Steven Segal is a 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 seven under the tutelage of well known karate instructor and author Fumio Demura, and in the 1960s commenced his aikido training in Orange County, California, 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. The high-octane action movie genre was in full swing in the late 1980s, and Seagal's debut movie, Above the Law (1988), was wildly received by action fans and actually received some complimentary critical reviews. He followed up Above the Law (1988) with another slam-bang thriller, Hard to Kill (1990), as a gunned-down cop who revives from a coma to strike back at the mob. The movie also starred Seagal's wife at the time, leggy Kelly LeBrock, who was married to him from 1987 to 1996 and is the mother of three of his children. His next outing was battling voodoo-using Jamaican drug "posses" in the hyper-violent Marked for Death (1990), 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, the big-budgeted Under Siege (1992), set aboard the battleship USS Missouri and also starring Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey, was arguably his best film to date, impressing both fans and critcs alike.

Seagal's fighting style was rather different from that of other on-screen martial arts dynamos, 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 opponent's inertia and body weight to employ various locks, chokes and holds that incapacitate him. Seagal carries himself differently, too, and often appears wearing Italian designer clothes and usually favors 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 reveal themselves to be deadly ex-CIA operatives, or retired Special Forces soldiers capable of wholesale destruction!


Bonebreaking Montage of Steven Seagal

As his box office drawing power grew, Seagal began to influence his film projects to reflect his personal and 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 Virginia coal mines, and in the slow-moving The Patriot (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 chopsocky projects followed with the "buddy cop" film The Glimmer Man (1996), then almost a cameo role as a Navy SEAL alongside 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 projects with the surprising genteel Prince of Central Park (2000), about a child living inside NYC's most famous park. He 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 and meditating this ancient Eastern religion.

While his box-office appeal has somewhat declined from his halcyon blockbusters of the mid-'90s, Seagal still has a very loyal fan base in the action movie genre and continues to remain a highly bankable star.

Video: Steven Seagal's Aikido Demo



Movies with Steven Seagal

Ruslan (2008) - Ruslan Drachev
Kill Switch (2008) - Det. Jacob King
Pistol Whipped (2008) - Matt
The Onion Movie (2008) - Cock Puncher
Urban Justice (2007) - Simon Ballister
Flight of Fury (2007) - John Sands
Attack Force (2006) - Cmdr. Marshall Lawson
Shadow Man (2006) - Jack Foster
Mercenary for Justice (2006) - John Seeger
Black Dawn (2005) - Jonathan Cold
Today You Die (2005) - Harlan Banks
Submerged (2005) - Chris Cody
Into the Sun (2005) - Travis Hunter
Out of Reach (2004) - William Lansing
Clementine (2004) - Jack Miller
Belly of the Beast (2003) - Jake Hopper
Out for a Kill (2003) - Prof. Robert Burns
The Foreigner (2003) - Jonathan Cold
Half Past Dead (2002) - Sasha Petrosevitch
Ticker (2001) - Frank Glass
Exit Wounds (2001) - Orin Boyd
The Patriot (1998) - Dr. Wesley McClaren
Fire Down Below (1997) - Jack Taggart
The Glimmer Man (1996) - Lt. Jack Cole
Executive Decision (1996) - Lt. Colonel Austin Travis
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995) - Casey Ryback
On Deadly Ground (1994) - Forrest Taft
Under Siege (1992) - Casey Ryback
Out for Justice (1991) - Det. Gino Felino
Marked for Death (1990) - John Hatcher
Hard to Kill (1990) - Mason Storm
Above the Law / Nico (1988) - Nico Toscani