Julian Jung Lee did not imagine being a movie star when he was growing up in South Korea. He began his martial arts training very young in order to overcome shyness. But he excelled at the craft and was the Korean Junior National Champion at the age of 13 and rose to be Korean National Tae Kwon Do Light Fin Weight Champion.

Between the discovery of Julian's physical and mental prowess in martial arts and the present lies a story of dedication and determination that has inspired everyone fortunate enough to be in the company of his boundless enthusiasm, persistence, and his commitment to doing the best job possible under any circumstances.

Today, he is a renowned Taekwondo master living in Colorado with 7 motion picture roles to his credit, 5 of them starring roles. Julian recently completed the feature film, Dancing Bear, and he has several films in development with different production companies. Julian is also working on financing of his own production company to produce two new features: Fortune and Glory and Straight Blast.

Lee had his first experience before the camera during production of martial arts training videos. For Multi Vision, Inc. 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 Jung Lee worked as executive producer on Iron Heart with director Robert Clouse (Enter the Dragon) for Imperial Entertainment. Imperial 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.

Lee 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 independent filmmaker Frederic Lahey and 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. Tiger Street has been distributed internationally and played on pay-per-view. It is showing on Showtime Extreme in the U.S. in 2002 through January 2005. Distribution of Tiger Street is being handled by Ryerson Enterprises/Monet Entertainment.

The drug lord in Tiger Street was played by Denver martial artist and musician, Christophe Clark, who had also appeared in My Samurai. Clark 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 year until production coordinator, David "Jeepers" Skaggs, (Tiger Street) talked the Rocky Mountain region's leading independent filmmaker and entrepreneur, Trygve Lode, into coming on board as executive producer in early 1999.

Dragon and the Hawk premiered at the 2000-seat Historic Paramount Theatre on March 9th, 2000, playing to a packed house for the black-tie event. Dragon and the Hawk had a limited theatrical release in Colorado in 2000 and is now available on VHS and DVD. ( Buy the DVD from Amazon.com) The soundtrack album has been released on the Inferno Music label, and is available through Amazon.Com. Dragon and the Hawk screened at the American Film Market in Santa Monica, California in February 2003 and the Midwest Entertainment Industry Coference at Lexington, Kentucky in November 2003. It is also being distributed on video in Thailand.

In early 2002, Julian was contact by director Fred Dresch (My Samurai) for the role of a shopkeeper in Kudzu Christmas which was shot in Georgia in the spring. Kudzu Christmas has been picked up for DVD distribution by Ventura Distribution and is available on Amazon.com.

Julian's next movie was Little Bear and the Master (aka Dancing Bear), developed with Fred Dresch and Peter Garrity. Little Bear and the Master was shot in western Colorado and parts of Utah in 2002 and 2003. In Little Bear and the Master Julian Lee worked with stunt co-ordinator Victor Quintero who is well known for his work with Chuck Norris.

Julian Lee's Internet Database listing: