There were a lot of flashbacks on the old TV series Kung Fu – “Snatch the pebble from my hand, Grasshopper,” etc. – but one thing I never caught about Kane’s backstory: Why did he leave China? The Wikipedia entry – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_(TV_series) – says only, “After becoming a master, due to a violent incident he had to flee China to escape legal prosecution, ending up in the western United States looking for his half-brother.” But what was this “violent incident”?
And did he find his half-brother?
I think he accidentally killed one of the Emperor’s relatives. A nephew, maybe?
I never did find out how it ends, though.
I’m working strictly from memory, but I believe there was a flashback where Kane and the old kung-fu master were in a city, and some royal muckitymuck was parading by. Royal MuckityMuck bumps into Kung-Fu Master, blames KFM, and strikes KFM to the ground. Kane comes to KFM’s defense, striking the RMM (maybe killing him?), sealing Kane’s fate in China.
So everybody was kung fu fighting?
It’s shown in the series premiere, which I recently re-watched on DVD at my friend’s house. It dated surprisingly well, nowhere near as cheesy as I thought it might be. Childhood memories don’t always fare that well when the favorite “entertainment” is experienced again as an adult.
Dewey Cheatem Undhow has the basic idea. An imperial nephew (exactly who is not explained) shoots the old blind Master Po with a pistol after Master Po has an altercation with one of his guards. Caine grabs and throws a spear that skewers the nephew in retalliation for his Master’s death. As he’s dying, Master Po tells Caine that he will never be able to return to China because of this.
Killing someone violated the Shaolin precept of non-violence and of course his father/grandfather substitute dies, so this incident understandably screws Caine up emotionally. Cue overarching (mostly well done) angst.
To expand a bit…
Master Po and Kane are walking down the street having met again after a long separation. They walk & talk a bit when, coming in the other direction, the Imperial Guards are making way for the Emperor’s Nephew’s royal precession. Po, who’s blind, doesn’t realize this and reflexively strikes back against one of the guards when he tries to push Po aside. Another guard comes over and says something to the effect of, “You dare strike a member of his majesty’s army?!” to which Master Po humbly appologizes. The guard captain then slaps Po across the face, but Po accepts this.
Then, however, the guard tries to slap him again. This time Po grabs his arm mid-slap and responds with the great line, “Even a member of the imperial guard should not punish an old, blind man twice for the same offense”. A couple guards try to attack Po and while dispatching them the Emperor’s jerk nephew suddenly comes over and shots Master Po point blank with a western pistol.
Kane, having not intervened to this point, sees this and proceeds to kick all the guards asses, then grabs a large spear and, after hesistating for a second, says fudge it and throws it through the back of the royal nephews throne killing him while he’s casually reloading his pistol.
Kane then tells the dying Master Po what he’s done and says, “After all your teachings, I have disgraced myself”. To which Po responds with another great line, “No, sometime you must cut off a finger in order to save a hand.” Master Po tells Kane he must leave the country and then promptly dies.
A lot of people criticize this show as being silly, but it really wasn’t. It was not a Jackie Chan-style action show. Not at all. It was a pretty decent moral dilemma, right vs. wrong drama with some decent action thrown in at the right time.
It was a surprisingly philosophical show for the time, and did a decent attempt to capture the flavor of eastern philosophy.
Pity they couldn’t have gotten a real Asian for the lead. 
And no, during the run of the original series, Kane never does find his half-brother.
Don’t know about the '86 TV movie, only watched a little of it (it was appallingly bad). And I never saw the 90s revival series (which was set in modern times anyway).
I don’t think it matters that Carradine was not Asian by blood, as Kane was supposed to be, IIRC, half Asian, half Caucasian. His Western heritage had been a problem when he was originally accepted for study at the temple.
Hail Ants pretty much nailed it. You have to watch the pilot movie to really get it.
Let me just add to Hail Ants excellent synopsis (I haven’t seen this since 1980) that several times throughout the pilot movie, Master Po talked to Caine about visiting Beijing on such and such a day in such and such a year for some reason that now escapes me. Therefore Caine just happened to be in Beijing, meets Master Po, they reminice about such and such a day, and then the Imperial Guards bit happens.
I have this on a video tape and I can tell you that it’s one of the best pilot movies ever made. Holds up remarkably well. Good all the way through.
Originally, the producers DID have a “real Asian” in mind–a little-known guy by the name of Bruce Lee. Didn’t get the part. The producers were convinced an Asian man couldn’t carry a western audience. :rolleyes:
IIRC, it was “the 13th day, of the 5th month, of the Year of the Dog”. Po had mentioned this day, but I don’t remember if he predicted it as simply the day they would meet again, or the day of some unspecified major event.
It was amazing that Bruce Lee had been turned down for the part because he was “too Asian”.
While Carradine (I always thought) had a slight, vaguely Asian appearance, giving him at least a shred of credibility, another actor they screen-tested for the role was William Smith (who played the brief, opening-scene role of young Conan’s father in Conan the Barbarian, and he looks about as Asian as Ingrid Bergman.
Caine did find his brother and even a nephew he didn’t know existed. It happened over a series of a few episodes with Leslie Nielson (sp?) of Naked Gun fame as the main bad guy.
Marc
Just to pick at this a bit…
They didn’t have any rules or philosophy against violence in general, after all they were renowned for being warrior martial monks training their whole lives in physical combat arts and historically at times were quasi-mercenaries for the emperor. Their philosophy was against *initiating[i/] violence (karma and all that), but they were always at the ready to violently kick ass and take names in defense of themselves.
Is Po the yellow one? Or the one with the purse…?
I need the Straight Dope. Now, I know the Bruce Lee biopic played it that Lee was promised the role, but the producers backed out, or something like that. I seem to recall hearing that this may be an urban legend, and that Lee may never have been seriously considered…
Anybody know definitively?
Sir Rhosis
IIRC it was tjhe date of some rare religious ceremony, something like once every 20 vyears or so. Master Po had told little boy Caine that his only personal desire in life was to attend this rare festival. So when it came around, Caine went there hoping to meet his master.
Off the top of my head, Lee was the “inspiration” for the show, but the producers felt that having an Asian TV lead was too much for white-bread America at the time.
I’ll check my resources at home and post a follow-up if I can dig up the details.