It's not a moral choice that we don't own a television. Nor are we completely ignorant of the so-called moving pictures box. We have an iMac on which we watch videos and podcasts, and listen to radio programs like This American Life.
On a whim, last year we rented the first season of Kung Fu. I'm not sure I'd ever really given them a good watching, as I didn't really remember anything from them. Despite (maybe in part because of?) some bad dialog and predictable story lines, we had a blast watching these classics. In fact, we had such a good time watching them that I was unable to resist when I saw the second season on the sale rack outside the local CD & DVD store.
Here's what I like about Kung Fu:
- Kung Fu, though moralizing, is unflaggingly secular and is decidedly anti-superstition.
- Kung Fu is an interesting look back to the seventies--particularly how civil rights were much more at the fore of thinking.
- Caine doesn't live in suburban isolation! He goes where his sense of wonder takes him, and isn't afraid to talk to strangers.
- Caine doesn't judge people.
- Caine does not support capital punishment or victims' rights sentencing.
- Where else can you watch a Shaolin priest fight a ninja in the American Southwest, and then publicly denounce violence in all its forms?
Kung Fu is stunningly progressive in a lot of ways. Check it out, grasshopper!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I say we start a Kung Fu philosophy of blogging. I have no idea what that would entail, as I have never watched the original Kung Fu. I'm basing this only on the following lyrics running through my head: "Everybody was Kung Fu Blogging, those themes were fast as lightning."
That's as far as I got.
You have got to be kidding! It was silly 30 years ago. Is it really better now? Maybe the times were just more humanistic.
I saw Kung-fu as the civil rights movement, and anti war movement and, all the intelligent stuff of an earlier era jumping the shark.
Post a Comment