Julian Jung Lee
as
"Dragon"

Julian Jung Lee of Aurora, Colorado, did not imagine being a movie star when he was growing up in Korea. He began his martial arts training very young, before Jackie Chan or even Bruce Lee graced the silver screen. But he excelled at the craft and was the Korean Junior National Champion at 13 and rose to be Korean National Tae Kwon Do Light Fin Weight Champion. He also studied Kobudo (ancient weapons), Sul Sa Do (Korean Ninja) and Zen philosophy.

In the late 1970's Lee moved to the U.S., founded the Wonshim Tae Kwon Do Association, and opened up his own dojang to teach martial arts. Julian Lee taught many National and Junior Olympic Champions and instructed members of several Sheriff's departments. He won countless awards for his teaching, including "Best Instructor of the Year "(1984) and "Master of the Year "(1985) from the Pan American Tae Kwon Do Instructors Society.

Julian Lee was a member of the organizing committee for the 14th U.S. National Tae Kwon Championship Seoul Olympic (exhibition) Tryouts in 1988. In 1989 he was special assistant to the International Olympic Committee for the IOC 95th session in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Lee was also appointed Director of the U.S. National Tae Kwon Do Olympic Team in 1989 by the U.S. Tae Kwon Do Union, and took his team to the 9th World Tae Kwon Do Championships in Soeul, Korea. The team won 2nd place overall out of 70 countries competing. Lee was also Director of the Korean All Star Tae Kwon Do team in 1995 and was one of the tae kwon do masters instrumental in getting tae kwon do accepted as a medaled Olympic sport in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

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Lee had his first experience before the camera during production of martial arts training videos. For Johansen Video he made "Sul Sa Do: Korean Ninja Legacy." The success of that video led to the production of "Tanto," and the Sul Sa Transformer series of ten videos.

In 1988 director Phillip Roth asked Lee to do some stunt fighting for the movie "Bad Trip." Julian Lee had trained Dino Castagno, one of the stars of "Bad Trip" in martial arts. Roth was impressed by Lee's work on "Bad Trip" and MPI Entertainment offered to make another movie starring Lee. Julian, and his brother Tae, developed the story they called "Gang Wars," which later became the movie "Fatal Revenge," starring Julian Lee with Sondra Greenberg and Michael Land. In "Fatal Revenge" Tae Lee played a Korean special agent killed by a crack czar. Julian played his brother, Jung, who comes to the U.S. seeking revenge for his brother's death. "Fatal Revenge" was shown theatrically in five states before CineTrust International took it to international distribution.

Julian Lee worked as executive producer on "Iron Heart" with Imperial Entertainment, which later offered him the starring role in "My samurai." In "My samurai" Lee played Young Park, a martial arts master who must protect a boy who witnessed a gang murder. Co-stars were Mako and Bubba Smith. "My samurai" was released internationally in 1993.

Julian worked with Robert Gosnell, who had written scripts for Chuck Norris ("Firewalker") and Dennis Weaver ("Escape from Wildcat Canyon"), to develop "Tiger Street" based on the experiences of one of his former students in Texas. Together with Mark Gallager he put together The Pagoda Group to finance the movie, which was produced by Red Rocks Film/Video. "Tiger Street" was premiered at the Aurora Asian Film festival in June 1998. Distribution rights were purchased by Alpine Pictures International, which will be releasing the movie on video and DVD soon.

The drug lord in "Tiger Street" was played by Denver martial artist and musician, Christophe Clark, who worked with Lee and Gosnell to develop the story for "Dragon and the Hawk." The script for "Dragon and the Hawk" bounced around for a few years until Julian's brother, Ron Lee, and his friend, David "Jeepers" Skaggs, talked Colorado entrepreneur, Trygve Lode, into coming on board as executive producer in early 1999. Lode arranged for funding, and insisted careful budgeting and a fast turnaround on production of the movie.

Julian Lee is currently developing two new projects: "Gate" and "Straight Blast."

Julian Jung Lee's personal page:
http://www.julianjunglee

Julian Jung Lee as "Dragon"

Dragon and the Hawk

Julian Jung Lee
as
"Dragon"