Kung Fu (1972 TV series)

Kung Fu is an American action-adventure martial arts Western drama television series starring David Carradine. The series follows the adventures of Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk who travels through the American Old West, armed only with his spiritual training and his skill in martial arts, as he seeks Danny Caine, his half-brother.
Many of the aphorisms used in the series are adapted from or derived directly from the Tao Te Ching, a book of ancient Taoist philosophy attributed to the sage Lao-tzu.
Kwai Chang Caine (David Carradine) is the orphaned son of an American man, Thomas Henry Caine (Bill Fletcher), and a Chinese woman, Kwai Lin, born in mid-19th-century China. After his maternal grandfather's death he is accepted for training at a Shaolin Monastery, where he grows up to become a Shaolin priest and martial arts expert.
In the pilot episode, Caine's beloved mentor and elder, Master Po, is murdered by the Emperor's nephew with a firearm; outraged, Caine retaliates by killing the nephew, with everyone unaware that the man was reloading his weapon to attack again. With a price on his head, Caine flees China to the western United States, where he seeks to find his family roots, and ultimately, his half-brother, Danny Caine. A recent tombstone dated 1874 in a season 3 episode places the stories approximately between 1871 and 1875. In the pilot episode, we see a telegram dated 21 November 1873, indicating that most of the show's American story begins in November 1873.
Although it is his intention to avoid notice, Caine's training and sense of social responsibility repeatedly force him out into the open, to fight for justice or protect the underdog. After each such encounter he must move on, both to avoid capture and prevent harm from coming to those he has helped. Searching for his family, he meets his grandfather (played by Dean Jagger).
Flashbacks are often used to recall specific lessons from Caine's childhood training in the monastery from his teachers, the blind Master Po (Keye Luke) and Master Chen Ming Kan (Philip Ahn). In those flashbacks, Master Po advises his young student "patience, Grasshopper", a nickname given from a playful lesson he taught to Caine as a child about being aware of the world around him, including the grasshopper that happened to be at his feet at that moment.
During four episodes of the third and final season ("Barbary House", "Flight to Orion", "The Brothers Caine", and "Full Circle"), Caine finds his brother Danny (Tim McIntire) and his nephew Zeke (John Blyth Barrymore).
This list comprises a selection of actors billed in the opening credits, and some actors whose characters were decisive in the episode plot's development or who later became widely recognized for other productions. Among them there are nominees and winners of Academy Awards, Emmy, Golden Globe, Tony, and other film and theater awards. At the minute 6:39 of the Kung Fu DVD documentary The Tao of Caine: Production and Beyond, Herbie J. Pilato says: "One of the great things about Kung Fu is that it had this incredible A-list of guest stars. You know, there were stars then, and they became stars later (...) So, it was a breeding ground for A-1 talent and it was also just surrounded by A-1 talent, I mean, in front of and behind the scenes. They didn't settle for less." Jerry Thorpe added: "People wanted to do the show because it was unique, it's as simple as that. Yes, it was fairly easy to cast people that normally wouldn't do a series television."
This list does not reflect the full extent of Asian American actors' participation, since most of them were billed in the series' closing credits. It can be noticed that a group of Asian actors appeared repeatedly in the series. According to John Furia Jr. in a May 1973 interview, this happened because "one of the problems we're faced with is that Oriental actors did not have much opportunity to act in TV or movies before, and so there is no great pool to draw from. So far, availability of martial artists for the training and fighting scenes has been good." Asian actors who returned often to the series were mostly members of the East West Players, brought to the series by Guy Lee, who would take charge of Bessie Loo's Talent Agency when she retired.
David Chow acted as the technical and kung fu advisor, and guest-starred in the pilot as the Little Monk, Caine's enemy at the climactic fight scene. His technical role was later undertaken by Kam Yuen, who guest-starred as Lin Wu in the s1e3 episode "Blood Brother" and as Wong Ti in the s3e1–2 episodes "Blood of the Dragon". Part of Chow's job was to add or eliminate fight scenes from the script, "settle differences of opinion" regarding their technical aspects among the martial artists participating in them, and make the scenes believable.
Kung Fu was created by Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander, directed and produced by Jerry Thorpe, and developed by Herman Miller, who was also a writer for, and co-producer of, the series. (For the series concept's history, see Bruce Lee's involvement.)
Spielman-Friedlander's 160 page movie script was transformed by Jerry Thorpe and writer Herman Miller into a 90-minute TV movie (with commercial breaks, so it actually amounted to about 75 minutes of screen time). "Since the rule of thumb on a script is that one page equals one minute, the script was literally cut in half."
