"A Classic TV Conversation" with...Kung Fu's Radames Pera (a.k.a. Young Grasshopper)

As a child-actor, Radames (pronounced Rah-dah-miss) Pera played Young Kwai Chang Caine or Grasshopper on Kung Fu, which also featured David Carradine as the adult Caine.

Caine was an 11-year-old half-Chinese/half-American orphan who entered the very sacred Shaolin Temple in late 19th Century China and exited as an adult monk of mystic and martial arts prowess. Shortly after he leaves the Temple, the Chinese Emperor's nephew kills Caine's favorite (and blind) Master Po (masterfully played by the late, great Keye Luke) for simply being in the way during a city visit.

In a fit of vengeful rage, Caine then kills the Royal Nephew.

Yet, before his final breath, Master Po tells a very remorseful Caine (who - in committing murder - shames everything he was taught in the Temple), that sometimes, "you must cut off a finger, to save a hand."

The quote holds double meaning, as Po further instructs Caine to flee China, which he does for the American Old West, where he becomes an international fugitive.

Once in America, Caine also searches for Danny Caine, his American half-brother (later played by Tim McIntire), in the midst of frequent attempts to escape Chinese bounty hunters sent from the Royal Family. All the while, he bestows wisdom culled from his days in the Shaolin Temple (recalled via the show's trademark flashback sequences), and employs his skillful martial arts to protect anyone in need.

Kung Fu originally aired on ABC from 1972-1975. Today, this unique series, which many classify as an Eastern Western, is considered iconic in the portals of television history, so much so, that Warner Bros. (the show's proprietor) is developing the show for the big screen (for which Fu creator Ed Spielman had originally envisioned it).

Radames Pera, now 45-years-old, and extremely intelligent, philosophical and spiritual (much like the character he once portrayed) offers his exclusive, extensive commentary as to what it was like growing up on the set of Kung Fu.

Upon reading his words, it may be observed that, just as Young Grasshopper was a student of the Shaolin Temple, Pera became a student - and master - of life.

Here, now, is the complete interview.

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Herbie J Pilato You're 11-years-old, and you're a star of one of the most popular and unique television shows in the history of the medium. Please introduce us to your general experience of playing Young Grasshopper on Kung Fu.

Radames Pera At the time, I had no idea that, a) I was a star, or b) that this show was going to become "one of the most popular and unique shows in the history of the medium." I just knew that I had shaved my head for an acting role, so I felt committed to it, that's for sure! I especially couldn't relate to any aspects of fame due to the fact that shortly after I went back to school, like, I mean, the second day back, I got chased around the playground during recess by the school bully who, when I finally tripped and fell, ripped my custom-made wig off my head and pointed at me laughing. So that was my peer reality. Life on the set was a fantasy, where adults (had to) pay attention to me (even though I didn't recognize it that way at the time) and where I got to portray this unusual, out of place [due to his mixed race] orphaned student monk. So in a way I was portraying a part of what was actually happening to me in real life, but one step removed, objectified, and therefore not fully processed until years later. As the series went into production, again, I was not aware of how much of a cultural phenomenon it was becoming at the time. I was not looking at it as much as in it, literally and figuratively. By the time I was asked to be the Grand Marshall of the Hollywood Santa Clause Lane Parade, I had begun to have a clue that I was a celebrity of sorts. When Tiger Beat and 16 Magazine started taking a lot of pictures of me and making up stories and telling young girls around the world that I like stuffed animals and patchouli oil, that's when I got the idea that I was some sort of a child star. But not until then. And of course, that term was more vague and less lustrous during that period. Shirley Temple was a child star. David Cassidy was a pop star. I was...something else. The fact is, I neither expected, welcomed, understood or was even slightly prepared for the experience. In fact I was pretty uncomfortable with the whole thing at the time. I didn't like being made to feel self-conscious and I knew that all this attention I was getting was false and had nothing to do with who I really was.

HJP Why was your character named Grasshopper? What is the significance of that moniker?

RP Master Po called me Grasshopper for the first time. It was in reference to the cultivation of awareness of the subtle presence of small creatures and the gentle movement of nature . "Can you hear your own heartbeat?...Do you hear the grasshopper that is at your feet?" he asks Young Caine during an impromptu lesson early in Caine's monastery life. [Note: the insert shot of the grasshopper at Young Caine's feet did not have my actual feet in it, they were those of one of the young extras in the show.]

