TV series
Kung Fu
1972–1975United States
United StatesAmerican ABC series (1972–1975) about the Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine, who wanders the Old West; David Carradine played the lead role.
Kung Fu is an American television series created by Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander. ABC aired it from October 1972 to April 1975, three seasons and 63 episodes in all. The main character is the Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine, who wanders the American Old West. He is played by David Carradine. When cast, Carradine did not know kung-fu and relied on his experience as a dancer. He later studied kung-fu with Kam Yuen, who worked on the series as a technical adviser, and described himself as an evangelist of kung-fu. The technical adviser in the first half of the series was David Chow, who also guest-starred in the pilot episode. He added and removed fight scenes and made sure they looked believable. The series was followed by the sequel Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (1993–1997) and, in 2021, by a new version from The CW. How much Bruce Lee contributed to the concept is disputed: his wife Linda Lee Cadwell claims he was working on a similar idea, while Matthew Polly denies it.
Martial arts in this work
Origin
The series was created by Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander. Sources disagree on whether Bruce Lee contributed to the concept. According to Linda Lee Cadwell, Bruce Lee's wife, Lee was working on the idea of a Shaolin priest wandering through America. Cadwell adds a remark by an alleged unnamed ABC executive, who said they would not make a star out of a Chinese actor five feet six inches tall (about 168 cm). Matthew Polly, by contrast, states that Bruce Lee did not invent the Kung Fu series. We have not been able to establish from the sources which of the two claims is more accurate.