Directed by Jerry Thorpe, it was broadcast on February 22, 1972 (just after the meeting of President Nixon with Chairman Mao), and rerun the following summer, to great acclaim: "(...) ABC and Warner Brothers were deluged with letters, telephone calls and telegrams, all praising the show." ABC ordered just four more segments and placed them in what was called the "death row," the Saturday night slot opposite All in the Family, on a monthly basis. Herman Miller developed the pilot into a series by writing the first three episodes, by including in the plotline Caine's search for his missing brother, and by giving it a style to which following writers could adhere. After a very positive reception to the first three segments, in November 1972 the network contracted for 12 more episodes, dropped Alias Smith and Jones and placed Kung Fu in the Thursday night slot at 9 p.m. The resultant good ratings led to the series' renovation for a second season.
The series' story editor was John Furia Jr. At the time a freelance writer for TV and movies who also worked in production, he had declined offers as story editor before until Jerry Thorpe approached him with Kung Fu. He had seen the pilot and was fascinated by it, so he accepted. The series didn't have a stable team of writers, but freelance writers pitched their stories to the production; they were told not to include temple scenes. It was John Furia's job to write them and make them relevant to the episode's plot, based on the research material the production had collected.
Furia's job also included "to maintain and preserve historical accuracy in each script. To complicate matters, there is no single historical source on kung-fu upon which he can rely. He must make extensive research into various sources before he can render a story to be within the realms of truth. Furthermore, because the story involves an ethnic group, and the tempers of our time do not tolerate ignorance and bigotry, he must not only make sure that the historical information regarding the group is accurate, but that these people are presented with dignity and respect."
Questioned about whether having a half-Caucasian as a student at the Shaolin Temple (which did not accept foreigners) was historically accurate, John Furia Jr. declared: "There is, of course, a certain amount of dramatic license involved in producing a show of this nature. As for David Carradine playing the part of a half-American half-Chinese, I can honestly say that we haven't found anyone, before or since the series began, who can play the part better. One of the reasons for the success of the series is Carradine's portrayal of Caine." As for the hiring of Asian actors for the secondary roles, he said: "It not only adds authenticity, it's only proper that it should be so. Our series, I believe, hires more Orientals than any series on TV."
The series aired on ABC from October 1972 to April 1975 for a total of 63 episodes. The series became one of the most popular television programs of the early 1970s, receiving widespread critical acclaim and commercial success upon its release.
On the week ending May 6, 1973, Kung Fu became the No.1 show on US television, drawing a regular audience of 28 million viewers. Around the same time, Bruce Lee's Hollywood debut Enter the Dragon was being completed. It was part of what became known as the "chopsocky" or "kung fu craze" after Hong Kong martial arts films such as Five Fingers of Death (King Boxer) and Bruce Lee's Fists of Fury (The Big Boss) topped the US box office in early 1973.
In its first season, 1972–1973, Kung Fu's pilot was first aired as an ABC Tuesday Movie of the Week, which placed it in the range of the top 20 programs of the season, as determined by Nielsen Media Research. After the pilot's rerun in the summer, during the fall season, three more episodes were aired once a month on Saturday nights alternating with Alias Smith and Jones, against All in the Family and Bridget Loves Bernie, which were among the top 10 programs of that season. The other 12 episodes ran on Thursday nights, when they ranked among the 30 first-rated shows and tied in ratings with The ABC Monday Night Movie and The F.B.I. during the winter season, losing in ratings to Ironside, which was at the same time slot during the fall and summer seasons.
In its second season, 1973–1974, it ran on Thursday nights, when it remained among the 30 first rated shows, together with CBS Thursday Night Movie, which was at the same time slot, and tied in ratings with The Carol Burnett Show, which ran on Saturday nights.
In its third and final season, 1974–1975, Kung Fu's time slot changed three times, and it lost its place among the 30 first-rated shows. In the fall, it was moved to Saturdays night at 9 p.m., against CBS' The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show, sitcoms rated in the top 20 of the season. Between the fall and winter seasons, it ran on Fridays at 8 p.m., which placed it against NBC's sitcoms Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man, both rated in the top 10 of the season. Then in winter, Kung Fu's time slot changed to Saturdays at 8 p.m., which placed it against CBS's All in the Family, The Jeffersons (sitcoms rated in the season's top 10), and NBC's Emergency!, a series rated in the top 30 of that season, all of which were at the same time slot.
Contrary to some misconceptions, Kung Fu was not canceled. The series ended due to a combination of factors, among which the documentary The Tao of Caine cites the lead actor's burnout, changes in the writing and shooting that altered some of the most appreciated characteristics of the show, and above all the changes in the time slot, which led to the audience's decline. However, the most important factor was David Carradine's decision to leave.
It has been said that Carradine left the show after sustaining several injuries that made it impossible for him to continue. While injuries were a feature of his career, Carradine's decision to quit Kung Fu was influenced by the bad publicity that a drug-related incident attracted on him and which affected the ratings of the series, what Radames Pera described as sabotage. Carradine himself acknowledged that it had been detrimental to audience ratings.
