Hwang Jeong-ri

Hwang Jeong-ri was a South Korean martial artist and actor who became one of the most recognisable villains of the golden age of Hong Kong martial arts cinema, best known for his kicking duels with Jackie Chan. <cite index="2-1">Hwang Jang Lee, the Korean taekwondo master known as the 'King of Kicks' for his villain roles in Hong Kong classics like 'Drunken Master,' has died at 81.</cite>

<cite index="6-5">Hwang was born in 1944 to Korean parents on December 21 at Aomori Prefecture on Honshu Island in Japan, and began martial arts at the age of 14, and held a ninth dan rank with the World Tang Soo Do General Federation.</cite> Other sources give his birthplace as Osaka, and the exact city is not firmly settled in the record. <cite index="5-5,5-6">He was a ninth-dan grandmaster in Tang Soo Do and Taekwondo who began training in 1957. Hwang was a martial arts instructor for the Korean military in Vietnam.</cite> He later worked as a taekwondo instructor before turning to film.

<cite index="2-9">Born in 1944, Hwang Jang Lee was a taekwondo instructor before making his film debut in 1974. He then moved into the Hong Kong film industry and made his name with 1976's Secret Rivals.</cite> His defining screen moments came in 1978, when <cite index="2-8">he played the villains opposite Jackie Chan in Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master, where his dazzling kicks as the assassin Thunderleg left a lasting impression.</cite> He went on to appear in hundreds of martial arts films over the following decades. <cite index="3-9">Other select credits include Magnificent Warriors and No Retreat No Surrender 2: Raging Thunder for which he also trained actor and bodybuilder Matthias Hues for his role as the villain, as well as Where's Officer Tuba, The Invincible Armour, and Game Of Death II.</cite>

He did not confine his later career to acting. <cite index="2-10">In Korea, he took part in the dramas Sandglass and The Return of Iljimae as a martial arts director and actor.</cite> He continued to serve as president of the martial arts federation that carried his name, working to promote Korean taekwondo internationally, and he published a memoir looking back on his life in martial arts in 2024.

Hwang Jeong-ri is not related to the South Korean actor Hwang In-yeop, despite the similarity of surname that leads some searchers to ask about a family connection between the two; they belonged to different generations of Korean entertainment with no documented family tie. Hwang did have a real younger brother, Hwang Choon-soo, who was also a martial arts film actor and who predeceased him; <cite index="4-2">he was the older brother of fellow Korean martial arts actor Hwang Choon-soo.</cite>

Hwang collapsed at home on the morning of 12 November 2026 and was taken to Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, where he could not be revived. <cite index="3-2">News of Hwang's death was announced on Thursday by Alessandro Jinyong Kim, Hwang's PR representative.</cite> The exact medical cause of his collapse has not been made public.