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What good things can I say about the television series "Kung Fu" (1972-75) that haven't already been said? More than 30 years after the original TV show left the airwaves, it remains my favorite American network series. Not only were "Kung Fu's" writing and acting all superlative, but its highly unusual, Zen-like take on the all-American genre of the Western -- in case you don't know, the show is about a Buddhist monk roaming the Wild West -- still resonates. For my money, the first-season episode titled "An Eye for an Eye" remains the finest thing that American episodic TV has ever created. Here is the best way for me to sum up how much I love "Kung Fu": of all the decorations in my home, only one is a photo of a celebrity -- an autographed picture of David Carradine as Kwai-Chang Caine.
Now that you know how highly I regard "Kung Fu," I would still like to make a few comments about it. As much as I respect the series for popularizing the Asian presence in U.S. history at a time when hardly anyone else was doing so, the series did cut a few corners, and this bugs me a bit.
ACTING: "Kung Fu's" weakest link is Radames Pera as the young Kwai-Chang (a.k.a. "Grasshopper") in the famous flashbacks. While the performances by the cast and guest stars are usually excellent, Pera's recitation of his lines totally lacks any convincing emotional undercurrent. Also, he doesn't look very much like Carradine, who plays the character that he's supposed to grow up to be. I have a hard time believing that Pera was the best choice for this part.
ETHNIC ISSUES: The country of China, the setting for the show's flashbacks, is a patchwork quilt of various ethnicities. However, the country's dominant ethnic group is the Han people, the first folks we Westerners tend to think of as "Chinese," while the others, such as the Uygurs and the Tibetans, are considered "minorities." In "Kung Fu's" pilot, when Master Kan (Philip Ahn) tells young half-white Caine that the Shaolin monastery has never accepted anyone other than of "full-Chinese birth," I take him to mean anything other than full-Han ancestry. My response to this is: "Why, then, does Master Kan have a Mongolian name?" It's a small point, to be sure, but one that could have been avoided. (For my thoughts on Carradine, a Caucasian actor, playing the half-Chinese Caine, see my Amazon review of "Kung Fu's" second season.)
ACTION: The element of "Kung Fu" that dates the poorest is its fight scenes. Prior to the series, Western popular culture was not greatly exposed to Asian martial arts. One of the few exceptions was Bruce Lee's high-kicking acrobatics on another TV show, "The Green Hornet" (1966-67), but this did not have an immediate impact upon large American audiences. So, "Kung Fu's" slow-motion fight scenes were quite innovative for their time, and I remember being thrilled by them when the show first aired. To speculate, it may have been because of "Kung Fu's" popularity that American movie screens soon made room for martial-arts films from Asia, especially those from Hong Kong, such as "Five Fingers of Death" and Bruce Lee's starring vehicles. Once American audiences got a taste of them, however, their dynamism made "Kung Fu's" heavily stylized fighting less satisfying. In fact, compared to the unarmed-combat movies from Hong Kong, "Kung Fu's" slow-motion fights come off primarily as a means to cover up Carradine's lack of mastery in the martial arts. Still, this isn't enough to wreck the series for me.
HAIR: This is the show's flaw that really bothers me the most: the hairstyles of the Chinese men. From 1644 to 1912 (which includes the years when "Kung Fu" is set), the Qing Dynasty required men (but not women) in China to wear their hair in queues. This meant not only wearing a ponytail, but shaving the area around the crown and temples of one's head as well. The Qing Dynasty, which had conquered China from Manchuria, compelled the Han men to adopt this Manchurian hairstyle as a symbol of native-Chinese subservience to their new rulers. Those men that refused to wear the queue were summarily executed, giving rise to the saying, "Lose your hair and keep your head; otherwise, keep your hair and lose your head." The only adult Chinese males who did not wear queues were Buddhist monks, who, as "Kung Fu" more accurately depicts, shaved their heads entirely.
Chinese men in America were not exempt from this decree. Until 1952, racist laws in the U.S. prohibited Asian-born immigrants (most of whom were men) from becoming naturalized citizens. Therefore, even on American soil, 19th-century Chinese men, who theoretically could be deported back to their native country at any time, were obliged to follow this Qing Dynasty law.
Unfortunately, "Kung Fu" does not deal accurately with Chinese men's tonsorial traditions in the 19th century: most of the series' Chinese men wear contemporary 20th-century hairstyles. If a queue is present at all, it's usually just a braided ponytail attached to a contemporary coif. The one time the subject of queues comes up on "Kung Fu" (the third season's "This Valley of Fear"), Caine says that wearing one is only "a personal choice." Regrettably, the moment is a missed opportunity to educate the audience about the significance of Qing-era hairstyles.
So, every Chinese man in "Kung Fu" not wearing a queue, and who is not a Shaolin monk, does not have an authentic period hairstyle. However, I'm not saying that Carradine ought to have worn a queue. In fact, knowing about 19th-century Chinese hairstyles makes me appreciate his shoulder-length mane all the more: it instantly marks Caine as an outlaw. Still, the unusualness of his hairstyle on a Chinese man of the Qing era should have immediately signaled something amiss to the show's other characters. For example, the Chinese railroad crew in the pilot would have remarked about his grown-out shaved head before they noticed the Shaolin marks on his arms. The crew cut on the Chinese dissident Wong Ti Lu (Mako) in the first season's "The Tide" also makes sense as a political statement of someone opposed to the Qing emperor. Otherwise, the 20th-century hairstyles on the show's other Chinese men are a nagging reminder not only of a historical inaccuracy, but also of a thematically rich element ignored by the series. Would it have been so uneconomical for "Kung Fu" to have put its non-Shaolin Chinese male characters in bald wigs with queues attached to them?
Still, I hope that none of my comments about "Kung Fu" discourages anyone interested in the show from checking out the DVD. After all, the reason I know as much about Chinese history as I do is because "Kung Fu" made such an enormous impact on me. I'm glad that the series continues to move audiences today.
(Note: I have also written reviews for the second and third seasons of "Kung Fu.")
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Reviews with images
I received Disk 1 season 3 instead of disk 1 season 1
I love king by and wanted season 1. I received a wrong disk so don't have the Pilot or whatever else is oh disk 1 of season 1.Nice series. Hopefully good service from seller as I use them often.
Top reviews from other countries
M.A
Excellente série américaine des années 80
Reviewed in France on January 11, 2024Pedro Soveral Rodrigues
Que nostalgia, rever los episodios de Kung Fu de mi infancia
Reviewed in Spain on April 5, 2021