From a broader point of view, Carradine's decision stemmed from the fact that he, from the beginning, hadn't wanted to commit long-term to a series or stay in it for an extended period, due to his foremost interest in pursuing a career in filmmaking, which he said led him to avoid signing a regular contract that would have bound him for five years. At any rate, Carradine's warning to the production team that the third season was going to be his last one allowed the writers to plan the final episodes so that all of the remaining story arcs regarding Caine and his brother could be brought to a satisfying end. In his commentary to the episode Full Circle, Carradine regretted his decision to leave, because of how that had affected the series' crew.
Kung Fu started to broadcast in syndication on September 1, 1979, on 23 local channels.
The series was later broadcast on cable television by the TNT channel, on weeknights at 7 p.m., ET.
This series was internationally broadcast in its original run, later distributed in DVD format, has been re-broadcast in cable channels specialized on vintage TV shows like TCM Latin America, and it is also available for streaming.
The series was filmed at the Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank (Laramie Street, the Backlot, and several stages), Old Tucson Studios, and on locations like Vasquez Rocks, the 20th Century Fox Ranch (Malibu Creek State Park), and the sand dunes in the Yuma Desert for the opening and closing credits.
The Shaolin Monastery which appeared in flashbacks was originally a set used for the 1967 film Camelot. It was inexpensively and effectively converted for the setting in China, by the Academy Award nominee Eugène Lourié as art director; the set decorator was the Academy Award nominee Ralph S. Hurst.
Even if Camelot won an Academy Award for its art direction and set decoration, the expensive castle (made with wooden beams, wooden frame structures, and building timber covered with faux stone siding) was criticized for its unspecific style placed in a landscape evidently Californian, which resulted in that castle being the last attempt for a studio to construct a large scale set that represented a foreign location. By November 1971, when Jerry Thorpe asked Eugène Lourié to design the art for Kung Fu, the castle was derelict to the point that Lourié believed that it still stood only because the cost of demolishing it would be prohibitive.
Working with the reduced budget of a TV production was a challenge, but Lourié had learned in France how to work with little money for sets. He was both interested and intrigued by the story, as the action moved back and forth between the Wild West's present and the memories of the Shaolin temple. Lourié decided to emphasize that contrast visually. The practical need for making the project monetarily viable meant style compromises.
With that in mind, the castle's nonspecific architectural style was perfect to give it a Chinese look for Western eyes, by adding characteristic roofs, a front wall with a massive wood-carved door, and brick walls with ceramic-grilled windows, while its terraces and stairs were fit for the stagings of the kung fu training sequences. For the temple's interiors, Lourié opted for showing only a portion of the set and let the viewers complete it in their minds. He decided on a church-like appearance, with a Buddhist mural on the back wall, multileveled wooden candleholders and burning candles between columns, a constant haze, and the projection of strong rays of light as if coming through high church windows.
That visual conception made it unnecessary to build long and high stone walls for those sets, especially because the studio offered Kung Fu a large stage on which there was a standing set of the big hall from Camelot. That presented the advantage of ready-made stone walls if the side wings of the temple were to appear in a take. The scenes among the flickering candles would become a signature of the series. For other Chinese sets, he used carved wooden partitions to enhance plain walls, or giant sculptured lions to give simple gardens an aura of grandeur.
For the railroad camp location, a place close to Hollywood was needed, so the well-known Vasquez Rocks were chosen. As for the Western scenes, the old western streets on the Warners lot were easily adaptable to the series' multiple requirements. Lourié's solution of the temple and the other sets both in budgetary and visual terms was key in getting the go-ahead for the movie pilot from the production department, and for the subsequent series.
In his memoir, Eugène Lourié praises Jerry Thorpe's vision, courage and inventiveness to undertake the Kung Fu project with a reduced TV budget. At the minute 4:32 of the documentary The Tao of Caine, Jerry Thorpe says about him: "The art director, Eugène Lourié, his talents were unending. He converted a medieval castle that had been built for Camelot on the backlot into an AD 2nd to 3rd century Shaolin monastery, for a buck and a quarter. He cannibalized every scene dock in the industry. It was amazing to watch."
The Camelot Castle, already converted into a Shaolin temple and with some additions, became a main set for the 1973 musical Lost Horizon during its 1972 April to June shooting period.
From late 1972 to early 1975, it became again a Shaolin temple while the Kung Fu episodes were in production, with the Emmy Award winner Antony Mondello and John Lamphear as set decorators.
When visiting the backlot in 1980, Lourié was sorry to find out that a large number of the western streets had been bulldozed. As for the imposing castle/temple/lamasery, it lasted for a few more years until it was torn down and substituted by a parking lot and the Bridge offices building (1994).
