Top and bottom are never very far apart when the capricious Wheel of Fortune spins... By 1969, Bong Soo Han reached rock bottom. An immigrant less than two years removed from his Korean homeland, the Hapkido expert's second consecutive attempt at starting his own dojang had just ended in failure, and further prospects were zero. Optimism and his art were all that he had left when a stranger by the name of Tom Laughlin told him of a vision... A character and movie to be known as Billy Jack.

"I didn't expect it to be that big," says Bong Soo Han when reminded that Billy Jack grossed over $30 million in record-setting engagements everywhere, "but it turned out to be one of the biggest ever." The success was so great, in fact, that Han himself was thrust into prominence by his anonymous role as choreographer and stand-in for the bruising fight scenes. "People didn't know who I was," he recalls, "but all of a sudden, they found out in magazines and the movie, and began to call me."