14 Facts About Jung Doo-hong

Jung Doo-hong is a South Korean action director, martial arts choreographer, stunt coordinator, and actor.

Jung Doo-hong was born in 1966 in Chilsan-ri, Imcheon-myeon, Buyeo County, South Chungcheong Province, the youngest of seven siblings.

Jung Doo-hong's life changed dramatically when a private Taekwondo institute opened near his high school when he was a freshman student, and he became engrossed in the traditional Korean martial art, practicing taekwondo every day.

Jung Doo-hong was selected as a member of a performing team that promoted taekwondo and Korean culture around the world, and spent much of his college years overseas, teaching taekwondo in the United States, Japan and Mexico.

Jung Doo-hong quickly rose up the ranks to become the action director on the 1992 film Sirasoni, making him, at age 25, the youngest to hold that job in Korean film history.

Jung Doo-hong was responsible for designing the street shooting in Shiri, the wrestling in The Foul King, the western spectacle in The Good, the Bad, the Weird, and the hand-to-hand combat and wire work in The Berlin File.

Constantly innovating, Jung Doo-hong is the acknowledged creator of "Koreanized" action, the rough-and-realistic Korean style of action and fight choreography.

Jung Doo-hong jointly established the facility with four of his younger colleagues with the aim of producing and nurturing martial arts directors and stuntmen.

Jung Doo-hong has spoken with candor about the difficulties of maintaining a stunt company in a country that he believes does not appreciate the action genre at all, but he is glad that young prospective actors at the Seoul Action School now seem to be proud to get into the action genre.

Jung Doo-hong continues to be an advocate for safe working conditions and adequate compensation for stuntmen in Korea.

Besides Korean cinema, Jung Doo-hong was the action director for the 2002 Japanese film Seoul by Masahiko Nagasawa, and the 2007 Russian blockbuster Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan by Sergei Bodrov.

Jung Doo-hong, who has appeared onscreen in minor and supporting parts throughout his career, has had his most significant acting roles in Ryoo's movies, particularly as the villain in action-comedy-fantasy Arahan.

In 2005 Jung Doo-hong made his debut as a professional boxer in the welterweight division.

Jung Doo-hong married Indonesian-Australian model and former MTV Asia VJ Nadya Hutagalung in 1998, but the union ended within a year; Hutagalung later said the marriage wasn't officially registered.