The series used slow-motion effects for the action sequences, which Warner Brothers had previously utilized in the 1969 Sam Peckinpah film The Wild Bunch and were also subsequently utilized for the action sequences in the science-fiction series The Six Million Dollar Man.
The music for the opening and closing titles, as well as the incidental music, was composed by Jim Helms.
The series associate producer (later producer) Alex Beaton selected him after listening to several composer demos when the pilot was in development. Helms, a guitarist and arranger, scored the pilot with a team of only eleven musicians. The result was mostly atmospheric instead of melodic, with a koto as the predominant instrument. This score did not include "Caine's Theme", which was added when the series began airing in 1972, in the opening and closing titles. That signature theme had two unusual characteristics: through the first season it was revised and re-recorded several times, and the sound palette comprised about 19 musicians per session only. Even if half of them were string players, woodwinds, keyboard, and percussion were always more prominent.
The flute themes were performed by Sheridon Stokes on alto recorder, since the type of bamboo flute featured in the series wasn't chromatic and was deemed impractical for scoring purposes. The constant presence of a harpsichord played by Mike Lang helped to set the series in the 19th century. The percussion instruments included a waterphone, Chinese tom-toms, Chinese opera bells, woodblocks, and antique Chinese "dharma bells" (Asian nested bells). The percussionist Emil Richards collected over 90 of them and used them often for microtonal glisses. Everything resulted in an Eastern-Western combination that was unique in American television. Variety referred to Helms' work as "especially interesting... sensitive... a decided asset."
Given the success of Kung Fu's first season, Warner Bros. Records released internationally in December 1973 a "concept album" of dialogue and music from the show, based on the pilot and the first nine episodes; "Caine's Theme" was also released as a single. The record used an expanded 45-piece orchestra for the musical selections and a group of eight musicians for the incidental music underscoring dialogue taken from the Shaolin temple sequences. The LP was re-released in CD format in 2010, accompanied by the Man in the Wilderness movie soundtrack.
"Caine's Theme" (with different arrangements) was included in the TV and film music compilations by Jack Hawkins his Orchestra and Singers (UK, 1974), Jack Parnell and his Orchestra (UK, 1975), and The Film Studio Orchestra (Japan, 1976).
In her memoirs, Bruce Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, asserts that Lee created the concept for the series, which was then stolen by Warner Bros.: "Even before this [Longstreet], Warner Brothers had suddenly caught on to the fact that kung fu itself had captured the public's imagination and decided to launch a TV series," she writes. "Bruce himself had been working on the idea of a Shaolin priest, a master of kung fu, who would roam America and find himself involved in various exploits. The studio contacted him and he was soon deeply involved. He gave them numerous ideas, many of which were eventually incorporated in the resulting TV success, Kung Fu, starring actor David Carradine." (Linda Lee, The Man Only I Knew, pp. 130–31.). There is circumstantial evidence for this in a December 8, 1971, television interview that Bruce Lee gave on The Pierre Berton Show. In the interview, Lee stated that he had developed a concept for a television series called The Warrior, meant to star himself, about a martial artist in the American Old West (the same concept as Kung Fu, which aired the following year), but that he was having trouble pitching it to Warner Brothers and Paramount.
In the interview, Pierre Berton commented, "There's a pretty good chance that you'll get a TV series in the States called 'The Warrior', in it, where you use what, the Martial Arts in Western setting?"
Lee responded, "That was the original idea, ...both of them [Warner and Paramount], I think, they want me to be in a modernized type of a thing, and they think that the Western type of thing is out. Whereas I want to do the Western. Because, you see, how else can you justify all of the punching and kicking and violence, except in the period of the West?"
Later in the interview, Berton asked Lee about "the problems that you face as a Chinese hero in an American series. Have people come up in the industry and said 'well, we don't know how the audience are going to take a non-American'?"
Lee replied, "Well, such question has been raised, in fact, it is being discussed. That is why The Warrior is probably not going to be on." Lee adds, "They think that business-wise it is a risk. I don't blame them. If the situation were reversed, and an American star were to come to Hong Kong, and I was the man with the money, I would have my own concerns as to whether the acceptance would be there."
However, Bruce Lee was undoubtedly considered for the starring role, and David Carradine himself in a 1989 interview and in his book Spirit of Shaolin, said that Bruce Lee was passed over for the role. It is alleged that an unnamed ABC executive said "You can't make a star out of a five-foot-six Chinese actor."
According to biographer Matthew Polly, Bruce Lee did not invent the Kung Fu TV series. Ed Spielman created the character of Kwai Chang Caine, and the movie treatment Spielman wrote with Howard Friedlander in 1969 was the origin of the pilot and subsequent series.
