Rating: 
Summary: Excelente calidad
Review: Hola soy Ricardo Leal y vivo en Puebla,Pue.México.Cuando yo tenía 12 años esta serie de Kung Fu era mi favorita y durante mucho tiempo estuve buscando esta serie en la TV actual y no pude encontrar nada.Cuando vi este DVD no lo pense dos veces y de inmediato lo compré.Mi DVD es multirgión y no tuvo ningún problema para aceptarlo.LO MEJOR ES QUE TIENE SUBTITULOS EN ESPAÑOL.BRAVO.
Recomiendo ámpliamente este DVD
playforce60@hotmail.com
Rating: 
Summary: Get over it!
Review: Bruce Lee did not do the series, so what?
It was a great show, David did a great job. I like Bruce as much as the next guy, but Bruce as a humble Monk, please!
He was cocky, brash, and arrogant. Sure he could back it up, but I can't see him as Caine.
I could be wrong but I am happy with Kung-Fu as is. Ok , they cropped it, but at least you can see on DVD. It could be perfect , but it's not, such is life. I think it's been a long time coming, I like it, I bought it. I am happy.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite tv shows
Review: This happened to be one of my favorite tv shows of all times.
This is a great way to see an original classic since vcr's & tapes were not around then. I know this show brings back alot of good memories for me. I highly recommend this set; especially if you used to watch the tv show. I forgot most of the shows but being in DVD makes it alot better. At least this show has not any bad language or nudity which for me is great. I wish they had some more DVD sets like the original Star Trek series, Airwolf, and some others.
Rating: 
Summary: Unacceptable
Review: "However, in theory, if the DVD was re-created from the original source material instead of the edited source material, than no abnormal cropping or destortion should occur."Nope, sorry. The aspect ratio of 35mm film is 4:3. Kung Fu was shot on 35mm film, and the original broadcasts showed the full frame, as intended. This presentation is cropped, and it is totally unacceptable. It's just as bad -- worse -- than pan-and-scan presentations of widescreen movies, because the visual information that's been cut out -- the top and bottom of the image -- is even more important than the sides that are removed by panning and scanning. The studios MUST be told in no uncertain terms that this will not be tolerated. If viewers want to fill their 16:9 screens, well that's what the zoom control is for. That will crop the top and bottom of a 4:3 image too, but then at least the entire original frame is still there on the disc for those who want to see it. Don't buy this. Don't encourage the studios to mangle more classic TV shows this way.
Rating:
Summary: It could have been great!!!
Review: Don't buy this DVD!!! Send a message to the corporate geniuses who decided to "chop" the top and bottom of what was originally shown for no apparent reason. There is no excuse for not making this DVD the best it could have been. Either show it in it's original format as was shown on TV or add-in the the additional widescreen image. To cut out footage is a crime. This was one of my favorite shows from the past, but I cannot recommend it because of the DVD flaws.
Rating: 
Summary: A destroyed artwork !
Review: .
"Kung Fu" is the best TV series known to me because it really shows what real Kung Fu is: philosophy of life, how to lead a life in wisdom and of course martial art when there is no other way ;-) The story is absolutely great! A shaolin monk(David Carradine) walking through the wild west in the 19th century and encountering all the follies of wordly life and taking care of the situation the best he can. The scenes are very carefully filmed: an artwork of the director and the cameraman. The worse it is that you can not enjoy it if you buy this DVD because the editors of this DVD have cut off the heads of actors, the deep blue sky in many scenes that give the beatiful atmosphere and so on only to get a widescreen format of films that formerly had been in TV format. They should have preserved all the information of the original format! Now the artwork is destroyed :-( The stories, the director, the cameraman, the artists get 5 STARS. This DVD edition gets 0 STARS that is an average of 2.5 STARS wich I reduce to 2 because of my disappointment... I really hope they bring out another version without any loss ... means with all the information of the original films and where this marvellous artwork is preserved for all times :-)
Rating:
Summary: Horrible cropping of image is unacceptable...AVOID!