HJP Kung Fu began as a 90-minute TV-movie on ABC's very popular Movie-of-the-Week series. Was it always intended as a pilot for a regular series, or was it simply produced as a one-shot film?

RP I was told it was a one-shot deal, but apparently the producers had a plan. I think they knew that the nascent cultural phenomenon of Martial Arts had potential. The "First Season" of the show was actually 4 additional "Pilot Episodes" once a month during the broadcast schedule of Alias Smith & Jones [a short-lived, but very popular Western that orginally starred Ben Murphy and Peter Duel, the latter of whom committed suicide, and was replaced by Roger Davis]. The ratings for those episodes were off the charts and convinced Warner Bros. to go into a full-scale production.

HJP How did Young Caine evolve from the initial TV-movie on into the third and final season of the series?

RP Well, I suppose they...ahem...realized that they'd cast the part correctly, that I had the acting chops to sustain a variety of dramatic situations, so they occasionally increased the amount of flashback scenes and eventually wrote an entire episode that takes place in Caine's past, where a poisoned Kwai Chang has flashforwards to his adult life. I am pretty sure that if the show went another season, they would have repeated that device another time or two. It was in keeping with them pushing the envelope of traditional TV drama at the time. I mean, think about it: before Kung Fu TV audiences had never seen fictional slow motion, step-framing, trial effects, deep rack-focus effects, auditory remote-listening, Eastern Mysticism enacted, nor a hero who conquered guns with his bare hands (and feet). Let alone so many candles and smoke.

HJP What was it like working with David Carradine?

RP Oh boy, that one again...Let me just state for the record that I only officially worked with him when he directed me that episode that feature my character in the main plot line. Otherwise it was a Euclidean/Newtonian impossibility, as we were the same character. What was it like hanging around with him on the set occasionally is more to the point...though allow me to apologize for splitting hairs here. Due to my upbringing and a palpable negative bias my mother held against David from before Day One [the two were actually flown out to Los Angeles some eight years before by Universal Studios together from New York to do screen tests to become contract players for the studio], let's just say that David's "progressive" sexual and chemical practices did not jibe with my mom's and she held him in low esteem. Therefore, on the set, she kept her distance, rather flamboyantly I might add. What she didn't realize is, this only made him a more intriguing character to me. "Who is that 'dangerous' man?" I would think. "What makes him so 'bad'?" He did, and still does, play up The Trickster character in a Robert Bly/Joseph Campbell/Carlos Castaneda-esque manner. Anti-establishment, self-presumed to be above the law(s) – of both man and physics, a wanna-be troubadour and pied piper. Hey, I was 12, I fell for it. Plus I liked him and he seemed to like me, certainly as much as he seemed capable of at the time. Plus, too, he represented the whole hippie side of life that seemed so "advanced" to my young self growing up in the 1960s. That's what it was like.

HJP Tell us also about your experience in acting opposite Philip Ahn as Master Kahn and Keye Luke as Master Po?

RP It was great. Luke was a charming erudite prince full of great stories of Old Hollywood and other matters of art and culture. Ahn was a respectfully lascivious, hard smoking Korean, semi-closeted, Chinese-restauranteur. They had both had the mixed-bag fortune of working somewhat steadily in Hollywood, but as racial stereotypes. I think they were thrilled to have landed what were, for them, the most meaningful roles of their long careers.

HJP Besides the previously discussed reference to Grasshopper, there were many benchmarks and popular phrases associated with the series. Caine walking on rice paper. To leave the sacred Shaolin Temple of China upon his "graduation," he must "snatch the pebble" from Master Kahn's hand, and then lift a large iron urn with only his form arms - ultimately imprinting the permanent emblems of his formal initiation as a monk. Could you talk a little bit about all of these, detailing, if possible, the significance of each.

RP The rice-paper wasn't rice paper, rolls like that were nowhere to be found (except maybe at the Rizla factory, but nobody seemed to think of that) and even gluing sandpaper to my feet, and awkwardly twisting my feet as I walked, would tear the pre-wetted roll of butcher paper. So they pre-tore it in a foot-print pattern and then panned down after I'd made the attempted non-invasive walk in character.