Spielman first wrote a treatment about a samurai who travels to China and learns kung fu. Around 1967, he gave it to his partner Howard Friedlander, who suggested turning it into a Western; Spielman then decided to make the leading character into a half-American, half-Chinese Shaolin monk. In 1969 the William Morris agent Peter Lampack put the treatment into the knowledge of Fred Weintraub, at the time an executive at Warner Brothers and later the producer of Enter the Dragon: "As a New York-based production executive at Warner Bros. Pictures, it was my job to develop projects to appeal to the youth market. From the mountain of potential projects sent to me weekly, I unearthed a treatment for a feature length film by a couple of writers named Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander called The Way of the Tiger, The Sign of the Dragon. It was an intriguing East-meets-Western tale of a young Shaolin monk from China roaming the American West of the 1800s, righting wrongs with pacifist, Eastern philosophy. And if that failed, kicking serious cowboy butt with nothing but his hands and feet. I liked the idea and gave the boys something like $3,800 to write a screenplay. At about that time, Warner Bros. made the decision to change their base of operations and moved me from New York to Hollywood." He received the finished script on April 30, 1970. Later through his friend Sy Weintraub (no relation), Weintraub met Bruce Lee and considering him ideal for the part tried to put the script into development with him as the leading actor, but was rejected. According to Howard Friedlander, the film was to be filmed in Durango, Mexico, for the Western scenes, and Taiwan for the Chinese scenes. Its budget had been calculated as $18 million (over $124 million in 2022 dollars). Friedlander blamed the arrival of Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown as senior executives at Warners Bros. for the cancellation of the movie project, because "the general consensus was that the public would not be willing to accept a Chinese hero."
While Bruce Lee was in Thailand filming The Big Boss, Weintraub brought the script to Tom Kuhn, head of the Warner Bros. TV division, who liked it. Warner Bros. and ABC announced their TV deal for Kung Fu on July 22, 1971, and started pre-production (including casting). The air date was scheduled for February 22, 1972, with production starting on December 15, 1971. Bruce Lee, having arrived back from Thailand, auditioned for the part of Caine, but the studio was reluctant to hire a Chinese actor, having concerns with his accent, his intense personality, considered not suitable to portray a quiet, serene character, and also because he was "too authentic".
In early October 1971, a month before Warner Brothers officially designated David Carradine for the role of Caine, Warner Brothers executive Ted Ashley, who saw Bruce Lee's potential and didn't want to lose him to Paramount, offered him an exclusive development deal to create his own TV program, which included an advance of "$25,000 (or $152,000 in 2017 dollars) - enough money to pay off most of his mortgage." Bruce Lee presented a treatment describing a show called Ah Sahm, which he later retitled The Warrior. Bruce Lee did not sign Ashley's deal, preferring to see how The Big Boss performed in theaters. When the movie was a smashing success, he abandoned his plans to be a TV star and instead focused on the big screen. Decades later in 2019, Lee's series concept would be produced as Warrior on Cinemax.
Kung Fu has been called an example of yellowface and a prominent case of whitewashing.
Most of the controversy lies in the allegation that the series' idea was stolen from Bruce Lee, but also in the fact that he was not cast for the leading role, and that decision had racial connotations. The "steal" theory has become widespread, both in academia and in the media, even internationally.
The casting for the leading role when the project was still a feature film had considered (among others) James Coburn, who was preferred by Ed Spielman. When the script became an ABC Movie of the Week, the casting process considered (among others) Bruce Lee, Mako, and George Takei. After having "sought every Asian in Hollywood, because you didn't have to be super bright to know what was coming," and found none that could carry the series, they turned to the American side of the character and began auditioning white actors, including William Smith and John Saxon. Just two weeks before the pilot's filming started, David Carradine obtained the role at his second audition.
At the time, George Takei and the Association of Asian Pacific American Artists (AAPAA) filed a formal complaint for unfair hiring practices. They wanted an Asian actor in the leading role and a Chinese historical advisor; only the second demand was conceded. The Asian acting community was initially displeased, but with so few opportunities for Asian actors at the time, many felt it was better to have a successful show that could be a steady source of work for them in secondary roles than having none at all. Actor James Hong (who was the AAPAA's president), said: "As the show went on, we realized it was a great source of employment for the Asian acting community."
The series has been considered a commentary on race relations in the 1970s, both for its casting as for the depiction of discrimination against minorities. It is noteworthy that race issues also affected the casting of secondary characters whereas gender inequality showed in their stories.
