The Ancient Warrior

Season One of “Kung Fu” ends with what is simply one of its best episodes. In “The Ancient Warrior,” Caine befriends and elderly Native American (Chief Dan George) trying to return to his ancestral home so he can die peacefully and be buried there. Only one problem: on the ground of his forefathers now stands a town called Purgatory, and they don’t like Indians.

Caine befriends the Ancient Warrior and stands beside the man, even at one point protecting him from some village ruffians (one of whom is played by Gary Busey), but as has so often been the case, Caine is slightly off center from the real action, the struggle of the townspeople to do what is right by the Ancient Warrior and allow him his last request. Among the Purgatory town folk that have to hash this out is the righteous Judge Marcus (Will Geer) and the hateful Sheriff Poole (Victor French), who does a good job of protecting the town but is “a bigot and a tyrant.”

The Ancient Warrior, having staked his claim and pressed his legal right to the burial, basically sits in the dirt in the street and waits for justice. Caine waits with him, and as they do so they watch the town behave. They learn that there are good men like the judge and men like the sheriff who wear the mantle of goodness but, inside, are ethically compromised. An incident with a gunslinger named Lucas Bass (G.D. Spradlin), who confronts the sheriff over a past ill, is revealing – Bass gets shot in the back.

In the end it becomes quite clear to the Ancient Warrior that whatever hallowed ground there was at Purgatory has become spiritually polluted by the white man’s civilization. The Ancient wins his legal right to be buried there but after what he’s witnessed he spurns it. Better, he decides, to be buried in the wilderness where there is still purity than in the hypocrisy and contradictions of Purgatory. As Caine puts it, “It’s better to cover the land with love than let it cover you with hate.”

What a terrific story, consistent with the storytelling hallmarks I’ve been pointing out all along. Caine is a catalyst but not the only protagonist. The supporting characters are all as interesting and contribute to the plot. The episode takes a story and setting typical of the genre and subverts it, produces something new. Emblematic of the entire series and its mission.

IMDB is here. I gotta give this four out of four yin yangs. Some great reading on Chief Dan George at the link indicated.

So I’m finally, after, what, three years, wrapping up my review of Season One (something Kung Fu Cinema managed to do quite gracefully in one post). On to Season Two! I started this blog watching this show with my second child asleep on my chest every night and now, of course, that child sleeps on his own. But my love of this show goes on and I intend to stick with it. Along the way, it’s become a place for me to sound off not only on the show but on a wide genre that I love and the zeitgeist that goes with it, both of which “Kung Fu” were very much a part of. Thanks for sticking with me so far! I’ll try to be more consistent.

A Couple of Great Overlooked Martial Arts Scenes

Hey, guys. I've been a crap blogger lately, and I hope you forgive me - all three of you! I've got a write up on the last couple episodes of Season One to hammer out and a good idea for a post on some great martial arts reading. Meanwhile I was clicking around in search of some little known fight scenes from past movies and I found a couple of gems I wanted to share. It's always interesting to see the scenes of martial arts that started appearing in western movies. If you haven't seen Jimmy Cagney whopping ass with judo in Blood on the Sun, please do say, and cross reference it with Spencer Tracy chopping down bad guys in Bad Day at Black Rock. But let's not forget how Frank Sinatra chopped and kicked his way through The Manchurian Candidate.

Nor this great scene from a little known movie with Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte called Odds Against Tomorrow. Recognize anyone else in this clip? I'll give you a hint... you might want to "mash" your brain a bit.

The Third Man

"The Third Man" is another excellent example of the formula and characteristics that make this show work. It concerns a gambler that Caine befriends, Jim Gallagher, another terrific western stereotype played excellently by veteran TV actor Fred Beir (check out this guy's resume at IMDB; like so many actores on this show, he's got lengthy experience on great TV shows).

