Find peace, Grasshopper

David Carradine, star of the 1970s TV show “Kung Fu,” which mixed Asian characters and influences with a Western setting and “Fugitive” story arc, apparently killed himself in Thailand this week. Carradine, who beat out Bruce Lee for the part, played a half-white North American, half-Chinese Shaolin monk who fled China to escape imperial authorities in continued to pursue him and find U.S. family members in the Western United States. His character’s name was Kwai Chang Caine.

Along with “The Rockford Files” and “Barney Miller,” this was the favorite show during my two years of heavy mid-1970s TV viewing. I probably identified with a rare Asian character on TV: a character who was, like my sister and I, half-Asian and half-white (we even shared a family name). The final episodes of the third and final season – particularly the series finale, “Full Circle,” which I’d love to watch again (along with the “Miami Vice” series finale) - even more directly tackled issues of racism, interracial romance, and violence against Asians and Asian Americans.

The show de facto showed that Asian immigrants were not new to the United States and dealt – usually delicately – with racial issues when black-white issues were still at the forefront and North America’s contemporary new immigration (partly of Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans) was just beginning in earnest.

Another favorite actor of mine, Bruce Lee, fled Hollywood after losing this part (to a non-Asian actor) – after allegedly developing the series idea – and began filmmaking in Hong Kong. There he produced several hit movies – including the extraordinary “Enter the Dragon” – but apparently stayed bitter about Hollywood racism and ultimately died young.

“Kung Fu” – which promoted an ethic of justice and personal serenity (always starting with flashbacks in a Chinese monastery – where Master Po calls Kwai Chang Caine Grasshopper) - and ending with a fight that Caine feels forced to get involved in (Caine as a somewhat standard circuit-riding do-gooder – a la “Quantum Leap” or “The Pretender”)) - probably both reflected and contributed to North Americans’ interest in martial arts and Asian culture and religions. (Before Jackie Chan and “Kung Fu Panda,” it no doubt also helped inspired Carl Douglas’ disco smash “Kung Fu Fighting” (even though the show had its own great theme music): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhUkGIsKvn0.)

Alas, Carradine enjoyed little professional success after “Kung Fu,” despite a short revival in a mediocre mid-1990s version of “Kung Fu” set in a modern-day U.S. city, except for a recent recurring role in Quentin Tarantino’s ultra-violent “Kill Bill” movies. (Penny and I did serve in a Hollywood test audience for a mediocre movie with Carradine and Stockard Channing that became “Death Race 2000.”) Carradine, 72, was in Thailand filming a new movie. He apparently hung himself in his Bangkok hotel room.

A revamped movie – a la the new “Star Trek” movie – is apparently in the works.

-- Perry