Kung Fu
could probably best be classified as a philosophical Western. It attracted quite
a bit of notoriety and a cult following in the early 1970's, due to its unusual
protagonist. Caine was a shaven-head Buddhist monk, and a hunted man. He had
been born in China in the mid-1800's of Chinese and American parents, and was
raised as an orphan by the monks of Shaolin Temple. They tutored him in a
mystic, philosophy of internal harmony and the "oneness of all things," and a
code of non-violence. They also taught him the martial arts of kung fu just in
case.
Then one day
young Caine was involved in an incident in which he was forced to kill a member
of the Chinese royal family. Fleeing China, he landed in the American West where
he began a search for a long-lost brother while he himself was pursued by
Chinese imperial agents and American bounty hunters.
Besides his
background, there were many other unusual things about this particular Western
hero. He spoke very little, uttering occasional cryptic statements about the
nature of being and universal harmony ("Remember, his teachers had said, the
wise man walks always with his head bowed, humble, like the dust."); his use,
when cornered, of the ancient Chinese martial arts instead of a gun; his pariah
status a Chinaman, as well as a hunted man. Kung Fu used many gimmicks
to lend it a surreal aspect, such as slow-motion photography, and included
frequent flashbacks to Caine's days as a youth in China (in which his teachers,
Master Po and Master Kan, appeared, as well as Caine as a young boy). Caine was
usually a loner, although in the final season an American cousin, Margit, began
to make occasional appearances.
The star,
David Carradine, was responsible for much of the publicity surrounding this
show. A member of a respected theatrical family (his father, John Carradine, had
appeared in many famous movies of the 1930s and 1940s), David dropped out of
Hollywood's glittering world and lived a decidedly unconventional life in a
ramshackle old house in the hills, reflecting the same philosophy of mysticism
and "oneness with nature" that Caine represented.
Kung Fu,
incidentally, translates roughly as "accomplishment technique," and is China's
ancient science of personal combat, from which karate and judo are derived. It
enjoyed quite a vogue in the U.S. during the late 1960's and early 1970's as a
result of the movies of Chinese-American actor Bruce Lee.