Gallagher is country smooth, saloon charming, a damn fine card player - and quite hopelessly addicted to gambling. Caine temporarily joins Gallagher's household, which includes his caring but frustrated wife Noreen (Sheree North), and tries in his gentle, Chan Buddhism way to encourage Gallagher to change his life. (Great scene where Caine meets Fay and tells her, "I work... eat... learn.") Unfortunately before Caine can succeed Gallagher is robber one night after a hot run at the table, and accidentally killed by the noble but all too human town sheriff, Sheriff Raha (Ed Nelson).

Caine is the only one that sees who really killed Gallagher, and here's where the plot gets, to me, interesting. Sheriff Raha witholds his guilt from the incident because he is secretly in love with Gallagher's widow. It's clearly eating Raha alive to hide his involvement in the accidental death, but he won't step forward - he thinks this will allow he and Fay to finally be free of Gallagher and be together. Instead of doing the detective work necessary to expose Raha, Caine simply waits. He recognizes that Raha wants to do the right thing and, as is characteristic with this show and Caine's solution to its conflicts, Caine enables, through inaction and dialogue, Raha to do the right thing.

Of course, Caine also has to contend with the thugs that robbed Gallagher, still at large, which he does with much appreciated ass whuppery. There's also a terrific flashback involving Master Kan that helps explain Caine's method in this case, an incident involving the theft of some gold plates from a Shaolin altar; Kan lets the crime go, teaching Caine that sometimes good people do bad things, and charity and understanding are required in response. (You can see part of it in this nice edited version from YouTube vid below.) This sounds like a pretty convoluted plot and it's one that might have sunk the episode in its execution, but writer Robert Lewin and director Charles D. Dubin keep "The Third Man" on track so that it is exemplary. Four out of four yin yangs. IMDB for this episode is here.

By the way, Sheree North, who plays Noreen, was an interesting Hollywood figure that I never knew much about until I looked into this episode. You might recognize her as Lou Grant's girlfriend from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," Kramer's mom from "Seinfeld," or several other roles. Apparently she was rumored to have been hired as a countermeasure against the unreliable Marilyn Monroe, with whom she shared exact measurements! More interesting reading is here.

Last Stop on the Endless Highway

For months, I've been meaning to post my review of David Carradine's autobiography, Endless Highway. Now I find the task bittersweet, since the final chapter is being written in Thailand and Hollywood as we speak. It's horrible irony, as my colleague Michael pointed out when he picked up my copy of the book this morning and perused the first chapter, that Carradine wrote:

"When I was five I tried to hang myself in the garage by jumping off the bumper of the Duesenberg. My father saved me, and then confiscated my comic book collection and burned it - which was scarcely the point."

Endless Highway is a thoroughly entertaining read because Carradine's entertaining way of telling stories drips through every page. He's got thousands of anecdotes like that and he tells them in a way that's both arresting and matter-of-fact, open-ended like the comment above - I mean these are on every page, leave you going, "What?" and "Man, I'd like to have coffee with this guy."

Endless Highway tells the story of Carradine, the son of an accomplished Hollywood leading man and character actor who grew up constantly shuffled between homes and reform schools. Carradine was an original member of the post war counterculture(s), first as a painter, musician and actor/dancer beatnik-type in New York, then as a California hippy. That's when he did "Kung Fu" and made his stamp on the 20th century American experience. His career post "Kung Fu" was checkered and interesting - I think a lot of us overlook the fact that he made a number of great movies as well as a long list of cult films and stinkers: think Roger Corman's Death Race 2000, Circle of Iron, Bound for Glory and Lone Wolf McQuade. Kill Bill was a natural fit, pointing out yet again that Tarantino has had an instinct for ferreting out people like Carradine, Harvey Keitel, John Travolta and Robert Forrester and putting them to great use.

David Carradine was, in the last equation, a working actor, a seeker, someone who struggled with substances, part new ager and part redneck, all American and, in my mind, one of those people that's just a part of things, so germane to them that they are simply invisible. He wrote:

My story isn't a personal saga. It's a chronicle of a time, a period in history when everything came up for grabs. We all had to make choices. I made mine sometimes. Sometimes shit just happened... After all the triumphs and failures, the lovers, the detractors, I still am not finished, not hardly started really. There's a whole slew of things still undone, dreams not yet realized. I'd better get on with it; get back out there on that endless highway and give them more hell. I don't have forever, as far as I know.

