Jung Doo-hong | |
---|---|
Born |
Chilsan-ri, Imcheon-myeon, Buyeo County, South Chungcheong Province, South Korea |
December 14, 1966
Education | Incheon Junior College - Physical Education |
Occupation | Action director Martial arts choreographer Stunt coordinator Actor |
Years active | 1989–present |
Spouse(s) | Nadya Hutagalung (1998; divorced) |
Korean name | |
Hangul | 정두홍 |
Hanja | 鄭斗洪 |
Revised Romanization | Jeong Du-hong |
McCune–Reischauer | Chŏng Tu-hong |
Jung Doo-hong (born December 14, 1966) 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. As a child, he was small for his age and had an unusually shy and introspective personality. But his life changed dramatically when a private Taekwondo institute opened near his high school when he was a freshman student. Jung became engrossed in the traditional Korean martial art, practicing taekwondo every day. Because he was so poor, he could not afford to pay his training fees, but the master of the institute, Lee Gak-soo, taught him taekwondo for free because he recognized Jung's passion and talent.
In 1985, he entered Incheon Junior College as an athletics/physical education major. He was also 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. During his mandatory military service, he served as a martial arts trainer of a frontline elite unit, followed by a brief stint as a bodyguard for a parliamentarian after his discharge from the military.
A friend on his bodyguard team recommended Jung as a stuntman. But in 1990, the compensation and benefits that Korean stuntmen received were meager at best, and Jung was hired only to carry heavy equipment for the stunt acting team on a direct-to-video film he applied for. Deeply disappointed, he temporarily quit stunt work; instead, every day he underwent intensive exercise at Boramae Park to improve his physical strength, and continued learning various martial arts such as aikido, hapkido, kickboxing and fencing under Kim Young-mo at a nearby training center from 11 p.m. until dawn. Three months later, he was hired as a stuntman for actor Lee Il-jae on Im Kwon-taek's hit movie General's Son (1990).