France Nuyen and Nancy Kwan, both Eurasian, played Chinese characters, the first one accepting being given in marriage as payment for service her husband was hired to perform (s3e3), the other one preferring to be a concubine to the emperor rather than the wife of the warlord who had raped her, who was played by Stefan Gierasch, wearing prosthetic makeup (s2e22–23). Barbara Hershey appeared as a Eurasian woman who flees forced marriage to a warlord played by Khigh Dhiegh (born Kenneth Dickerson), and is denied admission to the Shaolin temple as a student because "You are female – You are also of mixed blood" (s3e10–11). On the other hand, American women are sometimes portrayed as dependant or even unable to survive without men (s1e14, s2e16, s3e4), but also as independent individuals, like entrepreneurs (s3e23), landowners (s2e14, s3e1–2), ranchers (s2e12, s3e3) or craftswomen (s1e3), according to the feminist currents of the time. Notably, Asian women are portrayed that way on occasion (s1e5, s1e8), and not just in stereotypical or subservient roles.
Given that the series' action happens mostly in the 19th century California, black people appear as important characters in just a few episodes (s1e13, s2e1, s2e16, s3e18, s3e24), as at the time they were a small portion of the state's population, yet all of the episodes have to do with them facing discrimination. Interestingly, when the consequences of the American Civil War are mentioned, they are in the context of defeat and vengeance (s1e4, s2e3, s3e24), not of the abolition of slavery.
Regarding Native Americans, as it was usual at the time, they are mostly portrayed by non-Native actors, usually from the Hispanic community and also by Whites (s2e6), whereas the Hispanics themselves appear mostly when Caine visits towns in New Mexico or Mexico (s2e3, s2e4, s3e14), even if at the time there was an important Hispanic presence in the state. The portrayal of Native Americans varies from the stereotypical faceless villains (s1e1, s1e2), to objects of persecution and discrimination (s2e5, s3e5) to a co-leading character in the s1e15 episode "The Ancient Warrior," the only one with a Native actor billed in the opening credits, which precisely deals with the extermination of a whole tribe. The absence of Native actors and the cultural misrepresentation issue wasn't unique to this series nor to its time; it has led the National Congress of American Indians to pass a resolution on the subject as recently as 2017.
East Asian, or rather Chinese portrayal in the series remains a problematic subject. Academic studies tend to mention the show in the context of discrimination against Asians in American society and entertainment.
Professor Jun Xing (Chun Hsing in Library of Congress' cataloging) states that segregating actors by roles seems reasonable when ethnic characters are cast, but there is a double standard in which Asians cannot play roles designated as White, whereas Caucasian actors cross into ones representing every other race, showing that in movies American people are not every color, but Black and White. Also, as there is an East–West dichotomy; Asians are not seen as Americans. With that in mind, to maintain the double standard, "Eurasian characters have become Hollywood's favorite creations. These mixed-race characters obviously allow white actors and actresses, with minimum makeup, to steal major roles from Asians." And puts Kung Fu as the "best example" of that, noting Bruce Lee's involvement.
Professor Hye Seung Chung exemplifies Asian representation in American film and television, and the roles Asian actors were allowed to play, with the case of Philip Ahn, who, being the son of a Korean national hero, spent his career playing minor and secondary characters, usually Japanese and Chinese. On page 31, she compares a letter from an admirer of Ahn's work as Master Kan with playwright Frank Chin's attack on the series in a 1974 The New York Times article, when he states that apes' roles in movies had evolved better than Chinese images in media. Even if Professor Chung states on page 177 that "Kung Fu was a groundbreaking series produced by Warner Bros. that intermixed the martial arts genre with Wild West iconography, expanding the syntax of the television western to accommodate "foreign" elements at the scenographic and narrative levels," her analysis decries the way the Kan character is depicted as "emasculated," stereotyped in various ways, and she mentions that Bruce Lee was not cast in the leading role.
Also, the series itself lacks historical and cultural accuracy in this matter. Through the episodes, the writers made mistakes regarding the order of Chinese names, and about who was the Emperor in China at the series' time period. When Japanese elements appear, they are unlikely to be known or happen at the said time: in s3e12, the boy Caine watches a Noh performance in a mandarin's mansion, when Japan was still an isolationist country. In s2e2, among three Japanese characters, there is a woman who has been married to an Englishman for over 15 years, when British subjects had been allowed to reside in Japan only since 1862–1863; also Caine knows well what a ninja is, just ten years after Japan's opening to international relations. Most importantly, the series' Shaolin priests teach Taoist and Confucian philosophy, whereas the actual Shaolin monks are Buddhist. However, the absence of allusions to Joseon Korea is correct, as immigrants from that kingdom arrived in America after 1884.
