Kung Fu TV show film REMAKE

[Jae lae]

I also think Donnie yen will be great

[GeneChing]

This would be a MAJOR game changer for this project.

Baz Luhrmann in Talks to Direct 'Kung Fu' for Legendary (Exclusive)
11:40 AM PDT 4/11/2014 by Borys Kit

The project is the big-screen version of the 1970s martial arts Western.


Austin Hargrave
Baz Luhrmann

Baz Luhrmann could be going from the Roaring '20s to 19th century China.

The Australian filmmaker behind The Great Gatsby is in talks to direct Kung Fu, Legendary Pictures' big-screen adaptation of the 1970s martial arts Western television show. It is unclear how far along the talks are. Legendary had no comment, but the company is beginning to ramp up its Chinese-centric projects again (Yimou Zhang is in talks to revive the company's adventure movie The Great Wall) and Kung Fu has Chinese roots.

If a deal is made, Luhrmann would first do a rewrite on the script before proceeding. (The current script is by Black Swan scribe John McLaughlin.)

Kung Fu starred David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk who came to the American West in search of his half brother. The show featured flashbacks to his training as a teen in which his master called him “young grasshopper,” a phrase that has stuck in the pop culture lexicon. The show aired on ABC from 1972 to 1975 and gained a cult following beyond its run.

According to sources, the current script switches the action to China and finds Caine in search of his father -- at one point ending up in a prison where he must fight to survive.

Luhrmann would bring his own signature sensibility to the martial arts Western. The filmmaker is known for elaborate productions and highly stylized storytelling -- seen not only in the opulent Gatsby but in productions ranging from Moulin Rouge! to Strictly Ballroom.

He is repped by WME.

[GeneChing]

Just saw this on facebook from three days ago...

Classic Hollywood | Los Angeles Times
October 14 ·


Grasshopper! On this date in 1972, ABC premiered its philosophical western series "Kung Fu," starring David Carradine as Caine and Key Luke as Po. The series continued until June, 1975. In 1993, Carradine played Caine's grandson in the syndicated "Kung Fu-The Legend Continues." That series ended in 1996 after 88 episodes. Photo courtesy of AP.

[Fa Xing]

I actually wanted to write up the Kung Fu story based on the way Bruce Lee originally intended it. I just hope they actually do a good job if they do it, I'm not sure I like the whole "stay in China and look for his father" which is why originally they decided not to do that and have him look for his brother instead. Plus the whole point of the story was that it was supposed to be a eastern within a western.

Just actually get the Buddhist stuff in general, and the Shaolin stuff in particular right this time.

[mickey]

Greetings,

I expressed my opposition to the "Green Dragon" movie that is coming out; yet, I did not suggest a healthy alternative. The series "Kung Fu" may offer that if it is kept off the big screen. If it is developed as a cable series that has a definite end, several characters can be introduced that possess story arcs of their own that can be spun off into other series. In doing so, it could really offer deeper insight to the paths of the warrior and sage in a way a two hour movie could not. Through those depictions, values are shared and explored via human strengths and frailties. It should not have to be a bunch of high flying stuff.

mickey

[GeneChing]

I had forgotten Paxton was involved in this reboot at first. I came here looking for something else.

Bill Paxton Was Film's Quintessential Game-Over Man: An Appreciation
February 28, 2017 11:23 AM ET
CHRIS KLIMEK


Bill Paxton as John Garrett on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in 2014. Garrett perished in the finale of the show's first season, a thing Paxton always did with style.
Kelsey McNeal/ABC via Getty Images

Like a lot of artists who try to make it in Hollywood, Bill Paxton spent a big chunk of his career just trying to survive. The thing is, no one was ever better at getting killed.

The actor, who died Saturday at age 61 following complications from heart surgery, had paid his dues and then some. Twenty years ago — which was 20 years after he'd moved to Los Angeles from Fort Worth to try showbiz — he'd reached the sub-stardom peak of his profession: Circa 1994-7, he appeared in, consecutively, True Lies, Apollo 13, Twister, and Titanic, each among the three biggest hits of its year. Besides huge box office, those films shared another uncommon trait: In all of them, Paxton's character was still breathing when the credits rolled.

