Tall, striking and somewhat boyishly handsome looking (often with ponytail), and usually impeccably dressed action star who burst onto the martial arts film scene in 1988 in the fast paced Warner Bros. production "Above The Law (1988)". The enigmatic Seagal commenced his martial arts training at the age of 7, under well known karate instructor and author Fumio Demura and in the 1960s commenced his ...
show all Tall, striking and somewhat boyishly handsome looking (often with ponytail), and usually impeccably dressed action star who burst onto the martial arts film scene in 1988 in the fast paced Warner Bros. production "Above The Law (1988)". The enigmatic Seagal commenced his martial arts training at the age of 7, under well known karate instructor and author Fumio Demura and in the 1960s commenced his aikido training in Orange County under the instruction of Harry Ishisaka. Seagal received his first dan accreditation in 1974, after he had moved to Japan to further his martial arts training. After spending many years there honing his skills, he achieved the ranking of a 7th dan in the Japanese martial art "aikido" and was instructing wealthy clients in Los Angeles when he came to the attention of Hollywood power broker Michael Ovitz.
Ovitz saw star value in the imposing looking Seagal, plus the high octane action movie genre was in full swing in the late 1980s and Seagal's debut movie was wildly received by action fans! Seagal followed up "Above the Law (1988)" with another slam bang thriller in "Hard to Kill (1990)" as a gunned down cop who revives from a coma to strike back at the mob. The movie also starred leggy Kelly LeBrock who would wind up married to Seagal from 1987 to 1996, and mother to three of his children. His next outing was battling voodoo wielding, Jamaican drug gangs in the hyper violent _Marked For Death (1991)_ , before returning to fight psychotic mob gangster William Forsythe in the even more punishing "Out for Justice (1991)". Seagal was by now enormously popular, and his next movie, "Under Siege (1992)" set aboard the battleship USS Missouri, and additionally starring Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey was arguably his best film to date!
Seagal's fighting style was rather different from that of other on screen martial arts dynamo's such as Bruce Lee , Chuck Norris and 'Jean Claude van Damme' who were predominantly fighters from striking arts background such as karate or tang soo do. However, aikido is built around using an opponents inertia and bodyweight to employ various locks, chokes & holds that incapacitate them. Seagal carries himself differently too, and often appears wearing Italian designer clothes and he usually favours an all black outfit, generally with a three quarter length coat with an elaborate trim. Additionally, Seagal's on screen characters were often seemingly benign or timid individuals, however when the going gets rough they then reveal themselves to be deadly ex-CIA operatives, or retired Special Forces soldiers capable of wholesale destruction!
With his box office drawing power, Seagal then began to influence his film projects to reflect his personal & spiritual beliefs, especially concerning the abuse of the environment. He appeared as an oil fire expert who turns against his corrupt CEO (played by Michael Caine ) in "On Deadly Ground (1994)" to save the Eskimo population from an oil disaster, in "Fire Down Below (1997)" he plays an environmental agency troubleshooter investigating the dumping of toxic waste in Virginian coal mines, and in the slow moving "Patriot, The (1998/I)" he plays a medical specialist trying to stop a lethal virus unleashed by an extremist group.
Action fans struggled to come to terms with social messaging being built into bone crunching fight films, however Seagal's box office clout remained fairly strong, and more traditional chop socky projects followed with the "buddy cop" film "The Glimmer Man (1996)", then almost a cameo role as a Navy Seal alongide CIA analyst Kurt Russell , before Seagal is sucked out of a jet at 35,000 feet in "Executive Decision (1996)".
In 1999, Seagal took a different turn in his film production with the surprising genteel "Prince of Central Park (2000)" about a young child living inside NYC's most famous park. He then returned to more familiar territory with further high voltage guns blazing action in "Exit Wounds (2001)", "Half Past Dead (2002)", "Out for a Kill (2003)" and "Belly of the Beast (2003)".
Unbeknownst to many, in 1997 Seagal publicly announced that one of his Buddhist teachers, His Holiness, Penor Rinpoche had accorded Seagal as a tulku, the reincarnation of a Buddhist Lama. This initial announcement was met with some disbelief, until Penor Rinpoche himself gave a confirmation statement on Seagal's new title. Seagal has repeatedly discussed his involvement in Buddhism and how he devotes many hours studying & meditating this ancient Eastern art.
Whilst his fan appeal has somewhat declined from his halcyon blockbusters of the mid 1990s, Seagal still has a very loyal fan base in the action movie genre and continues to remain a highly bankable star.
hide 
