Keith W. Strandberg is an award-winning screenwriter and producer. Strandberg has produced 10 feature films from his screenplays – No Retreat No Surrender (1986) No Retreat No Surrender 2: Raging Thunder (1987) No Retreat No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers (1990), The King of the Kickboxers (1990), American Shaolin (1991), Bloodmoon (1997), SuperFights (1995), WatchUsDie.com (2001) and more.
Strandberg’s scripts have won screenwriting contests (New York Int’l Film Festival: Best Screenplay: “Frontier Honor” Screenplay; Charleston Int’l Film Festival Silver Award: “Frontier Honor” Screenplay, Writer’s Digest Awards for “The Magic of Life” Screenplay) and Strandberg was named “Writer of the Year” and given the “Pinnacle” Award by the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame, and has been inducted into this Hall of Fame and the International Martial Art Halls of Fame.
Keith W. Strandberg has a unique ability to know what works on screen, honed from his experiences being on the set of his movies as first an assistant director, then co-producer and finally producer.
Strandberg began producing after his second screenplay was made into a feature film called “No Retreat No Surrender II.” Strandberg has been one of the most successful martial arts action producers, with 10 profitable movies to his credit, all from his own screenplays.
Inspired by movies such as Five Fingers of Death (1972) and Bruce Lee, Strandberg started studying the martial arts when he was 14 years old, joining an Isshinryu Karate club at St. John’s High School in Toledo, Ohio. The club was run by Brother Wayne Welling, SJ. He received his Black Belt in 1978. He continues to train in the martial arts to this day.
His interest in the martial arts resulted in Keith W. Strandberg studying and receiving his double major BA in Chinese language and literature and Physical Education at Oberlin College in Ohio, with a minor in Oriental Philosophy. Strandberg founded the Oberlin Isshinryu Karate Club while there.
One of Strandberg’s first jobs after graduation was as a tour guide, leading American tourists through China. On one of these trips, Strandberg made contact with Ng See Yuen at Seasonal Films (who started the career of Jackie Chan with Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978) and Drunken Master (1978) in Hong Kong and they started working together with Seasonal’s first U.S. film, No Retreat No Surrender (1985), starring Kurt McKinney and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Over the course of his career, Strandberg has worked with the best martial artists in the world – Keith Vitali, Chuck Jeffreys, Gary Daniels, Matthias Hues, Loren Avedon, Joe Hess, Billy Blanks, pro wrestler Rob Van Dam and many more.
With Keith Vitali and Michael DePasquale, Jr., Strandberg founded the Action Film Academy, where they trained hundreds of actors and fighters to work in film. Strandberg used many of these performers in his own movies and many have gone on to have successful careers in the movies and TV.
After working with Seasonal for many years, Strandberg went back to school, receiving his master of arts degree in film and screenwriting from Antioch University, studying with famous script doctor Linda Seger, the pros at NYU and others, and has taught producing and screenwriting around the world – at Towson University (US), Webster University (Switzerland), Rabbit Hill Writer’s Studio (US), Lancaster Literary Guild (US), America On-Line (worldwide) and more.
Keith W. Strandberg is also an established freelance writer, having written hundreds of articles on a variety of subjects (film, screenwriting, motorcycles, martial arts, watches, law enforcement, defensive tactics and more) for magazines like Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Men’s Vogue, USA Today, The New York Times, the LA Times, the Miami Herald, Oxygen Magazine, Watch Journal, the New York Observer, Fortune Character, the Hong Kong Tattler, Tennis and many more.
Strandberg currently lives in the Geneva, Switzerland area.
Keith W. Strandberg has his own website, illustrating his career and his various projects: www.keithstrandberg.com