Those movies, and several dozen others, were enlivened by Paxton's oddball presence and weirdly emphatic line readings. But more than anything else, Paxton was The Boy Who Died. By the time of that mid-90s run, when even non-cineastes started to recognize him, his legacy was already secure: He was and remains the only actor1 ever slain on screen by a T-800 (a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger flung him into metal bars at the Griffith Park Observatory in The Terminator, 32 years before Gosling and Stone danced among the stars there in La La Land), a Xenomorph (a bug dragged him under the floor in Aliens while he raved his profane epitaph), and a Predator (Paxton emptied his sidearm into the advancing beast on an L.A. subway car in Predator 2; when that didn't work, he tried a machete. And a golfball. Never say die! Even when dying is apparently your job.).

To have been walked toward the light by such a rich assortment of cyborg assassins and invasive species seems fitting for a guy who got his start in movies working behind the camera for no-budget shlockmeister Roger Corman. That's how he became fast friends with James Cameron, an even quicker study of the Corman school. Cameron would cast Paxton in four of his films, including as the panicky, motormouthed Marine PFC William Hudson in 1986's Aliens —Paxton's most memorable role, arguably.

By which I mean: If you say it was anything else, expect an argument.

Two Sundays ago, I dragged a group of friends to a double feature of Alien and Aliens at the National Air and Space Museum. (In IMAX!) This was two weeks after John Hurt died, and when his name appeared in the opening titles of Alien, there was a smattering of respectful applause. When Paxton made his entrance as Hudson two-and-a-half hours later, people hooted and recited his lines along with him, Rocky Horror-style. We were all of us on an express elevator to hell, going... down! It was, paradoxically, heaven.

"To this day, if I do a thousand movies, it'll be at the top of my obituary," Paxton told Marc Maron on Maron's WTF podcast only three weeks ago. "Weird Science!"

Respectfully, no.

That John Hughes transformed Paxton into a talking humanoid turd in 1985's Weird Science is a disgusting fact. But Chet Donnelly, Paxton's Weird Science alter ego, was a bully who earned that gross penance by tormenting his little brother.

Hudson was just a cocky short-timer grunt who tried to mask his insecurity and fear with an easily punctured bravado. Hudson was us. He had to get his famous "Game over, Man!" tantrum out of his system before he could settle down and Semper Fi. But after a stern talking-to from Sigourney Weaver's Ripley, Hudson got it together. He did his part to try to keep his comrades alive. He went down shooting. It was a great movie death, maybe the very best.

Of many.

Herewith, an Almost Inevitably Incomplete List of Movies Depicting the Rather Less Memorable But Still Notable Violent Demise of Bill Paxton Characters:

Next of Kin. (He was avenged by Patrick Swayze.)
The Last of the Finest. (He was avenged by Brian Dennehy.)
Navy SEALs. (He was avenged by Charlie Sheen or Michael Biehn or somebody; this one hasn't shown up on Encore Action in a while so my memory is hazy.)
Tombstone. (Avenged by Kurt Russell. But shot in the back by Michael Biehn, of all people! They'd done five movies together!)
He got killed by Tim Matheson in Impulse.
He got killed by Scott Glenn in Vertical Limit.
He got killed by a young up-and-comer named Wesley Snipes in a 1986 episode of Miami Vice.
The following year, in future Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark, Paxton played a psychotic vampire. He was already undead, and still he wasn't permitted to unlive through the movie.
In Carl Franklin's superb, underseen 1992 crime picture One False Move, Paxton's character — an Arkansas sheriff — is stabbed and shot. The film's ending makes his survival ambiguous. The name of his character is One False Move Dale "Hurricane" Dixon. The name of his character in Twister is Bill "The Extreme" Harding. In the military school hazing drama The Lords of Discipline, he was credited as "Wild Bill" Paxton.

That tells you something about the screen persona of his salad days. But he gradually started landing more down-to-earth roles in movies outside of the genre stuff that had been so good to him. Sam Raimi — like Cameron, an unwashed low-budget genre filmmaker who over time became respectable — cast him in the marvelous 1998 thriller A Simple Plan. Paxton made his feature directing debut with 2001's Frailty, a psychological horror flick wherein he starred opposite Matthew McConaughey. Roger Ebert gave the film four stars. Paxton's character was killed, naturally. By his own son. With an axe.

Like so many movie veterans, Paxton gravitated in the 21st century towards television, where he died in the miniseries Hatfields and McCoys and on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. But he lived again in two of 2014's strongest features: As an unscrupulous freelance TV news cameraman in Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler, and as the no-nonsense Master Sgt. Farrell in Doug Liman's time-loop sci-fi movie Edge of Tomorrow. It was, like so many Paxton films, brilliant but underseen.

