World Famous Comics: Kung Fu - The Complete Second Season
Kung Fu - The Complete Second Season
Directed By: Gordon Hessler, Robert Totten, Alex Beaton, Lee Philips, Walter Doniger Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 4 Region Code: 1 Release Date: January 18, 2005 Running Time: 1167 minutes Theatrical Release Date: October 14, 1972
Product Description: He is a man of peace in a violent land. He is Kwai Chang Caine schooled in the spirit-mind-body wasy of the Shaolin priesthood by the blind avuncular Master Po and the stern yet loving Master Kan. He is the Old West's most unusual hero. SEASON 2 GUEST STARS INCLUDE HARRISON FORD DON JOHNSON SLIM PICKENS GILBERT ROLAND TINA LOUISE JOHN CARRADINE BENSON FONG AND MORE!Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 085393343422
OK It got here quickly and in great condition. It was not as good as the first season, but better than the third. If you like Kung Fu, you will like this.
Nostalgia I'm one of those boom babies who grew-up watching "Kung-Fu", and thought Chinese Shoalin monks were all-knowing, superhuman demigods who could throw-down with the bad guys and kick the snot out of them. Now it seems like a funny show, where they may spend five minutes debating the merits of a spider web. Very, very slowly. After a few of these you realize that everyone talks slow and acts slow, and the fast forward is taking you right to a decent fight scene, filmed in -yes!- slow motion! Yet, it's all good, Kane is slooooow but believable, and lessons are learned. Most of all, it's awsome nostalgia for guys like me who get sick of brainless action movies where the opposite is true; everything is too fast with a million explosions. Sometimes you need to slow things down and meditate a bit . . . then kick butt in slow mo. Good times.
The Journey Continues A few years ago, I gave the first season a positive review, but this is light years beyond it. Caine began progressing on his path because everyone associated with the show began finding their way as well. Year One, like the beginning of Caine's journey, was random and confused. Here, there's a purpose. Talk about a productive off-season. A few mid-season slumps, but no clunkers between a strong start and a stronger finish.
The immersion in the atmosphere is absolute, and it's extremely easy to forget you're watching actors on a film set. The atmosphere, the wide variety of natural beauty that the US offers (I can't believe I wrote that), the trademark use of music to maximum effect, the joy of seeing actors you know well popping up here. Much cross-pollination from the original Star Trek. Don Johnson as a teenaged Indian back when he could (believe it or not) act. Tina Louise confusing volume with emotion, which could be why they shipped her off to Gilligan's Island. Slim Pickens, of course. Boss Hogg before he wore white, back when he was just a sheriff. George Dzundza as a customer in a whorehouse. Denver Pyle (Dukes of Hazzard, Grizzly Adams) as a clean-shaven doctor, with a pre-Star Wars Harrison Ford in the same episode. But I've gotta give the award to Jack Elam as a sympathetic "good guy" character. Probably the most dialogue he's ever delivered in his career, and he's amazing.
If you watch six episodes in the same day, you might notice the same extra in two consecutive shows. What, did Hollywood have a shortage of little blonde-haired boys back then? Could be nepotism. Could be nobody but me cares. I like having things like this to notice just because I'm a goofball. They take nothing away from what Kung Fu achieved.
The show might drift into fortune cookie goofiness from time to time, but basically we're on a quest for wisdom here. A TV show about Chinese Buddhism, folks. And about life. Don't forget how groundbreaking it was. It ages well, too, which was the only question the first season left me with. It's pretty easy to impress a pre-teenager with sensible philosophy, but I'm older than many of the monks now, and I've also taught in China. No problem. It still moves me, with some thought-provoking bits of dialogue that make me glad I can hit "pause" in this day and age. There's not a damn thing wrong with being an unabashed morality play as long as it's not boring, and the folks behind the series knew this. It can even deliver humor that doesn't shatter everything else it is. I'd completely forgotten that.
You know what I don't like? That idealists must apologize in advance for it. Kung Fu, like the aforementioned Star Trek, came from a time where such "pre-emptive strikes" weren't necessary. If Kung Fu chose to write about how things should be instead of how they are from time to time, I chose to appreciate it for that, to consider, and to learn. I've still got a bit of the old idealist in me, and if that means a journey as lonely as Kwai Chang Caine's, then that's what it means. The old redneck in me makes me stubborn.
It's sufficiently well-grounded in what it is to present some silly voodoo mess on occasion and still hold your interest, never drifting into the cartoonish land of The Legend Continues. Even the minor characters get good solid memorable dialogue. It does drift into the land of the racial stereotype, but I don't think that was deliberate. I mean, you generally don't think of Caine as a stereotype, even though he's got Chinese Kung Fu superpowers. He's just this good soul who searches, and just so happens to know a bit of the old chop sockey so he doesn't get killed. If you catch it breaking with reality, which happens once in a while, you just forgive it and keep watching because it's so well-intentioned and just so damn well done. Best TV show ever? I dunno. Could be. Top Ten, definitely.
Near the end of this set of DVDs, they finally decided to write about Chinese culture, and I saw things that I'd seen back in China. (I'm not saying I moved to China because of Kung Fu, but I'm not denying it either. I asked Jan about a Shaolin wedding, then changed my mind.) It occurred to me before then, however, that I never saw anyone on this show eat with chopsticks. I can give David Carradine lessons if he needs them.
(None of the above comments apply to the two-part episode that ended Season Two. It sucks beyond belief and is painful to contemplate.)
My original plan was to enjoy this and sell it, like I did the first year. Instead, I've enjoyed all 23 episodes and put them back on my shelf for future enjoyment. The other part of the plan, to order and watch the third and final season, remains as it was.
Transforming The American Landscape One Person At A Time `Kung Fu - The Complete Second Season' continues the odyssey of Kwai Chang Caine on his sojourns across the American west in search of the half-brother he has never met. His search is continually complicated by a myriad of hired assassins sent by the Chinese Emperor to kill him for the accidental death of his nephew along with the constant racial prejudice he must encounter at every new town he enters. Tough circumstances even for a martial arts priest to overcome.
If you're open to Buddhist philosophy or just open in general I encourage you to give it a try and join the wandering, flute playing monk on the road less traveled. This series not only entertains, it teaches.
Awesome!!! "Kung Fu" influenced thousands, maybe millions of people around the world (including me) with its great writing & hero that was different from any other previous Western hero: he didn't ride a horse, didn't wear/shoot a gun, wasn't a Christian, & practiced non-violence. The quality of writing has endured over time & is still SO much better than a lot of today's TV shows that I feel lucky to have grown up with it. It's also fun to watch the episodes again & pick out all the famous actors/actresses that guest starred, some of whom are no longer in this world. Two Thumbs WAY Up!!! :)
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