Tan Tao-liang

Tan was born on December 22, 1947, in Busan, South Korea. He is a Chinese Korean, aka hwagyo, whose parents fled mainland China after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out. At age 7, Tan began studying martial arts including taekwondo, judo, hapkido and kung fu. Of these styles, he favored taekwondo as it "allowed full-contact sparring and competition." In an interview, he said he liked high kicks because in taekwondo scoring, a kick to the head is worth two points. Tan won many championships including a world title. At age 23, Tan began teaching taekwondo at the National Taiwan University. He went on to teach action star John Liu. ==Career==

In 1973, Tan was noticed by filmmakers and got offered a role in the film The Hero of Chiu Chow. Afterward, he continued to star in action films while spending most of his time teaching martial arts. 1976 was when Tan achieved breakthrough success by starring in John Woo's Hand of Death, which also featured early performances by Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. After completing Last Breath in 1984, Tan retired from acting and moved to Monterey Park, California, where he opened a taekwondo school in 1987 under the name Delon Tan. ==Filmography==