Kung Fu Master David Carradine Dead at 72

Share on Facebook posted 06-04-09 by Angelo D'Argenio

Let’s turn serious for a moment, fellow devoted Kung Fu fans out there. Today it was reported that one of the great legends of the martial arts world, David Carradine, was found dead in his hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand. He was there to shoot a new movie, Stretch, and was in great spirits, according to his personal manager, Chuck Binder. Binder had said he believed Carradine died of natural causes, but police reports suggest otherwise. On Thursday morning a maid discovered his body inside a wardrobe. A rope was tied around his neck. Investigation showed that he had been dead for at least 12 hours, and there was no sign of struggle or assault. Consequently, local papers are running the story as a suicide, but the police investigation continues.

Carradine was 72 when he died. He was one of the first actors to bring martial arts to the eyes of an American audience. His magnificent body of work speaks for itself.

Kung Fu

Kung Fu was what started it all. Carradine starred as Kwai Chan Caine, a Shaolin monk traveling in the wild, wild west. Not only was this one of the first American television shows to feature martial arts action, but it was also a crossover tie-in with cowboys, and thus combined Eastern martial arts with Western gun-slinging action.

Kill Bill

Though our younger audience may not know Carradine from Kung Fu, they most likely will recognize him as Bill, from Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies. His inclusion in those movies was also a throwback to the old kung-fu/spaghetti westerns of the ’70s, and of course Kung Fu’s many sequels. We never got to see Bill fight much, but Carradine’s screen presence was enough to make Bill a certifiable bad-ass.

Kung Fu: The Movie (Spoof)

Carradine was also famous for being able to laugh at himself, which is especially noteworthy in today’s Baleful era, in which actors are known to go ape-shit on-set at the smallest provocation. Carradine took every role he played with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor, and he was more than ready to satirize himself it would make people laugh.

The Father of Movie Martial Arts

This fan video was made specifically to show everyone that all movie martial arts were descended from David Carradine. The beginning of the video showcases several movie martial artists of our time, and in the end it parallels them to stunts that Carradine performed long ago when on-screen kung fu was still in its infancy.

David Carradine’s Martial Arts Interview

David Carradine was not just an actor; he was a martial artist, and he took all the lessons of the martial arts to heart. In this interview he explains his viewpoint on the martial arts, including how he tried to use them to give back to the community and his fan base. There are plenty of martial artists in movies these days, but I would wager that very few of them apply themselves to martial codes of conduct. Carradine, however, was a true martial artist through and through.