Peaky Blinders introduced some cool new characters into its world this season, and none were cooler, or more manipulating, than Brilliant Chang. Chang first appears in episode five, and to make sure that Tommy Shelby will listen to his plan to bring the purest opium ever seen onto Europe’s shores, he sends a woman with a gun to Finn’s office. Tommy agrees to the plan, and the two men go into business with each other.
But while viewers have a pretty good grasp which characters on the show are decidedly real or fake, fans have been wondering if Brilliant Chang is based on on a real person.
Was Brilliant Chang a real person?
Brilliant Chang was, in fact, a real person. His birth name was Chen Bao Luan, and he was born in China in 1886. He came to the UK in 1913, and he opened a Chinese restaurant in Birmingham.
He later moved to London, but it’s unclear when he started dealing opium and cocaine. Chang was extremely successful in this venture, and his prominence and popularity grew and grew—a 1928 British newspaper actually called Chang a “dope king.”
Chang’s downfall came when he was implicated in the death of Freda Kempton, a bar hostess. Kempton died of an overdose of cocaine in March 1922, and when an inquest into her death began, her friend Rose Heinberg testified that Chang had given her the drugs.
While Chang was never charged for Kempton’s death, his reputation suffered, and anti-Chinese sentiment at the time led to mistrust of him and his businesses, including his restaurant.
The police never let up on Chang, and in 1924, they obtained a warrant to search his home, where they found some cocaine in the kitchen. He was sentenced to a year in jail and deported, although some reports state that he went to France, rather than China. Not much is known about Chang’s later life.
Who is the actor that plays Brilliant Chang?
Brilliant Chang is played by Andrew Koji on Peaky Blinders. Koji is a British-Japanese actor, and he’s appeared on shows like Warrior, American Gods, and Call the Midwife.
And while Peaky Blinders dramatized much of Chang’s storyline on the series (the show’s fifth season takes place in 1929, and Chang had been deported by then), there are some aspects of it that are real.
Chang was known for being well-dressed and wearing fur collared coats, and it was said that he liked to sell to, and be in the company of, young woman, which is in line with his opening scene on the show.