How right he was.

DAMMIT, Mr. Han Died, Too!

Boolshit, Mr. Han-man!

You came straight out of a comic book. And touched out hearts. Rest in peace, Han, as great warriors sail you to your final island.

Kung Fu Cinema has the story. Image taken from HERE.

Martial arts actor Shek Kin dead at 96

By Mark Pollard on June 4, 2009

Hong Kong has lost one of its greatest and longest living film treasures. Veteran martial arts actor Shek Kin (aka Shih Kien, Sek Kin), best known internationally for his role in ENTER THE DRAGON as "Mr. Han," died this morning at the venerable age of 96.

Gregory So, Hong Kong's Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development expressed regret at the loss.

"Mr. Shek's brilliant career in the performing arts industry started in the 1940s. Since then he devoted lifelong commitment to the industry. He played a villain role in the Wong Fei-hung film series and had become one of the most recognizable faces of Hong Kong cinema," said So.

"With his death, Hong Kong has lost an outstanding performing arts talent. On behalf of the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, I offer our deepest condolences to Mr. Shek's family."

Shek was one of the territory's most recognizable actors thanks to a prolific career that spanned over 50 years. Born in 1913, Shek was among Hong Kong's first generation of martial arts stars, including Walter Cho, Kwan Tak-hing and Yu So-chow, who flourished during the initial genre boom of the 1950s and '60s. Trained in several northern kung fu disciplines rather than Chinese opera like so many of his peers, Shek began appearing in Cantonese-language martial arts films in the late 1940s. Up until he was cast as the lead villain in ENTER THE DRAGON, Shek was best known as the lead villain in the long-running WONG FEI HUNG film series where he frequently crossed fists and wits with series star Kwan Tak-hing.

In the 1970s and '80s, Shek continued to appear in a variety of films, most notably in ENTER THE DRAGON but also in a comedic supporting role opposite Jackie Chan in THE YOUNG MASTER. He also frequently appeared in local television series. Shek Kin retired from the entertainment industry in the mid-1990s. His final film role was in Bosco Lam's comedy HONG KONG ADAM'S FAMILY (1994).

OH MY GOD, DAVID CARRADINE DIED?!

Here I was, getting ready to update this blog with my final reviews from Season One, a review of Carradine's autobio, and some other assorted stuff when THIS HAPPENED.

NY Times and AP:

David Carradine, the star of the 1970s television series “Kung Fu” and the title villain of the “Kill Bill” movies, has died in Thailand, The Associated Press reported. The United States Embassy in Bangkok told The A.P. that Mr. Carradine had been found dead in his hotel suite in Bangkok, where he was working on a movie. He was 72.

Mr. Carradine was part of an acting family that included his father, John; his brother, Bruce, and half-brothers Keith and Robert; and his nieces Ever Carradine and Martha Plimpton.

After a short run as the title character in the 1966 television adaptation of the Western “Shane,” he found fame in the 1972 series “Kung Fu” as Kwai Chang Caine, a wanderer raised by Shaolin monks to be a martial arts master. He enjoyed a career resurgence in recent years when he was cast by Quentin Tarantino in the action movies “Kill Bill: Vol. 1″ and “Vol. 2.”

Updated | 10:58 a.m. Thai police have told BBC News that Mr. Carradine was found on Thursday morning by a hotel maid in a wardrobe with a rope around his neck.

* * *

What more can I add? The only thing I can say is that the world lost a great actor. I can only speculate as to why he may have taken his life - it may be as a result of his struggles with alcohol. EDIT: Or it may have been accidental. I am shocked at this, frankly, because David's confidence and self-worth seemed so evident. Perhaps we'll learn more in the coming days. Regardless, my prayer is for your rest and hereafter, David. We'll miss you but, in a way, because of what you left behind, we'll always have you. God keep you, Grasshopper.

Shoot, I'm kinda crying right now!

The Stone

There's too much going on in "The Stone," and that's what makes it one of the first season's worst episodes, which is too bad, because the ideas are good and the potential is great.