Review: A TV series from 1972 is not intended for widescreen presentation. The original image has been cropped, cutting off heads, feet, and other things in the process. I am all for widescreen presentations of widescreen movies, because I want to see the image as intended. However, in this case, they are doing the opposite, by changing the image to fit new 16X9 monitors, they have destroyed the original composition. Do not sit still for this. Can you image I LOVE LUCY with the top and bottom of the picture cropped out? The converyor belt scene in the chocolate factory would be ruined.... Widescreen movies and recent widescreen TV shows should be widescreen on DVD, no question. However, older non-widescreen movies and TV series should be presented as intended, not edited and cropped to placate owners of 16X9 sets who don't know any better. Besides, if those owners want to crop the images to fit their widescreens, they can do so with a button on their remotes. Cropping a 32 year old TV series? Ridiculous.
Rating:
Summary: Kung Fu - Fit But Trimmed
Review: I have admired this show for a long time for its thought-provoking philosophy and dialogue, interesting and endearing characters, and action-packed episodes with a moral. When I learned that the complete first season was to be made available on DVD, I pre-ordered it right away...with some concern that the widescreen format would not preserve what was originally broadcast. My concern was well-founded: what is offered here is a "matted" widescreen format that trims the top and bottom portions of the full-screen version. Although care appears to have been taken to make this look natural, if you compare this version to the full-screen version, you notice things like Caine's hat missing its top. I haven't had time to view the entire set--I just received it today--but I thought customers should know that what they will be buying will be a cropped version of Kung Fu. At the present time, the only version I see offered here is this widescreen version. If this is all that will be made available, then I still recommend buying this set, because the show is incredible, and this is the first time some of these episodes have ever been offered on video (VHS or DVD). Most of the action occurred center-screen (not at the very top or bottom--sometimes those areas were important, though, during fight sequences), so the cropped picture should not detract too much from the viewing experience...I'll know more later when I have viewed the whole set. However, if a full-screen version becomes available, that's the one you should buy. Overall opinion: 5 stars for the show, 3 stars for cropping it, so 4 stars overall.
Rating:
Summary: Grass-hoppas!
Review: OK folks, I'm back to impart some more wisdom on you Grass-hoppas! You say that Carradine is perfect for the role? You say that the show is not racism in action? Well, let me put it in another way so as to finally settle this for those of you who are really slow, like Carradine with his kung-fu, to understand. Lets look at this in an objective way as if we're casting this for the first time: We have 2 candidates and we'll examine their qualifications like a job interview: David Carradine
-Kung-fu skills - None to speak of before the show. It looks like he did manage to learn some Tai-chi during the years while he was on the show, but as anyone with a kernel of knowledge about martial arts knows, tai-chi is an exercise NOT a fighting technique. If you ever tried that in real life, you'll get your butt kicked.
-Acting skills - Again, not really any to speak of. His on screen presence is about as exciting as watching paint dry. I don't think Carradine had been in a show before Kung-fu? He was in some drive-in flick Boxcar Bertha the same year. Nice sex scene! But no Kung-Fu there...
-Language Skills - Spoke perfect American English even though he tried to speak with an accent on the show.
-Pacifism - People mistake his lousy acting to him being able to play a pacifist monk. Bruce Lee
-Kung-fu skills - A master at many different styles. In fact he was so good that he was able to adapt the different styles that he's mastered over the years into one that is truly effective in real life situations. That slow-mo Tai-chi that Carradine does on the show would be just a walk in the park for Bruce Lee. He could do it while he's asleep. Guess what the monks at Shaolin practice? Yup, they practice fighting methods, non of that slo-mo garbage although they also know how to do it. The slo-mo stuff's reserved for the old geezers morning exercise in the park .
-Acting skills - Has a presence on screen that's like no other. He even wowed viewers with Kato before the Kung-Fu series. A worldwide phenomenon in his subsequent movies which proves his worthiness.
-Language Skill - Had a real Chinese American English accent and thus didn't need to fake it.
