Last year, Hung and his wife Mina, a former Miss Hong Kong, moved to Los Angeles, where Hung hoped to direct. He didn't intend to do any acting until Tong, with whom he had worked often, proposed Martial Law. Now Hung spends 12-hour days on the set, with the occasional game of golf as his only distraction. The show has two crews working at once, one shooting the dramatic sequences and the other shooting the action. The latter crew consists of Tong and several other veterans of the Hong Kong film industry. Hung helps stage the fights, performs all his stunts and appears in the dramatic scenes. Still, he says, "the biggest challenge for me is English." Before the show went into production, he took an eight-hour-a-day Berlitz course for about three months.

Martial Law would never work if audiences didn't like and root for the main character. Of course, Hung's convex silhouette gives him personal appeal and makes his twirls and vaults all the more impressive. But he is also a fine actor, quietly funny and a little bit vulnerable. "We had to find somebody who is good in action and also has a heart," says Tong. They found him in Hung, America's least likely, most refreshing network star.

Reported by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles

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