Putting Paxton in Edge was a sort of easter egg to longtime fans in multiple ways: With him playing the unflappable sergeant forced to deal with a knock-kneed Tom Cruise, it was a sort of inverse of his part from Aliens a generation earlier. But it was also a nod to Paxton's many, many prior screen deaths: Because Edge finds Cruise's character beginning the same horrific day anew each time he is "killed," Paxton's character, along with the other soldiers in Cruise's unit, dies onscreen only once but dies by implication dozens or hundreds of times.

Paxton logged more screen hours as Bill Henriksen — a polygamous patriarch on the Showtime series Big Love — than as any other character he ever played. 53 episodes over five seasons, 2006-2011.

I'll go ahead and slap a Spoiler Alert here for those who haven't yet watched that show (though if you followed Paxton's career, you really won't need it):

In the series finale, he was shot and died.


*I HAVE HEARD FROM PEOPLE ON TWITTER WHO MAINTAIN THAT LANCE HENRIKSEN, WHO CO-STARRED WITH PAXTON IN THE TERMINATOR AND ALIENS BUT ALSO APPEARED IN THE FRUSTRATING-BUT-FASCINATING ALIEN 3 AND THE BETTER-FORGOTTEN ALIEN V. PREDATOR, SHARES THIS DISTINCTION. THIS IS A VICIOUS FALSEHOOD. WE NEVER SEE HENRIKSEN'S RUMPLED LAPD DET. HAL VUKOVICH DIE IN THE TERMINATOR, A FACT HENRIKSEN HIMSELF POINTED OUT IN STARLOG NO. 121 (AUG. 1987), ANGLING FOR A ROLE IN THE SEQUEL.

STARLOG IS WHAT NERDS HAD BEFORE THE INTERNET, PEOPLE.

[GeneChing]

‘Kung Fu’ Female-Led Series Reboot From Greg Berlanti & Wendy Mericle Set At Fox As Put Pilot
by Nellie Andreeva
September 28, 2017 12:15pm


WBTV

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, Fox has landed Kung Fu, a drama with a female lead based on the 1970s David Carradine-starring TV series. The project, executive produced by Greg Berlanti, was given a put pilot commitment.

Written by Arrow executive producer and longtime Berlanti collaborator Wendy Mericle, Kung Fu is a sequel to the original 1880s-set series, which was created by Ed Spielman and chronicled the adventures of Kwai Chang Caine (Carradine), a Shaolin monk who travels the American Old West armed only with his spiritual training — including a ton of aphorisms — and his skill in martial arts in search of his half-brother.



The new Kung Fu follows the adventures of Lucy Chang, a Buddhist monk and kung fu master who travels through 1950s America armed only with her spiritual training and her martial arts skills as she searches for the man who stole her child years before. When she teams with JT Cullen, a charming Korean War vet with his own secrets, the two form an unlikely alliance that allows Lucy to continue her search while also coming to the aid of people in need. (It is unclear whether Carradine’s character and Lucy Chang are related.)

Mericle and Berlanti Prods’ Berlanti and Sarah Schechter executive produce for Warner Bros TV and studio-based Berlanti Prods.

If the project goes to series, it would mark a rare Big 4 broadcast drama series with an Asian character at the center.



The original 1972 Kung Fu series started with a 90-minute TV movie, which served as a pilot (you can watch the series’ opening sequence below). The drama’s three-season run on ABC was followed by a stand-alone TV movie, Kung Fu: The Movie, which aired on CBS in 1986 with Carradine reprising his role and Brandon Lee playing his son. CBS the following year tried to launch a sequel series, Kung Fu: The Next Generation, centered on Lee’s character, though it did not go beyond the pilot stage. There also was Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, an American-Canadian series, which aired four seasons from 1993-97.

It has been another big development season for Berlanti Prods., which has 10 series on the air. The company’s sales include three other put pilot commitments — for an untitled legal drama written by Martin Gero & Brendan Gall at CBS; the White House political drama Republic, written by Alex Berger, at NBC; and light hourlong procedural God Friended Me at CBS, from Steven Lilien, Bryan Wynbrandt and Marcos Siega. Additionally, Berlanti Prods. has three projects set up at the CW including The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, eyed as a Riverdale companion.

