Students with little interest in becoming action stars can hone other skills (dancing and singing, for instance, or scriptwriting and directing) but the emphasis is on moulding modern-day 'fu fighters' who can kill with a single blow and communicate in the movie world's lingua franca.

'You can't make it in the West if you don't know English,' he declares, speaking at the speed of a spinning shuriken (a sharp metal star used by ninja to fell opponents).

'In the morning, we teach nothing but intensive English; and in the afternoon, there are classes in acting, action, dancing . . .' A dream eight years in the making, the SKI in Castaic, Los Angeles, will test the waters for a sister school in Tokyo, due to open in September 1999. While the US campus has accepted only 20 students aged 18 and above for the first semester, its Japanese counterpart should have more than 200 pupils, some as young as three.

'Children will come after school for a couple of hours of training,' says Kosugi, dismissing criticism about the dangers of forcing youngsters to make career choices before they are ready. 'I don't worry about that because I've pushed my son to do martial arts since he was 1.5 years old.' Kane Kosugi, now 23, had a black belt by the age of four and appeared in Revenge Of The Ninja with his father when he was seven.

He has since been in movies with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jackie Chan, and is featured, again with Kosugi Snr, in Sony Playstation's samurai computer game, Tenchu, released in Asia in February.

Though Kane is following in his father's footsteps, his brother and sister have left the well-laid path: Shane, 22, has put away his fighting vestments and is pursuing a career in computer studies while Ayeesha, 14, wants to be a pro golfer.

Their mainland-born mother, Shook Gim, too, has given up the disciplined world of martial arts (she used to take classes given by her husband and has a brown belt in karate). The two met in a language school when they arrived in the US.

Like many Japanese, Kosugi is far from fluent in English. But unlike his compatriots - many of whom cannot string a sentence together despite their mastery of grammar - he does not hesitate to let words fall from his mouth.

That confidence probably came from having to fend for himself in the US where, he says, 'every day I fight discrimination because I'm yellow.' While few would be stupid enough to mess with Kosugi, who stands 184 centimetres tall, he says he has been the butt of many racist jokes.

'When I was there the first time, I didn't notice [the remarks] because my English wasn't great, but now I can understand how they think and what they are saying,' he sighs.

'In the south, God, you wouldn't believe [the comments they make]. They don't care if you're Japanese or Chinese. They say things like 'Where's your ponytail, Chinaman?'.' Affable and quick to laugh, he bristles when describing the attitude of 'a large majority of Americans'. But in helping Asians break into Hollywood through chop-socky movies, Kosugi may well be re-inforcing a stereotype, an irony that seems to be lost on him.

'For Oriental people, action is the best weapon to be in Hollywood,' he insists, stressing that Asians should capitalise on their culture, the way he did in the 1980s.

Credited with starting the ninja craze in the West by starring in Enter The Ninja (1981) and Revenge Of The Ninja (1983), Kosugi is stuck with the image of a black-clad, fearless killer with amazing fighting abilities. But, he points out, 'I didn't actually make that many ninja films.' Nevertheless, the handful that he starred in opened the door to opportunities, such as his 30-minute weekly TV show, Sho Kosugi's Self Defense And Ninjaerobics, which aired for a year on US cable station ICN in 1996.

Now, with 14 US movies as well as Taiwanese, Japanese and South Korean films under his belt - most of them martial-arts related - he feels he should continue to give the movie-watching world what it wants.

Ever ready to acknowledge the shallowness of most action flicks and eager to point out he can never compete with the likes of fellow countryman and director Akira Kurosawa, he says: 'A majority of people around the world like martial arts.' While 20 per cent of the movie-going public have gone to college and shun such entertainment, 80 per cent are low-brow types who delight in gory action fantasies, according to Kosugi.

He had better be sure of his maths because he has already invested about US$2 million (HK$15.48 million) in his LA school and booked a large number of Hollywood experts as guest lecturers, among them directors Robert Wise (Andromeda Strain and The Sound Of Music) and Gordon Hessler (Scream And Scream Again and Shogun Mayeda, the first film Kosugi produced with financial backing from Japanese investors and starring Christopher Lee and the late Toshiro Mifune).

In 1968, he could not have dreamed he would one day be working with such screen legends. Having flunked his college-entrance exams that year, he moved to the US, where he earned economics degrees from Pasadena City College and California State University.

By 1974, he had won 663 prizes for his prowess in martial arts, which he put to use by opening two karate schools in LA (where he is presently based, although he zips back and forth to Tokyo).

Although his exploits left him with numerous injuries, including a broken shoulder, dislocated heel and mangled toes, he did not have the fame he coveted. But then he began working as an extra in movies (he was in The Godfather, Part II ) and won small roles, such as in The Bad News Bears Go To Japan.

Since making a name in the ninja movies produced by Menahem Golan (with whom he had a falling out over the absurd storyline of Ninja III - The Domination ), he has starred alongside other celebrities, such as Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury and Van Damme in Black Eagle.

But the 'Muscles from Brussels' will not be invited to share his movie-making experience with Kosugi's 20 new students, selected from 200 applicants.

'I don't want people who deal in drugs; I don't want the wrong people,' he says, referring to Van Damme's cocaine habit, which landed him in a rehabilitation clinic in 1996. 'He does not have a great personality for a human being.' At least for now, the last thing the students will want to do is spoil their chances of success, especially as the fees at the LA campus - which is affiliated with an English-language school and Osaka Sangyo University - cost $30,000 to $40,000 a year, dormitory-style boarding included.

'I advertised in Japan and Korea, and gradually I'm going to put ads all over the world,' he says. Of the students starting school in September, 15 are male and the large majority Japanese.

But Kosugi wants students from Hong Kong as well as other parts of Asia, and appears defiant in the face of the region's financial woes.

He does not seem chastened by the flagging interest in action flicks in this part of the world either.

'Believe me, a lot of people want to be movie stars,' he says. 'But to be a movie star you need English skills. And you have to have something they [Westerners] don't have.' Predicting it will take a while to produce another Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan - five years at least - he adds, 'martial arts makes it easy for us to become famous. You don't have to speak English perfectly because action is something everybody understands.'