The original Kung Fu series has a controversial link to Bruce Lee. Currently airing on The CW, the martial arts series starring Olivia Liang as a female Shaolin warrior fighting crime in San Francisco is a modernized take on a TV show from the 1970s.

In 1972, Kung Fu premiered on ABC and ran for three seasons. The show, described as a martial arts western, followed the adventures of a Shaolin monk in 19th-century America. The main character, Kwai Chang Caine, used his expertise in martial arts to look for his family and protect people from dangerous villains. The character was famously played by David Carradine, who gained a great deal of popularity for the role. Though many have enjoyed Carradine’s performance as Caine, there were others who felt it was a major problem. After all, Carradine was a white actor, whereas his character was the son of Chinese and American parents.

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Long before Carradine was cast as Caine, Bruce Lee himself auditioned for the role but didn’t get the job. Tom Kuhn, who was the head of Warner Bros.’ TV division, defended their decision not to cast Bruce Lee in Kung Fu by arguing that his accent would have made it difficult for audiences to understand him. Warner Bros.’ reasoning for this aside, casting Bruce Lee over a Chinese actor naturally resulted in complaints, even back then when whitewashing was less of a talking point. Lee, on the other hand, said that he understood the studio’s hesitancy in making an Asian actor the star of an American project.

Interestingly, the whitewashing accusations aren’t the extent of the controversy regarding Lee and Kung Fu. Shortly before work began on the show, Lee pitched Warner Bros. on a TV show called The Warrior in 1971. It was a series about a Chinese immigrant and kung fu expert going on a journey in the American Wild West. Obviously, it had a lot in common with Warner Bros.’ Kung Fu show. This, combined with the timing of Warner Bros. coming up with their own martial arts western right after rejecting Lee’s, has caused people to assume that Kung Fu is his intellectual property. This opinion is shared by Lee’s wife, Linda Lee Caldwell. Caldwell stated in her book, Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew, that Lee’s ideas for The Warrior were carried over to Kung Fu.

However, there’s actually no real evidence that the similarities between the two are anything more than a coincidence. Instead, the creation of the series is credited to executive producer Ed Spielman, who developed the story for the pilot episode. Regardless, many still feel that Lee and other Chinese actors were unfairly denied a chance at starring in the series. That’s one reason why The CW’s Kung Fu adaptation is receiving praise for fixing this issue by assembling a mostly Asian cast, including a Chinese actress in the lead role.

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