Mericle’s first writing job was on Berlanti’s first series as a creator, Everwood. She also worked with him on Jack & Bobby and Eli Stone before joining Arrow after the pilot, rising to executive producer. She is repped by CAA and attorney Nina Shaw. Berlanti is with WME.

Here’s the original Kung Fu sequence:

A Shaolin nun. Interesting twist.

[GeneChing]

‘Kung Fu’ Sequel Drama From Albert Kim & Berlanti Prods. Set At Fox As Put Pilot
by Nellie Andreeva
October 9, 2018 5:00pm


Courtesy of UTA

Fox has given a put pilot commitment to Kung Fu, a present-day sequel to the 1970s David Carradine-starring TV series, from former Sleepy Hollow executive producer Albert Kim, Greg Berlanti’s Berlanti Prods. and Warner Bros. TV, where the company is based.


Courtesy of International Emmy Awards

Written by Kim, Kung Fu is an action-driven procedural about a young Chinese-American woman who inherits her father’s kung fu studio, only to discover it’s actually a secret center dedicated to helping members of the Chinatown community who have nowhere else to turn. With the help of a former star pupil — a smart and driven ex-Marine — she vows to continue the school’s mission. In the process, she discovers things she never knew about her cultural background and family’s heritage, including a connection to a legendary ancestor.

That legendary ancestor presumably is Carradine’s character from the original series, Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine. The 1970s series, created by Ed Spielman, chronicled the adventures of Caine who travels the American Old West armed only with his spiritual training — including a ton of aphorisms — and his skill in martial arts in search of his half.


WBTV

Last year, Fox, Berlanti Prods. and WBTV developed a more straight-forward female-lead reboot of the original series with a different writer. The period drama, which did not go to pilot, followed the adventures of Lucy Chang, a Buddhist monk and kung fu master who travels through 1950s America armed only with her spiritual training and her martial arts skills as she searches for the man who stole her child years before.

Because Fox was Kung Fu‘s home last year, I hear the new take was taken to that network first, and Fox brass bought it with a put pilot commitment. Kim executive produces with Berlanti Prods.’ Berlanti and Sarah Schechter.


Fox

Kim most served as executive producer/co-showrunner on Fox/20th TV’s Sleepy Hollow, and before that as writer/co-executive producer on the CW/Warner Bros. TV’s Nikita. He also developed at WBTV last season. Kim is repped by ICM Partners and attorney Jeff Frankel.

This is Berlanti Prods.’ fifth drama sale this broadcast pitch season. Kung Fu joins Prodigal Son, which also has a put pilot commitment at Fox. Elsewhere, the company has a pilot production commitment at CBS for The Secret To a Good Marriage, a put pilot at ABC with an untitled Nkechi Carroll project as well as a Batwoman DC adaptation at the CW, which is eyeing a pilot order. Berlanti and Schechter are repped by WME and attorney Patti Felker.

As Fox prepares to go independent following Disney’s acquisition of major Fox assets, including 20th Century Fox TV, the network has been actively buying from indie studio WBTV. Fox takes ownership in all projects it buys from outside studios.

"Lucy Chang, a Buddhist monk and kung fu master" - 'monk' typically refers to men in English. Should be 'nun'. But never mind. Looks like they abandoned that concept.

I think Finn Jones would be a good fit for the ex-marine.

[GeneChing]

I watch more CW shows than any other broadcast network nowadays. Which isn't saying that much because I seldom watch broadcast networks nowadays.

NEWS
‘Kung Fu’ Female-Led Reboot From Christina M. Kim, Martin Gero & Berlanti Prods. In Works At The CW
By Nellie Andreeva, Denise Petski
November 6, 2019 12:30pm


Chris Kapa/Maarten de Boer

The CW has put in development Kung Fu, a reimagining with a female lead of the 1970s David Carradine-starring TV series. The hourlong project hails from the Blindspot team of writer-executive producer Christina M. Kim, creator-executive producer Martin Gero, executive producers Greg Berlanti & Sarah Schechter and Warner Bros. TV, where Kim, Gero and Berlanti Prods. are under deals.


WBTV

Written by Kim, inspired by the original series created by Ed Spielman, in the reimagined Kung Fu, a quarter-life crisis causes a young Chinese-American woman to drop out of college and go on a life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China. But when she returns to find her hometown overrun with crime and corruption, she uses her martial arts skills and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice…all while searching for the assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor and is now targeting her.



