai Ranger, in Power Rangers Ninja Storm in 2003.
• Born in Kuala Lumpur in 1971 and raised in Perth, he graduated as a doctor in 1994 before pursuing acting.
• He moved to Singapore in 2006 and founded BananaMana Films with Christian Lee in 2009.
• The company's projects include What Do Men Want?, Perfect Girl and the award winning feature Jimami Tofu.
• Chan and Lee developed Cinewav to deliver synchronised film audio through smartphones and headphones, without large speakers.
• Cinewav's technology is patented in five countries and has been used at Singapore's National Stadium, libraries and community centres.
• The company donates screens to neighbourhoods where residents have low incomes and supports free screenings in Singapore and abroad.
• As of August 21, 2025, Chan continues to act, write and direct while living in Singapore with his wife and son.