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Sunday, October 26, 2008

Things I'm Slowly Learning from Kung-Fu the Legend Continues

Things I am slowly learning from watching episodes of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

1) Being Shaolin means you talk really...really...slow. And vaguely Shatnerian.

2) Peter Caine is the Worst. Detective. Ever.

3) The only person who ever seems to do any real detective work is the computer technician.

4) It's oddly novel to have your computer technician be your most badass character. I think I approve.

5) Tiny people who always wear sunglasses are scary.

6) Poison nets are not nearly as formidable a weapon as you'd think.

7) Speaking of badass technicians who always wear sunglasses and carry around Desert Eagles to "protect their disks"...don't mess with their families. Even if they are named after Muppets . . . Especially if they're named after Muppets.

8) Being old and Chinese apparently entitles you to tell your apprentice and his son each that the other is dead.

9) If you are a baby Shaolin and are orphaned and henceforth adopted by cops, they won't just be any cops, they will be EX-MERCENARY COPS. Because the show really isn't implausible enough.

9 correllary) Have you ever noticed how in the 80s and 90s there was such an animal as the leather jacket wearing independant guy-mercenary who killed people for a living but wasn't exactly an assassin and sometimes had connections with the government and tended to saunter around the main characters like cats in heat?

I mean Alex Krycek's probably the most famous example, but the 80s/90s were chock full of their Lococcos and their Griffins and all that. You don't see them anymore. I kind of miss them.

...okay, really, I just find amoral violence hot.

10) Don't date Peter Caine. You will either be a bitch or dead.

Peter's kind of like Kyle that way. Only somewhat whinier.

Nah, he's pretty much exactly like Kyle.

11) Apparently a grey streak is enough to magically make a forty year old character old enough to have a twenty-five year old (implied) son.*

(ETA: Not referring to Carradine on this one. :-) I'm well aware he was quite over 40. :-))

12) There is a special correllary rule with regards to this show. If you are the biological child of someone who is badass, your adopted parent will be equally as badass in a different way.

If your natural father is a Shaolin Monk, your adopted father is an ex-mercenary cop with Connections.

If your biological father is a scary ex-mercenary, your adopted father is some sort of four-star general.

13) If you are framed for the murder of your girlfriend, the best thing to do isn't trust your Shaolin monk dad or scary ex-mercenary cop friends to do what they do best and actually clear your name, but to flee DURING YOUR OWN TRIAL and get hunted down by US Marshalls.

Oh, and make sure the first place you go is totally back to her apartment. You don't look guilty enough.

14) Peter Caine is kind of an idiot.

15) Cops never seem to mind the inevitable open case files that result from supernaturally inclined villains who get their asses beat by Caine and then run away.

16) Excessive force is never an issue either.

17) It's always a bad idea to let your homicidally inclined pet computer hacker off his leash.

17 correllary) though it's usually pretty funny.

18) If you're unlucky enough to defiantly insist that you're not your father in the form of unfortunate rhyme, the clip will totally end up in the opening theme.

19) Bad 80s hair actually migrates. As soon as one character gets a haircut, another will have it. Even if that character had a crew-cut in the season previous. Scary.

20) It's kind of funny watching characters slowly accept David Carradine's weirdness. In the first and second season, they'd jump/freak out when he'd appear out of nowhere. Third and fourth: it's all "meh."

Except oddly for Peter. Who does occasionally get surprised when his dad appears out of nowhere.

Because he's an idiot.


...

I may love this show.

9 Comments:

  • At October 26, 2008 9:26 AM, Blogger SallyP said…

    You do make this sound tempting. I sounds ALMOST as bad as Knight-Rider.

     
  • At October 26, 2008 10:10 AM, Blogger Anthony Strand said…

    Did that show really do four seasons? I remember it existing when I was a kid, but I would have guessed it did two seasons tops.

     
  • At October 26, 2008 12:36 PM, Blogger Your Obedient Serpent said…

    re: #11:

    Carradine just LOOKED 40-something.

    He was 57 when the show started.

    The gray streak may actually have been his real hair.

    I confess that I enjoyed the first couple of seasons of KF:TLC, but it started to go a little overboard in the last couple. Kwai Chang Caine shifts from Martial Arts Master to Mystic Magician Mary Sue, and they shift from fairly mundane opponents to genuinely supernatural adversaries.

    Yeah, it's a matter of DEGREES of silliness, but still.

    SallyP's hit the nail on the head: this was definitely in the Knight Rider vein of TV Action Superhero Shows.

     
  • At October 26, 2008 1:16 PM, Blogger kalinara said…

    I'm not actually referring to Carradine YOS. That makes sense.

    The grey streak and accompanying implied son actually belong to Kermit Griffin. A forty year old hacker having an Air Force Major son makes a bit less sense. :-)

     
  • At October 26, 2008 1:19 PM, Blogger kalinara said…

    Anthony: Yep. Four seasons. I was surprised too.

     
  • At October 26, 2008 1:21 PM, Blogger notintheface said…

    Just think: If Bruce Lee had been cast in the original Kung Fu series, we would have been denied all this.

     
  • At October 26, 2008 1:57 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Yeah, I'll never forget that scene in the pilot where Peter, discovering his father was alive and he was lied to, says, "I'll KILL that sonofabitch!" And then Caine admonishes him, "but he did it to protect us." And Peter's like "Oh, all right."

    I know Kwai Chang Caine is all about forgiveness and non-violence and all that, but Lo Si is just a DICK.

    And yes, it lasted four seasons, 83 episodes.

    And I agree wholeheartedly with Kalinara's assessment of Peter, even though I like Chris Potter as an actor. Peter Caine is very, very, very, very, VERY stupid.

    Which makes the series finale all the funnier, when you think about it.

     
  • At October 26, 2008 8:58 PM, Blogger Your Obedient Serpent said…

    Oh, HIM. I'd forgotten about him -- or maybe I just missed that episode.

    And... what happens in the finale? I'd stoipped watching by that point.

     
  • At October 28, 2008 2:38 AM, Blogger LurkerWithout said…

    "Have you ever noticed how in the 80s and 90s there was such an animal as the leather jacket wearing independant guy-mercenary who killed people for a living but wasn't exactly an assassin and sometimes had connections with the government and tended to saunter around the main characters like cats in heat?"


    Other than that he wears a Hawaiin shirt instead of a leather jacket, I think you've just described Bruce Campbell's character on USA's Burn Notice...

     

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