One year after "Dragon and the Hawk" began production, we finally had a set of 35mm prints in hand--Darlene Cypser, the producer, is shown here sitting precariously on the edge of the balcony with two of the reels that she'd brought back from LA only the day before.

We hadn't planned to be this close to the wire, but details like FotoKem's equipment self-destructing in the middle of reel two slowed things down and we'd gotten this print in with hardly any time to spare before the gala premiere.

If you think the Historic Paramount Theater (located just off the the 16th Street Mall in Downtown Denver) looks impressive from the outside, just wait until you get to see the interior. If you haven't been there before, it's worth it to get there before they start to dim the house lights, just to take a look around.

The balcony alone seats over five hundred, and the lower level about three times that. Millions of people have watched movies, concerts, and special events here since the Paramount opened its doors back in 1929. Since then, it's become a national landmark listed in the National Register of Historic Places, combining historic style and atmosphere with modern high-end projection and sound equipment including a pair of Cinemacancia 35/70 mm carbon arc projectors.

That was the place for the premiere of Dragon and the Hawk and the beginning of its theatrical run, which kicked off on March 10th, 2000.

These tickets were for the 9th, which had been set aside for the cast, crew, and two thousand of their closest friends.

Don't laugh--well before a date had even been set, we were already deluged with requests for tickets from nearly everybody in the Colorado film industry, so even a couple of thousand seats weren't a lot to go around.

The 2000-seat Historic Paramount Theater was packed that night; almost all the cast members were able to make it and everybody looked great. Jennifer Kahler, for example, seemed to have healed up really well after being murdered in scene #1.

Nothing like a movie premiere to boost the limosine-based sector of the economy; Barbara Gehring and friends are shown getting a look at the rest of us as they arrive.

And they said it couldn't be done...yes, we got Mark into a tux for the premiere; of course, odds are that he managed to sneak as many gadgets into his waistcoat as James West had in the "Wild, Wild West" series....

Julian, of course, was dressed all in black for the event--once in a while during the movie, were were able to get him to put on something besides black, but it wasn't easy. The bad guys (myself included) were also clad in black, as is traditional for us evildoers and our minions, but fortunately it's still possible to tell us apart.

Through the initial run of Dragon and the Hawk, we scheduled a series of special showings, including several benefit performances and, as shown here, an exhibition bout by the first ever US Olympic Tae Kwon Do team just before the show.

Besides his work in action films, Julian Lee was a member of the organizing committee for the 14th U.S. National Tae Kwon Championship Seoul Olympic (exhibition) Tryouts in 1988. In 1989 he was special assistant to the International Olympic Committee for the IOC 95th session in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Lee was also appointed Director of the U.S. National Tae Kwon Do Olympic Team in 1989 by the U.S. Tae Kwon Do Union, and took his team to the 9th World Tae Kwon Do Championships in Soeul, Korea, where they won 2nd place overall out of 70 countries competing.

Lee was Director of the Korean All Star Tae Kwon Do team in 1995 and was one of the tae kwon do masters instrumental in getting tae kwon do accepted as a medaled Olympic sport in the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

In appreciation of Julian Lee's long-time efforts to get Tae Kwon Do recognized by the International Olympics Committee, the first-ever United States Olympic Tae Kwon Do team took a break from training to come up from the Olympic Training Facility in Colorado Springs for an on-stage demonstration and exhibition bout before a special showing of Dragon and the Hawk at the 2100-seat Historic Paramount Theater in Downtown Denver.