Another issue that has come under the scrutiny of academia and the media, which is not exclusive to this series, is the fact that Asian actors of several nationalities and ethnicities appeared in the Kung Fu main or guest cast playing Chinese characters, "interchangeably". Professor Chung on page 16-17 exemplifies this situation that Asian actors in the American entertainment industry face with the careers of two Kung Fu cast members, Philip Ahn (Korean) and Richard Loo (Hawaii-born Chinese American) who so often played Japanese villains in war movies that international magazine articles about them confused their pictures: "This confusion speaks to the interchangeability of Asian actors, regardless of nationality and ethnicity, which was fostered by an industry insensitive to the diversities and differences within the same racial group." In an early article about the series, both actors are referred to and they call their characters "Orientals". Professors Kent A. Ono and Vincent N. Pham call that perceived interchangeability "implicit yellowface". It is a problem that, together with whitewashing has continued into present times and is noticed internationally. Regarding this "interchangeability" issue, given the historic period in which Kung Fu is set, Koreans couldn't have appeared, and Japanese perhaps shouldn't have, as in the 1870s' America there were just 55 Japanese immigrants registered. Yet in the episode s2e2 it is established through dialogue, costume, and cultural details that the Japanese are not the same as Chinese, and they are played by actors of Japanese ancestry.
Radames Pera, who played young Caine, mentioned in 2021, "They did the best they could at the time...They were taking heat from the Asian community from the onset. So they actually made a deal with some of the representatives from Asian American community to hire everybody in town, whether they were Korean, Japanese, Chinese, or Filipino who had a SAG card. They also gave cards to those who didn't have one by giving them their first job in a union production. Literally every Asian actor in town worked on that show."
"'That guy is me,' Spielman says. 'That Caine character is me in a way, just like Siegel and Shuster did Superman. He was always Eurasian; he always didn't fit in.'" So, according to its creator, it was not a maneuver that would make it fit for a White actor, even if his first choice for the role had been James Coburn. Regarding the casting process, the production team says they did try to cast an Asian actor but none was adequate for the role, including Bruce Lee. John Furia Jr. asserted that "the concept of the series was a man who was not involved, a man who avoided action at almost any cost, a very quiet, seemingly passive man." Tom Kuhn, besides claiming that Lee's speech was hard to understand, said: "It did occur to me that this part was rather cerebral, a guy who only fights when he's absolutely cornered." Even Fred Weintraub, who had lobbied for Lee since the beginning, noted that they needed an actor "to portray the sense of quiet serenity that Caine possessed, a quality that driven and intense Bruce was not known for." Still, both Kuhn and Weintraub admitted that "the powers that be" were unwilling to hire an Asian actor per se.
Academic studies about Asian representation in American entertainment claim that the casting of the leading role and even the portrayal of the Chinese characters by Asian actors followed generalized discriminatory patterns. Put in a historical context in which White actors were free to play Asian, Eurasian and other ethnicities' roles, whereas Asian, Eurasian and mixed-race actors played the stereotypical Asian roles left but never White roles, anti-miscegenation laws had been repealed just in 1967, the Hays Code finally abandoned in 1968, and whitewashing has continued into the 21st century, their authors simply can't believe that the casting of a White actor for a Eurasian role in 1971 could have had any other cause than inveterate racism, much less when Bruce Lee was involved.
The media continues to list this show as racist, not for its contents but because future star Bruce Lee wasn't cast in a role that perhaps wasn't suited for him, as an actor, in November–December 1971, and because of the rooted belief that the idea for the series was "stolen" from him.
In consequence, the new show takes the name of the original one while completely separating itself from it, instead of continuing its story or attempting to build upon its legacy, claiming with good reason that their aim is improving Asian community's representation and visibility.
Interestingly, in the s1e3 episode "Blood Brother," Kwai Chang Caine pleads for his compatriots to do that, as a matter of life and death.
Placed in a turning point of the history of American society and television, being the last show in American television with a leading character in yellowface, obscures what the show did accomplish. In a time when Asian actors were largely ignored, and usually played minor and openly stereotypical roles, Kung Fu was exceptional for consistently presenting them as not stereotypical characters and for being a steady job source for Asian actors, which was acknowledged by members of the cast and the AAPAA's president James Hong. The episodes s3e8, s3e10–11, s3e15 and s3e22, set in China, had a mostly Asian American cast. Also, the show was clear in denouncing anti-Chinese racism, including hate crimes (s1e3), and pointed at historical events ignored in popular culture, like the Page Act of 1875 that basically forbade the immigration of East Asian women (s1e8), or the harsh labor conditions of the Chinese immigrants who built the transcontinental railroad (pilot, s3e9). Despite its historical inaccuracies, the series' dialogue was greatly based on Chinese philosophy, which gave viewers an introduction to its spiritual values, and its dramatic appeal made it the recipient of international accolades.
Rotten Tomatoes calls the series "influential", and Metacritic in describing it says: "A man of peace, though trained to defend himself, Caine always made an attempt to address situations in a way that was morally acceptable to his beliefs, and to resolve them through [the] least violent means possible. His journey is not only one across the frontier of America but one through the light and dark areas of the soul as well."