"The Stone" is about exiles, of which Caine is one. He meets Montoya (Moses Gunn), a Brazilian son of a former slave and master of the Afro-Brazilian fighting art of capoeira. Montoya has a giant diamond that he is going to use to make his fortune, a quest he sees as deeply personal because it will lift his family's legacy from the shackles of slavery.

Caine also meets Zolly (Gregory Sierra), an Armenian who has fled the Russian (or Ottoman? It isn't clear) conquest of his country and wants to raise enough money to return as a freedom fighter. Only Zolly falls in love with a frontierwoman and her three kids, something that doesn't fit into his plans.

The convoluted plot (Montoya loses the stone to Zolly's potential kids while Caine gets involved and is being chased by bad guys and a marshall forcing Caine to confront Montoya and Zolly to confront the marshall and his purpose as a freedom fighter) doesn't bring these elements together efficiently, and in the end we're left with an episode that is spread too thin and relies on too many strange connections. So, honestly, I gotta give this one out of four yin-yangs.

Mark Pollard at Kung Fu Cinema has rightly pointed out that even having a capoeira theme to an episode is a remarkable example of the show's forward thinking. The art is well known today but in the 70s? Moses Gunn you'll recognize from a number of blaxploitation movies, including the Shaft films and other work. He's always seemed really wooden to me. Gregory Sierra you'll recognize as Julio from "Sanford and Son" and Sergeant Chano on "Barney Miller." Sierra gives a terrific performance here. Also of note - not all the fight sequences on the show were equally fun, as this episode shows. Lots of cutaways of Montoya's foot going into a bad guy's stomach, etc.

IMDB for this ep is here.

Superstition

What an evil situation this is! When it is discovered that a silver mine has penetrated an Indian burial ground, the mine becomes cursed and the workers flee. To keep it going, the mine owner and a corrupt sheriff press passers-through into service on trumped-up legal charges. Into this walks Caine. The men trapped here believe they have fallen under a curse. They have given up hope.

In classic "Kung Fu" fashion, Caine's presence in the mine redefines what it means to be in prison. After a (pretty cool) scuffle with some guards, Caine and fellow miner Meador (Don Dubbins) are punished by being placed in "the Oven," a tin shack that's unbearably hot during the day and just as cold at night. Caine survives this by meditating, and he teaches Meador to do so as well. "You are not within a prison. The prison is within you."

There's a great flashback scene with Master Po. Young Caine, curious about a locked hallway at Shaolin temple, is commanded by Po to brave it. He learns that the hallway is locked because it leads to a pool of acid where metal is electroplated, and Po wants Caine to traverse a beam over this acid pool. Looking down, Caine sees the bones of monks who have tried this and failed. Po is trying to teach Caine what Caine will later try to teach the miners about the "cursed" mine. "Superstition is like a magnet. It pulls you in the direction of your beliefs."

Ultimately, Caine's revolutionary ideas, his ability to inspire the men to shift mentally, lead to renunciation of the curse, cooperation and revolution. As is so often with this show, beating up the bad guys is not an option. Rather, Caine points the way, helps it along.

Veteran character actors round out the cast; Fred Sadoff of The Poseidon Adventure as corrupt sheriff Banack, Ford Rainey as mine owner Stern, and stuntman and character actor Roy Jensen as Rupp, one of the mine's potential leaders. Four out of four yin-yangs, IMDB is here. YouTube here.

Kung Fu Novelization

As I've read up on the show and the time it was broadcast, I've learned about - and remembered some of - the other items that went with this show, including the Kung Fu lunch box (gosh, remember themed lunch boxes, you kids of the 70s?) and.... Kung Fu: the books!

Got my hands on this at that venerable Ann Arbor institution, Aunt Agatha's, and read it. It was awful! Basically, re-rells the story of the pilot episode in flat, uninspired prose, probably cranked out in a hurry to capture momentum built by the show. A fun bit of show-related swag but not a page-turner by any means. I imagine "Kung Fu" fanfic would be better.... hey, anyone know where I can find some "Kung Fu" fanfic??