Ben Johnson salutes one of American TV’s most successful attempts at recreating the Chinese arts.
Kung Fu Series 1
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The original Kung Fu TV show is now available in the most brilliant of boxed sets, which sees its debut on Great British shelves for the first time since its incarnation over thirty years ago. Of course the show’s concept was around much before, and owes much of its detail, attitude and exposure to the work of someone who, as it turned out, didn’t receive any credit for the show’s success: Bruce Lee.
This show was the brainchild of Lee Back when he was struggling as a TV actor and bit-part player in mainstream Hollywood shows, where he first introduced US audiences to the spirit and energy of Chinese ‘kung fu’. Lee’s attempt to sell his own show, based in wild west and starring a Shaolin monk fighting evil with his hands and feet, fell on deaf ears when producers decided that Bruce was ‘too Chinese’ to take the lead role. Such bizarre racial slurs from conservative America proved too much for Bruce, who would be forced to travel back to Hong Kong and make his mark on the world from much further a field, while the premise behind his TV show (which Lee called The Warrior) remained on the backburner at Warner Brothers.
Lee was already a massive star in Asia when Herman Miller produced the first season of Kung Fu in 1972, borrowing the formula already laid down by Bruce Lee in his initial concept. A central Chinese character named Caine, a Shaolin monk now in exile after slaying the nephew of the Emperor who killed his blind teacher Master Po, flees to the American west to locate his brother and settle down for good. However, he is constantly called into action to help save exploited village folk, or stop vindictive cowboys, or battle corrupt sheriffs, or find missing women, or various other moral dilemmas, as roughneck renegades hassle Caine with bottles, sticks and guns. Caine (or ‘Grasshopper’ to his teacher) is a skilled practitioner of ‘kung fu’, the Chinese fighting arts taught to him by his sifu who, in the opening credits, gets Caine to dodge flying spears, snatch pebbles from open hands, and lift the golden urn of Shaolin to keep the branded mark of his training with him wherever he goes. Caine is constantly reminded of his Shaolin days through flashbacks and nuggets of Buddhist philosophy and mysticism which, although incredibly clichéd from a modern perspective, do help to elevate the show far above and beyond the ham fisted nature of most of American TV’s other Seventies output.
Bruce Lee is replaced by David Carradine, an American actor with a colorful past as a drug-hazed hippie which helps to compliment his role as a man of peace and tranquility, not to mention powerful violence. Carradine is an American who is made to look Chinese with make up which acts to slant his eyes and yellow his skin, yet Carradine was by no means the same caliber of martial artist as Bruce Lee. Although Kung Fu would make David Carradine a household name and synonymous with the Oriental fighting arts, it’s true that he received no formal martial arts training prior to accepting the role. As a result, the fight scenes in Kung Fu, although hailed as wildly sophisticated at the time, now play like the sort of slap dash brawling you’d find in a game of darts. It is interesting to consider what Lee would have done with the series if he had been given the chance.
Yet, having said that, this landmark series shows the film and TV markets taking their first steps into displaying martial arts on screen and filmmakers were still developing the proper choreographic techniques of how to film a cohesive and entertaining martial arts fight sequence. As a result, the producers pioneered the use of under cranking and slow motion in the fighting sequences, which gives an almost graceful slant on the violent action and stunt work. Caine chops and kicks the bad guys in a hail of sand and sun and although the filming techniques are somewhat crude by today’s standards, there is still so much to enjoy in this series.
High production values help to boost the appeal of the sets and the acting, with Carradine playing the walking embodiment of innocence and benevolence to an absolute tee, while the first season boasts guest stars like his father John Carradine, John Saxon and Jodie Foster. Containing 16 hour-long episodes (including the pilot which was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1973), this complete DVD set of the first season contains some of the series’ best episodes, like The Praying Mantis Kills and the moral tale of An Eye for an Eye, where Caine is placed in a serious predicament when a Chinese woman is left with child after being raped.
Whether this series tells us anything about Buddhist philosophy, morality or indeed offers any insight into far eastern culture is an argument for another time. Indeed, it probably tells us more about the hippie era of when it was made than it does anything else, given that the show was made in America, by Americans and starring an American in the lead. (Carradine would later learn Tai Chi and Chinese kung fu and return to his Grasshopper roots in numerous film explorations, more recently accepting a career-defining moment as the title character in Quentin Tarantino’s kung fu movie homage Kill Bill).
However, the programme’s authenticity appears to remain intact and entirely genuine mainly through the responsibilities of Caine’s actions and his selfless persona, which when juxtaposed with his fighting skills makes a heady combination and one that has remained constant in kung fu theatre ever since. It’s true that this was a unique experience for audiences who were mostly unfamiliar and unschooled in their understanding of the Orient and although Kung Fu is hardly the most authentic window into another time and culture, it is at least done with a great deal of respect and care. Although now heavily clichéd, it is still impossible to downplay the importance of this classic TV show.
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