Kim and Gero executive produce via Gero’s Quinn’s House Production Company, which produces in association with Berlanti Prods. and Warner Bros. TV. Berlanti and Schechter executive produce for Berlanti Prods.

Two incarnations of the project with different writers — both featuring a female lead — were in development at Fox the last two seasons from Berlanti Prods and Warner Bros. TV with a put pilot commitment. Neither went to pilot.


The CW
Berlanti Prods. and WBTV have a successful track record moving to CW projects that had been originally developed at Fox. The CW hit Riverdale and DC drama Black Lightning both originated as Fox development before migrating to the CW.

Kim has been with Blindspot since the first season, starting as a co-executive producer and rising to executive producer in Season 4. Her other credits include consulting producer on Hawaii Five-O and co-executive producer on NCIS: Los Angeles. She began her TV career as a story editor on Lost.

Gero also is executive producing The Service, a one-hour drama from writer Drew Lindo (The 100, Reign), via his Quinn’s House and WBTV, which has received a script commitment with penalty at Fox.

Gero, who also created The L.A. Complex and has been working on a reboot for the CW, did stints on several Stargate series: Stargate Atlantis — on which he rose to showrunner — Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Universe. At WBTV, in addition to creating, executive producing and showrunning Blindspot — which is heading into a fifth season on NBC — Gero also executive produced the ABC series Deception.

[GeneChing]

We don't have a thread dedicated to the original series. "Kung Fu" is impossible to search so I use "Carradine" and nothing popped. So I'm posting this here.

Actor Who’s Lived In San Francisco For Decades Evicted From North Beach Apartment
By Joe Vazquez November 12, 2019 at 11:37 pm

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Sam Hiona, the 86-year old film actor and entertainer, a well-known character in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, is being forced to leave his home through an Ellis Act eviction.

He is retired now and spends most of his time at the Columbus Cafe, but Hiona was once a local star. Hina was an actor in movie and television roles, including a short turn on the show “Kung Fu” as David Carradine’s martial arts teacher.

He later traveled to Thailand to be in a film with Jim Kelly and spent some time in Vancouver for a Sidney Poitier movie. He has also been a surfer and a singer. Hiona has spent most of his 86 years in San Francisco.

But that could soon change because he is getting evicted from the small apartment in North Beach where he has lived since 1965.

“They just want to get rid of me,” Hiona said. “I pay a low rent. They’re trying to get rid of low rent people so they can raise rent.”

His wife Cathleen Thompson said a realtor named Janice Lee bought the property and told the couple they had to leave in 2017. It was an Ellis Act eviction.

“They say they are going to move in, we haven’t seen that,” Thompson said. “They’re saying their intent with the Ellis Act eviction is to get out of the rental business. We don’t think that’s true.”

But Lee’s attorney, Scott Freedman, told KPIX 5 it is absolutely true that Janice Lee and her husband plan to move into the property they bought.

“They selected the property because they wanted a place for their parents,” Freedman said, adding that Lee’s elderly parents plan to move in next door, as do some other immediate family members. Freedman said Lee came to the U.S. as a child from Hong Kong with her single mother escaping “less than favorable conditions.”

Freedman says they have offered the Hionas more money than the law requires, and yet the renters are fighting it in court and it’s costing Lee’s family tens of thousands of dollars.

“These folks have been put through the wringer,” Freedman added.

The judge has already decided the case in favor of the property owners, but Hiona and his wife are making one last appeal in court at 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.

The Hionas are asking for a stay for the duration of time it takes for the appeal to work its way through the courts, but they worry the judge will deny the stay and they will be thrown out for good after more than 50 years in the same apartment.

“The shame is San Francisco is changing,” said Thompson. “And people like my husband will no longer be living in the city and it’s just not the same.”

San Francisco supervisor Aaron Peskin said he will attend the hearing Wednesday.

“I will be appearing in court to let the judge know that ‘this is an unjust illegal eviction,'” he said.

Peskin is also organizing a neighborhood event on Thursday at 11 a.m. for nearby Caffe Sappore, whose owner has also been notified by his landlord that he is getting evicted.

The supervisor said his colleagues in local government have tried to pass ordinances to help prevent evictions, but he is growing frustrated at the rate of evictions due to state laws.

