Katalin Zamiar holds a degree in anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she became a forensic science teacher. She has studied martial arts since 1982 and is an accomplished martial artist holding black belts in kung-fu, taekwondo, Gōjū-ryūkarate and Shōrin-ryū karate. She has owned POW! Mixed Martial Arts and ChicagoKrav Maga training centers since 2001. Along with teaching at her training center in downtown Chicago, she has often covered the UFC for Grappling magazine, focusing primarily on features and interviews. She has published more than 150 articles in various martial arts magazines including Black Belt and Inside Kung Fu, and has been featured in magazines such as Shape, Allure and Self. She has worked as an international fitness and martial arts presenter and has spent some time as a spokesperson for the Martial Arts brand Revgear. She has also written conditioning materials and manuals and can be seen in more than a number of workout fitness/martial arts videos. Her other endeavors have included a summer training camp for upcoming basketball players and she working with non-for-profits. In 2014, she wrote the book Weight Training for Martial Arts.
Acting
Zamiar remains best known for her characterizations of the three female ninja characters Kitana, Mileena, and Jade in the 1993 fighting video gameMortal Kombat II. The character of Jade was her idea. In 1997, Zamiar, together with Philip Ahn and Elizabeth Malecki, filed a lawsuit against Midway Games for royalties for the home ports of the game, a case in which Midway emerged victorious. In 1995, she and fellow Mortal Kombat actors Ho Sung Pak, Daniel Pesina, and Phillip Ahn appeared in Thea Realm Fighters, a never-released fighting game produced exclusively for the Atari Jaguar, as well having been in the also unreleased game Chi Yong that was planned for the PlayStation in 1994. In 1996, she portrayed a Jade-like ninja woman character named Chae Lee in the fighting game Catfight. In 2003, she played a minor part in the low-budget martial arts filmBook of Swords; in a cameo nod to her Mortal Kombatalter egos, Katalin once again portrayed a female ninja character, dressed in similar clothing as her MKII counterparts and even wielding two sai as Mileena does. She has reunited with the rest of the MKII cast for the 20th anniversary event at the Galloping Ghost Arcade.
