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Art Camacho is one of only a handful of Latin
film directors in Hollywood today. He began his career as an actor and
performing fight action sequences in several martial arts action films. After
having appeared in several films, he went on to choreograph the fight action in
films and distinguished himself as one of the top action choreographers in films
today with over 50 films and television shows to his credit. He has worked with
some of the top martial arts talents around including Steven Seagal, Cynthia
Rothrock, Benny Urquidez, Michael Dudikoff, Gary Daniels, and was Don “The
Dragon” Wilson’s fight choreographer for many years. Most recently Camacho
traveled to Germany where he spent 11 weeks working as the action coordinator on
Steven Seagal’s latest film, Half Past Dead for Sony Pictures. Camacho was
able to incorporate Seagal’s powerfully fluid Aikido techniques with the more
flamboyant Chinese choreography working closely with Hong Kong’s master action
choreographer Xin Xin Xiong. He also choreographed and trained rapper Ja Rule
for a climactic fight in the film. The feature incorporates much “wire work”
so prevalent in today’s Hong Kong style action films. Camacho also directed
some second unit on the film and had an acting part as well.
He began his martial arts training in Karate
but gravitated towards kung ku. On his way to getting his black belt under kung
ku great Eric Lee, he trained in various other methods of martial arts including
Kung Fu San Soo, Jeet Kune Do and he was also an amateur boxer.
Camacho was then given the opportunity to
direct feature films by a leading independent Production company, PM
Entertainment, and found himself as one of the "Promising directors in the
action film genre" according to Premier magazine. Camacho's most current
works include producing, writing and directing the feature film Final Payback,
starring Richard Grieco, John Saxon, Corbin Bernsen and Martin Kove. Camacho
also just finished directing Redemption starring Don Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock,
James Russo and Chris Penn, and Gangland Featuring Ice T, Coolio, Costas
Mandylor, and Sasha Mitchell. Camacho has become one of only a handful of
martial artists to make the transition from martial arts action films to
mainstream features.
His beginnings were very humble. He grew up in
a rough barrio in South East Los Angeles. Being in a rough area he gravitated to
the martial arts to survive. Camacho took to cinema to get away from the street
gangs while most of his homeboys stayed there. Very early on he wanted to work
in motion pictures but didn't know where to start; being Mexican, short and
obese didn't help matters any.
In his late teens Camacho began a strict
regimen of martial arts, weight training and dieting. He not only lost a lot of
weight but he boosted his self esteem as well. Having dropped out of high school
at 16, he went back and earned his G.E.D. Camacho worked at numerous odd jobs to
make ends meet while taking college courses. He soon found himself working at a
Spanish language advertising agency where he was exposed to television
commercials.
He started out as a production assistant. In
less than a year he worked his way up to producer, director, writer and
occasional actor in Spanish language commercials. Shortly thereafter, he opened
his own Spanish language marketing firm. He went on to garner praise and awards
for his outstanding contributions to the Spanish entertainment industry. After
having produced and directed numerous Spanish language commercials, he made the
transition to work in feature films.
Camacho began as an actor working in local
theater productions and bit parts on television shows. He then landed leads in a
few independent feature films. These films not only featured his acting skills,
but his martial arts prowess as well. Shortly thereafter he found steady
employment as a screen fighter then became world renowned for his fight
choreography and fight directing. He was soon dubbed "The Fight
master" by the leading Martial Arts magazines.
No sooner had he made the transition to
directing features that he took on the daunting task of directing two children's
feature films back to back. The films Little Bigfoot and its sequel The Journey
Home proved that Camacho had a very good touch with combining drama and comedy.
The Journey Home starred Tom Bosley, Taran Noah Smith (Home Improvement),
Michael Fishman (Roseanne) and Stephen Furst of Babylon 5. Little Bigfoot went
on to become the third highest grossing video for Republic pictures and garnered
two stars in TV Guide.
Camacho then jumped right back into the action
genre directing Recoil, an action film that boasts the longest car chase in
independent film history. He also co-produced and directed the suspense thriller
Point Doom starring Richard Grieco, Andrew "Dice" Clay and supermodel
Angie Everhart.
To date, Camacho has produced and directed
several feature films and episodes of LA Heat; a buddy cop action series and
Reyes y Rey, a Spanish language series for Sony Pictures/Stu Segal Productions.
His first feature, The Power Within garnered rave reviews from the international
martial arts community and was extremely lucrative in the foreign and domestic
independent feature film markets. It also received high ratings in the leading
home video guides.
Camacho has been featured in numerous
international magazines throughout the world including Black Belt magazine,
Inside Kung Fu, Karate International, and Cinturon Negro. He has also been in
cover stories on Masters and Styles, Secrets of the Masters. He had a cover
story in England's Martial Arts Illustrated which sold out in record time. He
has also been included in both the Who’s Who in Entertainment and the
Encyclopedia of Martial Arts. L.A.'s largest Spanish Language Newspaper La
Opinion did a cover story on him in their entertainment section. He was also
featured on the TV Programs Hola Los Angeles; an exclusive interview for Cinemax
hosted by Sharie Belafonte and Mexico's channel 12. Univision's Despierta
America and CONTROL did segments that highlighted Camacho's film appearances and
featured one of his spectacular dynamic martial arts demonstrations.
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