“We are losing the tenants and special characters who make San Francisco the envy of the world,” Peskin said.

[GeneChing]

‘Kung Fu’ Movie Remake Set At Universal For ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ Director David Leitch

By Mike Fleming Jr
Co-Editor-in-Chief, Film
@DeadlineMike


WBTV
EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures has optioned the rights to the 1972 TV series Kung Fu for a contemporary-set action packed feature film that will be directed by David Leitch, the co-director of John Wick and director of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde.


David Leitch
Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

They will set a writer quickly. The original ABC series starred David Carradine as a master martial artist who fled China after his master was murdered. He wandered the Old West helping the downtrodden and weathering rampant racism while eluding assassins trying to kill him. He was a peaceful man until provoked, which happened at least once an episode. Given the action pedigree for the stuntman-turned-director Leitch, there is potential for the kind of choreographed action mayhem found in Hobbs & Shaw as well as John Wick, latter of which he did with Chad Stahelski. Leitch is separately attached to direct a remake of Bruce Lee’s iconic 1973 martial arts film Enter the Dragon at Warner Bros.

Kelly McCormick and Leitch will produce through their Universal-based 87North Productions along with Stephen L’Hereaux and his Solipsist Film banner. Ed Spielman, creator of the television series, will executive produce.


David Carradine
Warner Bros TV/Kobal/Shutterstock

Universal Executive Vice President of Production Matt Reilly will oversee the project on behalf of the studio.

McCormick and Leitch produced the Ilya Naishuller-directed action pic Nobody for Universal, which releases August 14.

Leitch and McCormick are represented by WME and Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman, Inc.

Deal comes as the CW put in development last fall a female-driven Kung Fu series remake from the Blindspot team of writer-executive producer Christina M. Kim, creator-executive producer Martin Gero, executive producers Greg Berlanti & Sarah Schechter and Warner Bros. TV.

Now I'm happy I saw Hobbs & Shaw?

[GeneChing]

Do these people not know about Brucexploitation? It's a whole genre.

Will the Kung Fu remake right the wrongs suffered by Bruce Lee?
After Lee was passed over for David Carradine to star in the 70s TV series, Universal must cast an Asian actor for its forthcoming film
Ben Child
@BenChildGeek
Wed 22 Jan 2020 08.34 EST Last modified on Wed 22 Jan 2020 09.11 EST


Unfair caricature … Mike Moh as Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Photograph: Andrew Cooper

One of the most startling moments in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the scene in which Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth humiliates Bruce Lee (played by Mike Moh) after he boasts of his martial-arts prowess. It has drawn criticism from Lee’s daughter Shannon Lee for portraying her late father as an “arrogant ******* who was full of hot air”, while Tarantino has defended his film as a work of fiction, albeit one, he insists, that has some grounding in truth. It’s sad that while the Pulp Fiction film-maker chose to lionise David Carradine, the star of 1970s TV show Kung Fu, in his Kill Bill movies, he decided to bring the late Hong Kong star back to life by portraying him as full of youthful truculence and hubris.

After all, Kung Fu would never have been commissioned without the 70s martial-arts craze that was largely fuelled by Lee’s early films. And it’s probably fair to say that without the TV show, Kill Bill would have been a different beast. Tarantino not only borrows the TV show’s star, he half-inched its blend of eastern and western influences to frame the two parts of his own endeavour. Yet, while Carradine was treated with the utmost reverence in Kill Bill, Lee, without whom the American star would most likely never have had a career in martial-arts films, is depicted as a cocky idiot. As a creative decision, this is a bit like preferring the squeaky clean Pat Boone version of Ain’t That a Shame to Fats Domino’s full-blooded, velvety original.

Tarantino is not the only figure in Hollywood who owes something to Lee’s legacy. Given the news that Universal is set to bring Kung Fu back to life as a big-screen remake, surely it’s about time to right the wrongs suffered by Lee more than four decades ago.

Even Lee’s most casual fans should be aware that the star of Enter the Dragon was passed over for Carradine, with the suspicion being that TV executives preferred a white actor over the heavily accented Lee to play the mixed-race Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine. Lee’s widow Linda Lee Cadwell, in her memoir, even fuelled rumours that her late husband had come up with the idea for Kung Fu, and it seems that Lee was working on a similar concept titled The Warrior at the time of his death.

