My 9-star vote represents the series in context. As someone who had been interested in Karate for several years before, I found this programme to have been extremely thoroughly researched. It was quite a revelation.
It was also highly original, employing the flash-back denouement technique that Sergio Leone 'borrowed' in most of his spaghetti westerns. The programme was, in truth, as much a celebration of the philosophy of keeping peace as the practice and teaching of martial arts. Plots were simple, maybe predictable, but they unfolded with as slowly choreographed a ritual as the teachings themselves.
A shaven-headed David Carradine was ideally suited to the role of mixed race Kwai Chang Kane, graduate monk of the Shao-Lin priesthood and fugitive murderer exiled in the wild-west USA. He brought an entirely-believable persona to his character whilst, in turn, acting as ambassador to the art. Bruce Lee was the obnoxious opposite.
Kane's tranquil and undemonstrative resolution of problems, only employing force as a last resort, would make an interesting counterpoint if screened today, at a time when resolution by force is considered a moral imperative.
There's a great deal more to be learnt from this series than from a game of 'Grand Theft Auto'.
Recommended viewing, at least of the pilot movie.
It was also highly original, employing the flash-back denouement technique that Sergio Leone 'borrowed' in most of his spaghetti westerns. The programme was, in truth, as much a celebration of the philosophy of keeping peace as the practice and teaching of martial arts. Plots were simple, maybe predictable, but they unfolded with as slowly choreographed a ritual as the teachings themselves.
A shaven-headed David Carradine was ideally suited to the role of mixed race Kwai Chang Kane, graduate monk of the Shao-Lin priesthood and fugitive murderer exiled in the wild-west USA. He brought an entirely-believable persona to his character whilst, in turn, acting as ambassador to the art. Bruce Lee was the obnoxious opposite.
Kane's tranquil and undemonstrative resolution of problems, only employing force as a last resort, would make an interesting counterpoint if screened today, at a time when resolution by force is considered a moral imperative.
There's a great deal more to be learnt from this series than from a game of 'Grand Theft Auto'.
Recommended viewing, at least of the pilot movie.