-Pacifism - Bruce Lee knows how to act pacifist if the role calls for it just like certain scenes in the Game of Death. That character was the most quiet and introspective character he's played. He hardly had any lines. But the great thing about it is that when the time calls for it, he can be explosive, like a tiger ready to pounce. Carradine couldn't scare a mouse. So there you have it. Tell me, based on just these few key qualifications which is the more qualified candidate for the job? Now what do you think was the cause for the producers to cast a clearly INFERIOR candidate for the part? One Word, RACISM! And don't give me any of that Ben Kingsley, Peter Sellers non-sense. Everyone knows that the Brits are just about the MOST racist people on the planet. They look down at anyone who's not blue blood. If I were Indian I would be royally pissed at the Brits for making fun of my race. I do however, understand why they cast Kingsley in the Gandhi part. He actually looks like him and he's a really great actor. However, Carradine doesn't even remotely look Chinese nor does he know how to act so why was he cast?
Rating:
Summary: carradine steals Lee's Glory
Review: The sad truth is Bruce Lee DID conceive of Kung Fu with the producer of Green Hornet. Lee would have been PERFECT for the role of Cain. Who is to say Bruce Lee would not have made a perfect priest? Every scene would not have had to be all out action packed?! He knew how to meditate, and yet had the fastest, most accurate moves ever witnessed. There was no equal. Perhaps that's why Mr. Carradine is so quick to justify why Bruce was not right for the part and he was ever so humble and perfect. Or could it be that David Carradine is rather justifying his "humble" inferiority to the true master since he knows he can never measure up either to Master Lee's martial arts skills, or his on-screen persona. In the words of another reviewer:
As David Carradine himself said in the foreword to, The Kung Fu Book of Caine (a detailed book that looks into the series and each episode by Herbie J. Pilato), "Our basic concerns to make this show what it was were absolute authenticity, historical accuracy, the chronicling of the troubles the Chinese immigrants experienced in America, a hint of the need for social revolution, lots of Chinese philosophy, caring for all life, a lot of heart, and superior technical quality in the films, in the writing and in our execution of all this. Somewhere right in the center was this character, 'KWAI CHANG CAIN' or 'LITTLE GRASSHOPPER' who bound it all together. It was his sweetness and his strength and the special kind of humor that went with him that kept people tuning in every week." Well, I'm sure he really believed that!!
REALITY CHECK#1: Absolute authenticity would be his own heritage in question. There were no "half-Chinese" priests roaming the countryside.
REALITY CHECK #2: Historical accuracy concerning the Chinese, a hint of the need for social revolution, the chronicling of the troubles the Chinese immigrants experienced in America.
Is he referring to racism? Now this gets really muddy since it crosses into the 1870s racism into the 1970s version of racism now in the 2004s racism back to the DVD 1970s' version of the 1870s racism. Did you all follow that? Good. That is essentially what you're looking at, and that's not real history.
REALITY CHECK #3: Lots of Chinese philosophy, caring for all life, a lot of heart.
Chinese philosophy, such as "snatch the pebble from my hand?" Or, did that one come from a little known fortune cookie? True, the caring and heart was/is a great kudo and there were many attributes from Chinese philosophy brought into the show.
REALITY CHECK #4: 'KWAI CHANG CAIN' or 'LITTLE GRASSHOPPER', a.k.a. David Carradine, a.k.a. 'KWAI CHANG CAIN' or 'LITTLE GRASSHOPPER'. Once the show ended, Carradine "lost" himself and began using opium. He was arrested trying to save a woman from her own husband by using his Kung Fu on him. [He saved her because she was his opium connection, plus, he was high.] His reality set in and he just couldn't face it: He couldn't act and was mediocre at martial arts. He knows Bruce Lee is gone, but is more popular in death than he had been in life. Face it Carradine, you were never meant for the part and every part you've had since you've tried to be KWAI CHANG CAIN and failed. Snatch a pebble from MY hand!
| 
