Kung Fu

What an inspirational show. Kwai Chang Kaine was certainly one of few role models I remember from TV in my younger years, and although I haven't seen it since it first played, like others I remember the stories and message (as well as the haunting theme music) from so many of the episodes. Kaine was rejected by many and accepted by only few or even one in each town he visited on his journey, but he always made a difference in the lives of those he met. It's true TV was just as much a wasteland in the '70s as it is in the '90s, but I wish we could see something as good as this again. Either that or a re-release of this one.

While the show had some clever action and martial arts scenes, it was the integration of western and eastern culture that made Kung Fu such a good show. The pilot was especially brilliant, the cinematography, action and David Carridine's amazing acting and dialogue made it worthy of being a full length cinema feature. Caine actually appeared to be more of an honest biblical wanderer than a half chinese-half american mystic. The series was excellent too, but a bit repetitive. My favorite episodes were The Sign of the Dragon, The Way of the Tiger (the pilot) King of the Mountain (especially the final combat scene) The Well (one of the few hour long dramas to authentically depict the plight of blacks in frontier america), and The Squaw Man. Watch for many of your favorite tv and movie actors (including Harrison Ford, Jodie Foster, Don Johnson, and William Shatner) in their early careers and note the fine music (especially in the opening and closing credits).

Martial arts movies are full of great action and well choreographed fights, from the days of Bruce Lee to the stunning visuals we have with todays wire work and cgi. But Kung Fu is not a martial arts movie/series.....

Kung Fu is about a shaolin monk; Kwai Chang Caine. He travels around the wild west, seeking to help others and avoiding bounty hunters. The amazing thing about kung fu is that the flashbacks show Caine's past, we see that he has been trained to use kung fu, but he is a monk and would not harm a fly if it wasn't necessary. Caine chooses not to fight but when he has no other choice he proves that he can take anyone. The character is really brought to life by David Carradine, it would have been great to use Bruce Lee (Another of my idols) but I don't think the energetic Bruce would have been able to pull of the calmness of Caine.

I was expecting to see a martial arts series in the wild west but kung fu is its own genre. The teachings of Masters Po and Khan are wonderful and make you think about life. Apparently after seeing the series people seeked more information because they wanted to raise their children under the same morals.

It doesn't matter if you don't like martial arts or westerns, you need to see this. It has changed my life and the way I think about life.

I saw this series exactly 20 years after it was released, but its excellence made the viewing experience timeless.

Carradine plays the immigrant drifter Caine, who walks through the Wild West encountering different situations, people, etc, there was a different plot for each episode. This was more a "Drama" than a "Western" but the interesting sparring moves and Caine's relaxed personality made it a decent alternative to the more violent and rowdy martial arts movies that released around that time.

Whenever this series is brought back to your TV station or one episode happens to be on, it would be an excellent show to tape and watch again and again - if not already released, I'm sure they'll have the show reissued on an official DVD/VHS set.

It's a shame that the martial arts craze that this show created (in conjunction with the ascendant popularity of Bruce Lee in the early 1970s), in conjunction with the somewhat cheesy '90s spinoff, has served to somewhat obscure what a gem it truly was.

It's heartbreaking to think that a lot of people who haven't seen the show lump it in as old, campy action television, like "The A-Team" or "Charlie's Angels" or something like that. The fact is, any given hour-long episode of "Kung Fu" probably contained about 45 to 60 seconds of actual action--if not less. The fact is, David Carradine was as good a leading man as any TV drama has ever had.

And the fact is, far from being a cheap exploitation of martial arts and Eastern philosophy, "Kung Fu" was created and written in true reverance to those concepts. Meticulous research was conducted, and the lessons that Masters Kan and Po (wonderfully rendered by Philip Ahn and Keye Luke, respectively) teach Caine, and that Caine in turn teaches those he encounters, are routed in authentic Shaolin philosophy.

Nor was the show cheesily made. It involved lush cinematography by televisual standards and innovative use of devices such as forced perspective and slow motion (this was the first show or movie to use different gradations of speed within a single take--the shot would move at normal speed until Caine made contact with an elbow or a fist, and then suddenly switch to delicate, poetic slow motion).

Caine was a true archetype of television--a complete reversal of basically every American screen hero that went before. Not just peaceful--but passive and serene. As Caine described it--"Kung Fu" was an "anti-revenge television show"--an amazing concept when you think about it.

Remember, the American public was not even acquainted with the phrase "kung fu" before this show. Zen Buddhism was gaining popularity in the late '60s and early '70s, but no one had ever heard of Shaolin monks. The creators of this show took a big risk on an untested concept and came up with TV gold.

I hope that the DVD release will serve to remind us all what a special show this was, and of the lessons it has to teach us.