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Roger yuan4/2/2023 ![]() I do think part of why I’ve done so well in the film industry is that I’ve trained myself to become a very good mimic. I would try to mimic things that I saw some of my friends do. I even read the “ Tao of Jeet Kune Do” by Bruce Lee about which I had no true understanding at that age, but I would study the diagrams and try to understand the philosophy of what he was trying to say.īetween watching films, reading magazines – sometimes stealing magazines (at 8-12 years-old) when I didn’t have money – I found a way of trying to inter-collate all the different movements from western boxing to traditional karate, to some kung fu, to taekwondo. ![]() When I had money I would buy issues of “Inside Kung Fu” and “Karate Illustrated” and martial arts magazines. It wasn’t until I was 17 that I actually got into my first formal class learning Kyokushin karate, and I was starting to pay for them myself. When I was in junior high, and even up to a certain point in high school, I was very shy but I would go out of my way to overcome that shyness and befriend other kids that I knew who studied martial arts, and ask them to show me their styles. Roger as triad boss Huang in John Wick 3 Playing Duba Tegin in Mulan Cameo in Outlaw Johnny Black On the weekend I would go to New York Chinatown movie theaters and watch kung fu films, so I could actually see and try to mimic the movements that way. I was always training myself, checking out books from the library on karate and judo, studying the photographs. So how did you go about getting martial arts training?įrom around 5 to 17 I had no formal martial arts training. Self-Training with Books from the Library & Kung Fu Films in Chinatown It was this weird situation and so I knew from an early age that I had to, in terms of learning martial arts, do it on my own. Then my mom took their call from Taiwan telling her not to let me play baseball, because some kid in Taiwan got beaten in the head and basically went into a coma and died. I tried out for little league baseball at about eight or nine years-old, and apparently I did really well. I had often heard them complaining about money and financial difficulties, so I never actually pressed them about going to a karate class, or a kung fu school.Īlso my grandparents – my father’s parents – were very domineering over the whole family, and because I was the oldest grandchild they wouldn’t let me do anything. Because I didn’t meet them till I was four, I was very shy of putting any kind of pressure on them. Since then I wanted to learn martial arts but at the time my parents were starving students, and ever since they came to the US they were always struggling to make their way. At that time, there really wasn’t much in terms of Asian actors on television yet here’s this guy – Bruce Lee. It had this Asian guy doing martial arts and that for me was something that I clung to as a role model, and to build up my own confidence. They had a one bedroom apartment in New York City and by age five, I was jumping from my parent’s bed to my bed doing these jumping, flying sidekicks! The Influence of Bruce LeeĪt that point I had seen this TV show called “The Green Hornet”. I didn’t get back to the US until I was around four years-old, so I met my parents at age four. I was born in the US, but after a few months, because my parents were in college in Southern Illinois, I was sent back to Taiwan to live with my grandparents. NYC: Jumping Sidekicks off the Bed at 5 Years-Old!
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