HJP What about your favorite episode? Which would that be and why?

RP I liked Alethia [from the first season] because of [guest star] Jodie Foster and [director] John Badham, and The Demon God [from the third season, and about Young Caine's encounter with an evil spirit) because it was the largest, juiciest role I'd ever had in one episode.

HJP The show's third season was different than the previous two. How so?

RP Started to get too full of itself by this point, loss of the great story editor they had in the first two seasons [Herman Miller, who recently passed away], hiring second-rate directors who didn't really share the vision of the show, David's increasing petulance and existential conflict about his notoriety and the responsibility that carries.

HJP How would you preferred the series would have developed, had it gone on to a fourth and fifth season?

RP That's a great question. There are several ways it could have gone. And these are only my musings, of course. After Caine finds his brother, Danny, dead, that kind of wraps up the original "quest" plot arc. There's still the matter of a price on Caine's head from having killed the Emperor's Nephew in the pilot. One of my ideas would radically alter the formula of the show, wherein Caine settles down, creating a good cover for himself as the blacksmith in a pioneering town by day, and Acupuncturist/Herbalist/townie counselor by night. One day his half-brother's orphaned son comes into town half-dead from exposure seeking his Uncle Caine. Kwai Chang nurses him back to health and he becomes a Blacksmith's Apprentice. Soon, Kwai Chang realizes that he must become the teacher to Adam Caine's "New Grasshopper" but since the boy is full-blooded American, the Chinese parables have no import to him and so Kwai Chang must find ways to teach in a more Occidental manner. There's more to this line, but I'll stop there. Another line might have had Caine in the West go to a big city (Chicago, San Francisco) and start a Shaolin School there. Flashbacks would consist of Young Caine, now a mid-teenager, learning the ways of the world outside the Chinese Shaolin Monastery. Essentially what they started to do with my character in the third season. But I don't think the network would have gone for any of these ideas at the time because the proven formula of "Caine gets in a jam, then kicks ass" would have to be suspended.

HJP Do you believe that Kung Fu helped to introduce mainstream America to Asian thought and culture?

RP Yes, in no uncertain terms. I have been told that many times over the years, individuals who attribute their exploration of Eastern thought to having watched the show.

HJP What do you think is the true potential of television? Do you believe that it's true potential has not been realized?

RP The potential of television has already been realized...to create culture. Unfortunately the one it has been used to create sucks to high heaven. And since it has also become an actual addiction to so many, the road back from that may be very long. While multinational corporations control the content and style of TV, we're doomed, because "Corporation" uses the medium to perpetuate its own inhuman interests. Pacifying, lulling, brain-washing. There is enlightening content out there (Link-TV, et. al.) but as I've said, TV has already become an accepted drug, so being made to think for ones self is not the expected function of TV at this point. However, with the advance of cool services like MetaCinema, for example, when the computer fully integrates with the plasma, (the eventual outgrowth of TiVo-like empowerment) and content can be completely controlled by the individual, then we may see a shift in the meaning of television in our lives. Certainly it has the power to be, among other things, constant art in the home, both as a moving painting, and in the way of meaningful, evocative, and instructional content. Let's just say that some of its most positive potential has yet to be realized.

HJP Do you find it ironic that Kung Fu debuted in 1972 - the very same year that President Nixon was holding historic talks with China's Chairman Mao?

RP Ironic? No. Synchronistic? Yes.

HJP Warner Bros. is developing a Kung Fu feature film? Who would you cast in the lead as the adult Kwai Chang Caine, as well as Young Grasshopper?

RP Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Caine...Dakota Fanning as Grasshopper.

HJP Would you like to see yourself and David Carradine make an appearance in the movie? And if so, in what capacity?

RP Yes. Something poignant. Actually, I'd love to direct it.

HJP Why do you think so many of the TV-to-feature film movies fail?