In a May 1973 Black Belt magazine interview with John Furia Jr., the author Jon Shirota speaks about the critical response in these terms: "Even the TV critics, customarily very reserved and cautious with their appraisals, acclaimed the show [the first segment] as one of the year's best. (...) One critic wrote that the success of Kung-Fu may be attributed to the very thing the producers were afraid of: the public's not knowing what the series was about. 'Actually,' said the critic, 'it adds a certain amount of unpredictability and suspense to the plot. It is unlike most of the western heroes whose faces are like the book you've already read.' Another critic said that a story like Kung-Fu could never have been made into a movie 10 years ago because no one would have cared about a bunch of coolies. 'It is only now,' he quipped, 'that we are giving true credit to history.'"
Warner Home Video released the entire series on DVD in Region 1 between 2004 and 2005.
On November 14, 2017, Warner Home Video re-released all three seasons, as well as the complete series set on DVD in Region 1.
The extras include audio commentary by David Carradine on four episodes of the series (s2e1 The Well, s2e14 A Dream Within a Dream, s3e2 Blood of the Dragon - 2, s3e21 Full Circle), Zen & Now: A Dinner With David Carradine And Friends (Guests: Hal Sparks, Sifu Rob Moses, Vivica A. Fox, Kam Yuen, Cynthia Rothrock, Radames Pera, Michael Madsen), two documentaries on the series' development and production (From Grasshopper to Caine: the Making of Kung Fu, The Tao of Caine: Production and Beyond), and David Carradine's Shaolin Diary, a visit to China's Shaolin Monastery and the Great Wall.
The series is also available online on Amazon Prime Video and iTunes (including pilot), and on Google TV.
In Kung Fu: The Movie (1986) Caine (again played by Carradine) is forced to fight his hitherto unknown son, Chung Wang (played by Brandon Lee). Herbie Pilato in The Kung Fu Book of Caine (page 157) also comments that Bruce Lee's son, Brandon Lee, was involved in sequels related to the series:
In Kung Fu: The Next Generation (1987), the story moves to the present day and centers on the story of Kwai Chang "Johnny" Caine (Brandon Lee), who is the great-great-grandson of Kwai Chang Caine, and the difficult relationship he has with his father, also named Kwai Chang (David Darlow). In an attempt to connect with his son, Caine Sr. takes him to Silver Creek, a ghost town, the place where their ancestor spent his last years. They talk about how Caine arrived there, became the "wise man of the town", and how he passed away.
As Johnny has involved himself with an operation of burglary and arms trafficking, the perfectionist father and the rebellious son need to put their differences aside to fight the criminals and save Johnny from prison.
Two decades after the first series ended, a second, related series titled Kung Fu: The Legend Continues running in syndication followed the adventures of Kwai Chang Caine's grandson, also named Kwai Chang Caine. It again starred Carradine, this time as the grandson of the original Caine, and introduced Chris Potter as his son. Caine's mentor was played by Kim Chan as Lo Si (The Ancient) / Ping Hai. The second series ran for four years, from 1993 to 1997.
In June 2006, Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander announced that a feature film (which would serve as a prequel to the original Kung Fu series and take place in China) was in development. In 2007, Max Makowski planned to make the film edgier than the original television series. Actor-director Bill Paxton was in talks to direct the adaptation of the TV series. Baz Luhrmann was in talks to direct the film in 2014, and if the deal was made, Luhrmann was to rewrite the film's script. In 2020, 87North Productions announced development of a contemporary feature film version of the series with creator Spielman and Stephen L'Hereaux producing through his Solipsist Film company and David Leitch directing.
A re-imagining of the original series, simply titled Kung Fu, aired on The CW in April 2021. The show is produced by Greg Berlanti.
The series is written by Christina M. Kim and Martin Gero and sees a quarter-life crisis causing a young Chinese-American woman named Nicky, played by Olivia Liang, to drop out of college and take up residence in an isolated monastery in China. When she returns to find her hometown overrun with crime and corruption, she uses her martial arts skills and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice, all while searching for the assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor and now is targeting her.
The show stars Olivia Liang as Nicky; Tzi Ma and Kheng Hua Tan as Jin Chen and Mei-Li, her restaurateur parents whose secrets threaten to destroy their lives; Jon Prasida as Ryan Chen, a quick-witted medical student and Nicky's younger brother; Shannon Dang as Althea Chen, Nicky's larger-than-life older sister who is newly engaged and on her way to planning her dream Chinese wedding; and Eddie Liu as Henry Chu, a martial arts instructor and Chinese art history buff who has instant chemistry with Nicky. Gavin Stenhouse was cast as Evan Hartley, a highly successful assistant district attorney who still has a soft spot for his first love, Nicky; and Yvonne Chapman was cast as Zhilan, a cryptic woman with deep criminal ties and a mysterious connection to the Shaolin monastery where Nicky trained in kung fu.