Kung Fu went on to be one of the most celebrated TV shows of the 70s. Watching and enjoying its iconic moments – Caine’s early tutelage by Keye Luke’s Master Po as a “young grasshopper” in those much-imitated flashback sequences; the cavalcade of film and TV stars from William Shatner to Sandra Locke who appeared during the show’s three seasons in supporting roles – one is forced to remind oneself that the series represents one of the worst examples of yellowface in TV history. And yet, there it is.

Perhaps, in reverence to the show’s cultural origins, Universal could make a gesture to the Lee estate. It would be fitting if some of the action star’s ideas from the long lost The Warrior ended up making it into the new Kung Fu, though that prospect has probably been diminished by the existence of Cinemax’s own Warrior show, which Lee’s daughter Shannon oversees.

Still, there are other ways to ensure the film does not experience the ignominy of its TV predecessor. The very least Universal can do is to ensure Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw director David Leitch casts an actor of Asian heritage this time around.

THREADS
Kung Fu TV show REMAKE
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

[GeneChing]

Hang on now...CW? Does this mean it's going to be some soap opera-esque series like the Arrowverse?

Actually, that might be kinda good...

JANUARY 30, 2020 5:00PM PT
‘Kung Fu’ Reboot, ‘Republic of Sarah’ Ordered to Pilot at CW
By JOE OTTERSON
TV Reporter
@https://twitter.com/joeotterson


CREDIT: COURTESY OF THE CW

The CW has ordered pilots for the dramas “Kung Fu” and “The Republic of Sarah.” Both projects were previously set up at different networks prior to coming to CW.

“Kung Fu” is a reboot of the original series created by Ed Spielman. In the new version, a quarter-life crisis causes a young Chinese-American woman to drop out of college and go on a life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China. But when she returns to find her hometown overrun with crime and corruption, she uses her martial arts skills and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice, all while searching for the assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor and is now targeting her.

The project was previously set up at Fox with a put pilot order. Christina M. Kim will write and executive produce. Martin Gero will executive produce via Quinn’s House along with Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter of Berlanti Productions. Warner Bros. Television will produce. Kim, Gero, and Berlanti Productions are all currently under overall deals at WBTV.

The reboot has been in the works for some time, with Wendy Mericle originally attached to write before Albert Kim came onboard in 2018. The original “Kung Fu” starred David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk who traveled the Old West in search of his brother. The series ran for three seasons on ABC.

Christina M. Kim has been a writer and producer on the NBC drama “Blindspot,” which was created by Gero and produced by Berlanti Productions, since the show’s first season. Her other credits include “Lost,” “Hawaii Five-0,” “NCIS: Los Angeles,” and “Ghost Whisperer.”

In “The Republic of Sarah,” rebellious high school teacher Sarah Cooper utilizes an obscure cartographical loophole to declare independence from the U.S. when faced with the destruction of her town at the hands of a greedy mining company. Now Sarah must lead a young group of misfits as they attempt to start their own country from scratch.

A previous iteration of the show was set up at CBS last year with a pilot order but was ultimately passed over. Jeffrey Paul King remains attached as writer and executive producer, as do executive producers Marc Web via Black Lamb and Jeff Grosvenor and Leo Pearlman of Fulwell 73. Mark Martin of Black Lamb will also executive produce. CBS Television Studios will produce. Fulwell is currently under a deal at the studio.

These two pilots mark the first formal pilot orders for The CW of the 2020-2021 season. The network previously ordered backdoor pilots for both an “Arrow” spinoff about the Canaries and a prequel to “The 100.” The CW also gave series orders to a “Walker, Texas Ranger” reboot starring Jared Padalecki and to “Superman & Lois” starring Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch.

One more question. Is this different than the Leitch project announced a week+ ago? Like is that a movie and this a TV show?

[GeneChing]

‘Kung-Fu’: Tzi Ma & Kheng Hua Tan To Co-Star In the CW Reboot Pilot
By Nellie Andreeva
February 18, 2020 11:23am


Photos: Diana Ragland, Shevonne Wong

EXCLUSIVE: Tzi Ma (The Man In the High Castle, The Farewell) and Kheng Hua Tan (Marco Polo, Crazy Rich Asians) have been cast as series regulars in the CW pilot Kung Fu, a reimagining with a female lead of the 1970s David Carradine-starring TV series. Ma and Kheng will play the parents of the protagonist in the project, from Christina M. Kim, Martin Gero, Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Warner Bros. TV, where Kim, Gero and Berlanti Prods. are under deals.

