Akshay Kumar Awards 2012 - respected in martial arts
Akshay Kumar, star of Chandani Chowk to China and dozens of other high-profile action movies in India, has been honored by the local martial arts community by receiving a ceremonial katana and six-degree black belt in karate.
“This day has been a longstanding dream. Karate, along with my father, has made me what I am today. Goju Ryu karate has been the longest love of my life.”
He plans to give back to the art that helped him become a Bollywood action icon.
“I came into the film industry knowing only martial arts. Now I am doing as much as I can in return.”
“I wanted to start my own school long ago but never got a decent site. I need about three or four acres for the project.”
He is still relatively unknown in the West despite the recent international release of his latest film, Chandani Chowk to China which Sony Pictures released in the U.S. earlier this year.
The handsome 42-year-old star has been a leading action star in India for nearly 20 years, despite broadening into other genres of late.
Having entered the industry with previous experience as a karate instructor, he became known for performing his own daring stunts, most notably in the Khiladi film series where he had a reoccurring role as a James Bond-styled action hero.
He has already starred in three other films this year and has at least four on the way including the sci-fi romantic comedy Action Replay, where he plays an elderly man who travels backwards in time to his younger years in the 1970s.
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