RP Another great question. Partially, I think it's because the producers of these films have too much of their own egos wrapped up in the project, and they want to put their own, "aren't we clever and hip for making a movie out of this classic TV show," and "aren't we cool to 'update' it for today's audience...blah-blah-blah-blah-blah." They don't care enough about the original fan base, and do enough "focus groups" with that fan base to glean what made the original show work in the first place, maybe the cultural context, for example, or the subconscious messages being telegraphed by some of the main characters (and the actors' interpretation of those characters). Stuff like that. A lot of times, too, I think that projects like that fail simply because the premise is no longer viable in the current era...it worked then, it spoke to audiences then, for whatever reason, but it no longer does in the present day. Producers aren't able to figure that out, until its too late and they've already spent the millions on something that was dead in the water from day one (of their attempt to remake it). Finally, I also think that the phenomenon of the original show involved the episodic quality, the fact that another chapter in the lives of so-and-so would come on week after week. And the original took place in people's Living Rooms and Bedrooms. When they try to do the remake all in one shot, it seems they try to pack in the kitchen sink. Just the mere fact that its not TV anymore, its not free...you're paying admission to watch it in a movie theater, a completely different experience than the original. Producers might be smarter to just bring the shows back to TV instead of the silver screen. Okay, that's my .35 cents worth. You asked.

HJP Wow. I sure did. So, then, what will guarantee the success of Kung Fu as a feature film?

RP Being true to the original. Not necessarily the same formula, but true to the organic progression of the character, Kwai Chang Caine. For example, my idea of him becoming a blacksmith/healer in a small town and taking in an orphaned relative, and going through the challenges of becoming the teacher now. This is just one tangential possibility, and there are others of course. But to simply remake the original, well, people would always compare it, and it would never be what it was in the cultural context of the time it originally aired. That is not to say it is stuck in that time. Another example of an old TV show that continues to gain new fans every year is Little House on the Prairie [on which Pera briefly appeared as a regular]. Because its values were true, and because it is a period piece, it holds up. And yet, some of the things that made Kung Fu so unique, also date it slightly (like the slo-mo and trail effects). While it has a distinct "'70s look" at times, the content in many episodes manages to transcend that.

HJP Tell us about your life and work now?

RP Well, the past 18 years, I've run my own company designing and installing customized Home Theaters and Multi-Zone Residential Audio Systems. This was something I needed to do, to create a living with my own two hands. In contrast to the disproportionate effort-to-income equation of the acting business, running All Systems Go! [now called Get It Wired] was challenging and satisfying gainful self-employment. I've done it long enough, though. As life often reveals it secrets down the road, I am excited by this new company I have joined as a principal partner. All of my prior work in life has prepared me for it, and all of my skills are a part of what I am going to be doing, and that is: heading up the Digital Home Initiative Division of a new web-based high definition broadcasting network called MetaCinema. As we all know, there's a dearth of HD content currently available to either Cable TV or Satellite subscribers. MetaCinema is going to leapfrog past all of them, and even over the next emerging hardware/software-based technology, HD-DVDs (or BlueRay Discs, whichever ends up winning this new "Beta vs. VHS" war.) MetaCinema will makes its debut at this month's NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) Convention in Las Vegas. Tell me, would you rather spend $500 on a new type of DVD player, and start replacing your favorite DVDs with High Definition discs, or take that same money and get a Mac Mini or X-Box and start rapidly downloading a plethora of HD entertainment right to your Plasma TV? The team I'm working with have developed a new way to compress huge HD movie files (along with the Dolby 5.1 Surround tracks) into tiny little files that reassemble themselves into full clarity HD upon playback from the hard drive in the Mac Mini or X-Box. Its pretty cool and its going to change everything. Stay tuned. And hold off on that HD-DVD purchase. We're finally going to deliver the promise of full High Definition entertainment that people have been expecting ever since they plunked down the extra thousands for that new widescreen/flatscreen TV. MetaCinema's parent company is also involved in movie synthesis, and all-digital movie-making. So you see, its all coming around full circle for me at last. Not to mention the joy of being involved with something that will get thousands if filmmaker's works seen globally. That's a reward in itself.

HJP How would you prefer Kung Fu and Young Grasshopper to be remembered?

RP The same way it is remembered now.

In addition to this blog, Herbie J Pilato writes two other blogs for MediaVillage.com: MediaVillage TV Monitor and Visual In Site. He is also the author of several TV books, including The Kung Fu Book of Caine and The Kung Fu Book of Wisdom (both of which were published by Tuttle Publishing in the mid-1990s, and both of which he hopes to revise and combine into a new, singular volume).