Written by Kim, inspired by the original series created by Ed Spielman, in the new Kung Fu, a quarter-life crisis causes a young Chinese-American woman to drop out of college and go on a life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China. But when she returns to find her hometown overrun with crime and corruption, she uses her martial arts skills and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice…all while searching for the assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor and is now targeting her.

Ma and Kheng will play the woman’s father, Jin Chen, and mother Mei-Li — a husband-and-wife restaurateurs whose secrets threaten to destroy their lives just as they deal with the return of their estranged daughter.

Kim and Gero executive produce via Gero’s Quinn’s House Production Company, which produces in association with Berlanti Prods. and Warner Bros. TV. Berlanti and Schechter executive produce for Berlanti Prods.

Together with his parents and four of his siblings, Ma worked in a family-owned restaurant on Staten Island when growing up. His extensive acting resume includes major roles on Wu Assassins, Veep, The Man In the High Castle, 24, Hell On Wheels and Satisfaction. His feature credits include Arrival and The Farewell, Disney’s upcoming live-action Mulan and Netflix’s Tigertail. He is repped by BRS/Gage Talent Agency and Echelon Talent Management.

Kheng, well known in her native Singapore and Malaysia, co-starred as Empress Dowager on the Netflix original series Marco Polo. She plays Kerry Chu, the mother of protagonist Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), in the Crazy Rich Asians movie franchise. Her English-language credits also include the Channel 4 limited series Chimerica and guest shots on Medical Police, Magnum P.I. and Grey’s Anatomy. She is repped by Zero Gravity, GVA Talent Agency and Fly Entertainment in Singapore.

Still confused about whether this CW series is different from a feature film from Leitch.

[GeneChing]

NEWS
‘Kung Fu’: Jon Prasida, Shannon Dang & Eddie Liu To Co-Star In the CW Reboot Pilot
By Denise Petski
Senior Managing Editor
February 21, 2020 3:20pm


(L-R) Jon Prasida, Shannon Dang and Eddie Liu
Johnny Diaz Nicolaidis/Paul Smith//Kane Lieu

EXCLUSIVE: Jon Prasida (Hiding), Shannon Dang (The L Word) and Eddie Liu (Silicon Valley) have been cast as series regulars in the CW pilot Kung Fu, a reimagining with a female lead of the 1970s David Carradine-starring TV series. It hails from Christina M. Kim, Martin Gero, Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Warner Bros. TV.

Written by Kim, inspired by the original series created by Ed Spielman, the new Kung Fu sees a quarter-life crisis causing a young Chinese-American woman to drop out of college and go on a life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China. But when she returns to find her hometown overrun with crime and corruption, she uses her martial arts skills and Shaolin values to protect her community and bring criminals to justice — all while searching for the assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor and now is targeting her.


The CW

Prasida will play Ryan Chen, a quick-witted medical student who has to deal with the sudden return of his estranged older sister, Nicky.

Dang will portray Althea Chen, Nicky’s larger-than-life older sister who’s newly engaged and on her way to planning her dream Chinese wedding.

Liu will play Henry Chu, a martial arts instructor and Chinese art history buff who has instant chemistry with Nicky.

They join previously announced series regulars Tzi Ma and Kheng Nua Tan.

Kim and Gero executive produce via Gero’s Quinn’s House Production Company, which produces in association with Berlanti Prods. and Warner Bros. TV. Berlanti and Schechter executive produce for Berlanti Prods.

Prasida starred as Garys in the TV series Hiding, and went on to play the role of Lee in the TV series adaptation of the book series Tomorrow When The War Began. He most recently guest starred in the ABC drama Warriors and will next be seen in the upcoming TV series Harrow and Sando. He is repped by CBM Management in Australia and Silver Lining Entertainment in the U.S.

Dang’s credits include include The L Word, Sorry For Your Loss, Veronica Mars, The Romanoffs, American Vandal and Doubt. She recently wrapped supporting roles in the comedy features Film Fest and Prison Logic. Dang is repped by Singular Talent and Working Entertainment.

Liu is best known for his role as Doug in HBO’s Silicon Valley. He’s repped by Greene & Associates Talent Agency, A & R Management and attorney Jeff Bernstein.

I'm not familiar with any of these actors. Would it be silly to ask if any of them have any martial arts skills?