Our Daily Dead

From the one and only Kung Fu Cinema.comwe read: Hapkido Grandmaster Bong Soo Han, a pioneer in bringing real martial arts technique to American movies died on Monday at the age of 73 in his home in Santa Monica.

“The Korean-born instructor was greatly respected in the martial arts community and often called the father of Hapkido in the Western world for his many years of promoting and teaching the martial art in America. As a senior first-generation student to Hapkido founder Yong Sul Choi, Han is credited with first bringing the art to America in 1967.”

“His contribution to the development of martial arts action in American filmmaking is at least as noteworthy. In 1969, actor Tom Laughlin recruited Han after witnessing one of his demonstrations to assist in giving the star some credible martial arts moves in the film “Billy Jack”. Han not only choreographed the fight scenes, but also doubled Laughlin onscreen. Thanks in large part to never-before-seen screen fighting moves, this independent cult classic became the first widely popular American-made movie to prominently feature authentic martial arts screen fighting. In the process, Han helped to set a standard for screen fighting in Hollywood that was far ahead of its time.”

Kung Fu Cinema winds up their article with this public service notice: “Martialartsinfo.com has created an online tribute to Bong Soo Han that includes an hour-long video interview and comments from martial arts celebrities including Richard Norton, Simon Rhee, Phillip Rhee, and Cynthia Rothrock.”

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Kung Fu, Cinema, Hapkido, Grandmaster, Bong Soo Han, martial arts, died, Yong Sul Choi, Tom Laughlin, Billy Jack, Hollywood, Richard Norton, Simon Rhee, Phillip Rhee, Cynthia Rothrock

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 6:51 pm and is filed under ODD Guests, Movies & TV, Arts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.