Kung Fu - classic '70's TV series starring D. Carradine

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

Hey everyone. As a kid back in the day, I remember watching re-runs of the early '70's series Kung Fu on the weekends. This is definitely one of my all-time favorite shows, and was an excellent (and unusual) combination of the American Western & Eastern mysticism. D. Carradine did a great job as the stoic Caine, and it was interesting to see how he would deal with the various aggressors who would come after him in each episode. Also really enjoyed the flashbacks to his younger years, which not only had a lesson/moral, but were relevant to the current storyline in the given episode.

When the DVD sets started coming out about ten years back, I was extremely dissapointed that S1 was presented in the incorrect aspect ratio - i.e., they incorrectly converted a show that was initially presented in the fullscreen format to widescreen, which resulted in the top & bottom of the picture being cropped. This really butchered the picture, and as such made this tough for me to watch. IIRC, they corrected this in S2 & S3, but that still left S1 in incorrect & truncated format.

It would be great if they would re-release the series to Blu (or even re-release it to regular DVD) in the correct fullscreen format for all three seasons...

Any other fans of this series?

[GiorgioV]

Here's one!
I've just found out that an HD master already esists. Amazon has been streaming the three seasons, and they look beautiful... except they're cropped :-/ (well, season one, at least - haven't had a look at the other two).
If you look around on the web you should be able to find some samples.

Edit: streaming versions of season 2 and 3 are cropped too... that's too bad, but, other than that, they do look gorgeous. Oh, well...

[PT Ryan]

The HD versions just got added to iTunes here in Australia. Real shame about the cropping, though I’ve never gotten to watch the show before in either aspect ratio.

[KevinM]

Sorry to bump an old(ish) thread, but I have been thinking of upgrading my old DVD copies of Kung Fu, and wondered if the copies on iTunes (US) are a good purchase at $40 for the complete series?

I have seen the individual seasons drop as low as $5 in the (not too distant) past, but the complete set has all 3 seasons, plus the pilot...

Worth a $40 purchase, or should I stick with the uncropped DVDs?

Thanks...

[Doomhunter]

At only three seasons, you’d think this would be a good target for a blu ray release.

No interest in cropping though

[Moviefan2k4]

I never saw the original show, but I did enjoy The Legend Continues, which paired Carradine with Chris Potter as his long-lost son, police detective Peter Caine.