Kung Fu Review: A Fun, Relatable, Action-Packed Reimagining of a Classic
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While reboots, reinventions, and reimaginings are having their moment in entertainment, they can be complicated things. Particularly when the thing being given a new take holds an important place in popular culture, there can be high expectations and that is certainly the case for The CW s
Kung Fu, a contemporary, female-led take on the classic 1970s series which starred David Carradine. However, whatever expectations one might have going into this new series, the new
Kung Fu easily exceeds them, offering up a story that is unique, entertaining, and arriving at exactly the right time.
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What’s in a name? The potential to make new deals out of old intellectual property, for one. “Kung Fu,” which premieres Wednesday on the CW, is related by contracts and corporate history to “Kung Fu,” the 1970s David Carradine series about a half-Chinese Shaolin monk roaming the Old West; what they have in common is a main character schooled in martial arts whose mentor is killed. And, apart from a title and a screen credit for Ed Spielman, who created the original series Christina M. Kim, whose credits include “Blindspot” and “Lost,” is the new version’s showrunner nothing else.
4/7/2021
The CW s latest stars Olivia Liang as a Shaolin-trained woman who returns to San Francisco after three years in China only to discover a triad menacing her family.
As near-trends go, The CW s devious recent pattern of using macho dad brands as a Trojan horse for heartwarming family dramas is one I m partial to. Like
Walker, the network s
Kung Fu has its own share of problems. But the inevitability that fans of the 70s show of the same title checking out this semi-remake will freak out and then tune out is absolutely a feature and not a bug.
While
Anyone coming to the Christina M. Kim (“Lost”) CW reboot of “Kung Fu” expecting a hazel-eyed David Carradine clone exploring the Old West will be greatly surprised. In 1971, Bruce Lee pitched the unique concept of a Chinese immigrant endowed with supreme martial-arts skills roaming the American West after the 1870s San Francisco Tong Wars. Television executives balked at the idea of an Asian lead, and then cast Carradine a year later in his breakout role as Kwai Chang Caine an orphaned son of an American man who is trained at a Shaolin Monastery in the martial-arts, and ventures to America following the death of his mentor in the original series “Kung Fu.”
âKung Fuâ Rights the Wrongs of Its Ancestor
This gender-flipped martial-arts reboot departs from its 1970s predecessor by having a predominantly Asian-American cast.
Olivia Liang stars as the high-kicking hero of âKung Fu.â âWe just want to make our community proud,â she said.Credit.Lindsay Siu for The New York Times
April 6, 2021, 8:35 a.m. ET
Nearly 50 years after David Carradine rose to fame as an enigmatic, half-Chinese Shaolin monk in the Wild West, âKung Fuâ is returning to network television in a new iteration on the CW.
But this time, the gender-flipped reboot, which will be the first network drama to feature a predominantly Asian-American cast when it premieres Wednesday, is attempting to right some of the wrongs of the original series.