I stumbled upon this set in my local Fry’s last weekend. I am likewise so stoked about watching this series again. I loved it in the 70s. I didn’t buy it because my birthday is coming up and I always complain to Mrs Flex that she buys stuff for herself too frequently leaving me nothing to get for her birthday.
I better be getting Kung Fu for my birthday or there’ll be Hell to pay! 
The Death Race 2000 David Carradine would then run them all down, just for the extra points.
Carradine recently made an appearance on Medium playing a character who looked liked David Carradine. It got me to thinking how much I would like to see Kung Fu again. Great to know that it’s out on video! It will be interesting to watch them again with the perspective on “great age and wisdom.” <snort!>
After reading all the love above I guess I’m going to have to revisit it via Netflix, if possible. I was a kid when Kung Fu aired originally, and my lasting (childish I’m sure) impression of Caine was that he seemed to always accept a beating before fighting back, was some kind of pacifist. Was a bit distasteful. But, what the heck, that was a 1000 years ago, I’ll give it another chance.
Plus, never liked Carradine. Lee would have been better in all respects. Anyone else remember Jabbar’s footprint?
Just wondering for the fans, if you were to make the modern Kung Fu movie, its modern bigscreen adaptation- who would you cast as Kwai Chiang Kane?
I’m trying to choose between Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Chow Yun Fat. (I’m leaning towards Chow Yun Fat.)
Yes, that’s it! I want to see a three hour long movie adaptation of Kung Fu, true to the original 70’s series, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, and starring Chow Yun Fat.
Sorry, dijon–Barbara Carrera is no relation to Tia Carrere.
Or were you trying to whoosh me, Grasshopper?
I remember a little of Kung Fu from reruns when I was a kid. Mostly I remember the old Shaolin master and all his funky training methods: “Grasshopper, when you can walk on this paper while leaving no footprint, you will be ready. When you can take the pebble from my hand, you will be ready. When you can find my secret porn stash and put it back without me catching you in the act, you will be ready.”
And for those of you bagging on the Ninja Turtles, there was a time when they actually got blood on their weapons, the Foot Clan were real people instead of robots, and Shredder was a scary bastard. And, being ninjas, they didn’t do much contemplating on the path to enlightenment and all that. You can read a summary on Wikipedia, or scans of the originals on the official site. I was definitely disappointed when the sanitized kid’s versions began popping up.
It depends on the situation. As a Buddhist monk Cain was taught to avoid violence whenever possible. He often would let himself be pushed around a bit remaining all humble. Usually when they came to do him real violence he defended himself. He also defended others quite a bit. It was always fun for me to see the cowboys be so cocky when confronting the ragged “Chiney man” only to get their ass kicked.
I loved it as a young man. The Buddhist philosophy is still great. I have all three seasons. It’s also fun to see some current stars show up with minor roles on the show. Don Johnson played a young Indian boy. William Shatner as a ship captain trying to trick back to China. Jodie Foster as a wee child.
The Legend Continues never interested me much although I watched it a few times. They seemed to concentrate on the mystic side too much. One of the things I liked about the original was the demonstration of Buddhist principles into real life. The one about revenge is really a classic. That same episode comments on something else. The girl is pregnant from rape. She is filled with hate toward her rapist. When she has an accident and losses the baby she’s very upset and can’t understand why. Caine comforts her and says how the child was conceived does not change the beauty of the child or it’s innocence.
For the record; even though Carridine quit they did resolve the show. Caine was searching for his 1/2 brother Danny {good name choice} and found him and a nephew in the last few episodes.
Other Sequels;
I seem to remember a one shot remake in which Carridine as Caine returns and struggles with evil forces who have influenced his son who was played by Brandon Lee.
There was another pilot episode in which Brandon Lee plays a troubled nephew or son of Caine’s descendant in modern times. Lee’s kinda wild and crazy and getting into trouble. His Uncle runs a temple in the City and has to come out and bail Lee out with his kung fu mastery. I thought it was great. I can’t remember who played Lee’s Uncle but it wasn’t DC. I was hoping it would get picked up but I never saw it again.
In a movie about Bruce Lee they portray Bruce as being co creator of Kung Fu when he was playing KAto on the Green Hornet. Supposedly, a TV producer was trying to develop a vehicle for Bruce and they came up with Kung Fu, but as reported earlier. TV execs wouldn’t buy a Chinese leading man. We may never know the truth.
Just to be sure I wasn’t losing my mind I looked it up and found
Here’s a picture of Darlow who played Caine descendant of Caine. He’s pretty Kwi Changish
Nope, indeed it was I who was whooshed. I was always under the impression that Barbara and Tia were mother and daughter.
I stand humbly corrected, and apologise to all those who I have misinformed.
bows reverently and slinks off to listen to heartbeat
As cosmodan mentioned, Caine was mostly a pacifist, and wouldn’t get into a conflict unless it was unavoidable (in fact, a lot of his strategy was avoiding conflict altogether–or, failing that, letting the fight come to him before he engaged). That’s part of what made it so cool for me: he would simply do nothing, thus convincing all the thugs that he was too afraid to fight back, and then WHAM! Unconscious thugs.
I never found that distasteful, but rather highly respectable. People who want to start throwing punches everytime someone looks at them impress me much less. Control is much superior to the lack thereof.
I liked (and was very impressed by) Lee, but I don’t think he would have been better in this role. This role was made (however unintentionally) for Carradine, IMO.
Master Kan “Walk away rather than hurt, hurt rather than mame, mame rather than kill, kill only to save your life or the lives of others.”
“…And save hundreds of dollars on your car insurance by switching to Geico.”
I’m sorry, I’m SORRY!!!..
Teenage Ninja Greco Geco Geico wrestlers
And you saw Caine follow this. Even with multiple opponents he would kick some ass to discourage rather than cause permanent damage. How ever in one episode when A guy was attacking him with a hand scythe, Caine ended the fight by kicking his shin and breaking his leg. Fight over.
I guess what I found lame about it was that if one were to actually try such a thing in real life, the “bullies” would then pile on, given their nature. This doesn’t happen in the movies, of course, but in South Central, et al, it do. Acting like a coward never really helps things IRL.
It’s not that he acted like a coward, but simply that he did nothing until it was required. That gave his opponents a false sense of security. Yeah, the “bullies” might pile on, but he could handle that. Sure, though, movies and all.
Depends. Running away may invite chase, but acting decidedly non-threatened by threats tends to freak people out a bit and make them reconsider their decision to mess with you. This has worked for me before. You can see the “Why isn’t he scared of me?” thing go through their heads, and then they wonder if there’s a reason that they don’t know about. Paranoia sets in. It’s amazing to me how many people larger than myself that I’ve backed down simply by looking at them quizzically while they try unsuccessfully to intimidate me.
I’ll get my ass kicked someday, you watch.
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The hell?
