As best as I can figure, I was 8-11 or so when I became obsessed with Kwai Chang Caine, hero of the TV show "Kung Fu." (Hawkeye Pierce and Bugs Bunny also made that list, fyi.). He met so many of my requirements for a hero: he was sensitive, moral, considerate, even funny at times. He respected the ladies. He looked really cool. Acted even cooler. He resorted to violence only as a last resort, but when he resorted to it it was the coolest (slo-mo!) violence I'd ever seen. He was as calm and quiet and graceful as I felt myself to be fidgety, spastic, and jabbery. He fought guns with fists and feet! He was an innocent fugitive on the run (ala Bruce "Hulk" Banner, the Bill Bixby TV version of whom was another, if much lesser, favorite). He was as un-macho as any action hero ever. He was the zennest hero ever (although it's brother Keith who's the actual Buddhist). And Carradine, admitedly coming at the end of shameful decades of white people playing Asians and Native Americans, had the voice, the look, the placid yet powerful bearing to portray the downdtrodden, avenging stranger. And it usually was about avenging, or defending (aking to several of Clint Eastwood's westerns, spaghetti and post, though Clint was a darker angel by far). While the show dealt with racism in almost every show, Caine was no Billy Jack, his resistance to hatred was passive and instructional, but to injustice it was so awesometly active. And, on top of it all, "Kung Fu" was a martial arts show set in the wild west!, an unbeatable combo. It was hokey, it was melodramatic, it was silly, it was absolutely perfect.
I've only seen snippets of the "Kill Bill"s, and never saw what I assumed would be the horrible "new" "Kung Fu" that came and went about a decade ago. There are certain celebrities the death of whom makes my world feel permanantely empier by. Off the top of my head, Paul Newman and Spalding Gray come to mind. David Carradine, or, the part of him that was Caine anyway, now joins that list.
