Mark Dacascos

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Mark Dacascos promo photo

Mark Dacascos (born February 26, 1964, Honolulu, Hawaii) is an actor and martial arts expert, winning numerous karate and kung fu championships between the age of 9 and 18 [1]. He has been featured in many action films such as Only The Strong, Double Dragon, Crying Freeman and Cradle 2 the Grave.

He has also appeared in the short-lived television series The Crow: Stairway to Heaven which was a follow-up to the 1994 film The Crow.

His father, Al Dacascos, is a Filipino martial arts instructor of Malay, Spanish, and Chinese ancestry. His mother, Moriko McVey, is of Irish and Japanese ancestry. Dacascos refers to McVey as his "natural mother" and his stepmother, martial artist Malia Bernal, as his "second mother."

Beginning in January 2005, Dacascos has portrayed "the Chairman" on Food Network's Iron Chef America. This role was previously played by Takeshi Kaga in the original Japanese Iron Chef. IMDb previously incorrectly stated that Takeshi Kaga is his uncle on his mother's side. This likely stems from confusion over Dacascos playing the character of the nephew of "Chairman Kaga" in Iron Chef America. The misunderstanding most likely arose due to the fact that "Chairman Kaga" himself is a fictional character, and hence the stated relationship is actually between the two fictional characters. IMDb has since amended their information to correct this inaccuracy.

Dacascos became an actor after being discovered walking down the street in San Francisco's Chinatown by two men working for director Wayne Wang. Though Dacascos' first scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, he has gone on to establish a film and television career mostly playing martial artists.

He is married to actress Julie Condra.

[edit] Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
1990	Angel Town	Stoner Driver
1991	Dead On The Money		TV
1992	American Samurai	Kenjiro
1993	Only The Strong	Louis Stevens
1993	Roosters	Filipino's Son
1994	Dragstrip Girl	Johnny	TV
1994	Double Dragon	Jimmy Lee
1995	Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom	2nd Lt. Troy Catscratch Carter	Video Game
1995	Deadly Past	Leo
1995	Kickboxer 5	Matt Reeves	TV
1995	Crying Freeman	Yo Hinomura/Freeman
1996	The Island of Dr. Moreau	Lo-Mai
1996	Sabotage	Michael Bishop
1997	Sanctuary	Luke Kovak
1997	DNA	Dr. Ash Mattley
1997	Drive	Toby Wong
1997	Deathline / Redline	Merrick
1998	Boogie Boy	Jesse
1998	The Crow: Stairway to Heaven	Eric Draven	TV Series
1998	No Code Of Conduct	Paul DeLucca
1999	The Base	Maj. John Murphy/Cpl. John Dalton
2000	Lei ting zhan jing / China Strike Force	Tony Lau
2001	Le Pacte des loups / Brotherhood of the Wolf	Mani
2001	Instinct To Kill / The Perfect Husband	J.T. Dillon
2002	Scorcher	Ryan Beckett
2003	Cradle 2 the Grave	Ling
2004	Nomad	Sharish
2005	Solar Strike	Lucas Foster	TV
2005	Iron Chef America	Chairman Mark	TV
2005	Only The Brave	Steve Zaki Senzaki
2006	Junior Pilot	Kato
2006	The Hunt For Eagle One	Lt. Matt Daniels
2006	The Cleaner
2006	Alien Agent	Alien Agent