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A Few Stars Karate Movies Have Due to the World
Before the 1970's karate movies were only really popular in Asia, where that they had been created for years, but that changed if your world met Bruce Lee. Enter The Dragon, which has been released in 1973, produced a superstar out of Lee posthumously, however the true star that was introduced was martial arts.
The genre took the entire world by storm, and travelling to the globe a new form of actor. These actors was without thespian training just as much as martial arts, and so instead of delivering a line, they might perform fly kick from the air.
While most of martial arts action star movies like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Stephen Chow, Jet Li and Sammo Hung are of Asian descent, there have been a number of from America and Europe who used the genre to acquire famous.
Chuck Norris, a kickboxing champion, had appeared at the begining of Bruce Lee films, but also in the late seventies and early eighties he was a superstar, owing to American karate movies. Today he is still children name, due to his Show on tv, Walker Texas Ranger.
Jean-Claude Van Damme rose to fame with films like Bloodsport and Kickboxer, and at one stage was competing with some of the blockbuster action stars like Schwarzenegger and Stallone. This Belgian world champion though never quite maintained this popularity and because of the late nineties his movies were hardly purchased by cinema distributors.
Steven Seagal rose to fame in films like Under Siege. Physically imposing, attractive a brief brush with superstardom within the nineties, nevertheless it didn't last for very long, and soon his movies were more readily found on DVD than at cinemas.
Though never quite rising out of B movie stardom, Cynthia Rothrock may be long considered the premier female karate star. She's appeared in dozens of action movies, with many along with the China O'Brien films being her best.
This individual be a little more familiar to audiences now since the host of Iron Chef, but Mark Dacascos is another who rose to stardom through martial arts. His father would have been a martial arts instructor and that it was in movies like The Strong, Crying Freeman and Double Dragon that he was initially noticed.
Even Julia Roberts' brother, Eric Roberts, had his brightest moment in the martial arts film. He was the star of the particular popular film, The top of The perfect, and its sequel.
There's lots of action film stars who never quite help it become into mainstream cinema, but they are respected inside the martial arts world including performers like Gary Hudson, Loren Avedon, Don The Dragon Wilson and Billy Blanks. Billy Blanks is of course more famous for his Tae-bo exercise regime than any movie he ever appeared in.
You will discover of course a few stars who may have were only available in karate movies, and used them as being a stepping-stone to the much brighter career. One good example of this is Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank, who many may remember when the girl who succeeded Ralph Macchio in the Karate Kid movies.