Eastern wisdom abounds in –'Kung Fu Killer'
"The hardest brick is the easiest to break," says martial arts master White Crane as he places a tomato on a stack of bricks, then presses downward and shatters the bricks while leaving the tomato intact.
"The bricks are nothing," White Crane tells his young protege in a near-whisper. "Only your own will, your intentions, are important."
Eastern wisdom is abundant, and action, too, in "Kung Fu Killer," which brings together David Carradine (White Crane) and Daryl Hannah for the first time since the "Kill Bill" films.
This two-part miniseries, set in China in the late 1920s, follows White Crane, an orphaned son of Western missionaries who was raised as a Wudang monk, on his journey for revenge and justice.
Infiltrating the Shanghai underworld, he meets Jane Marshall (Hannah), a lounge singer from Brooklyn on a mission to find her brother, who, by convenient happenstance, is being held captive by the same war lord whose mercenaries raided White Crane's temple.
"Kung Fu Killer" was shot entirely on location in China, with principal photography at Heng Dian Studios in the Zhejiang Province. A lush, lively saga in which Hannah makes her singing debut, it premieres tomorrow and Monday at 11 p.m. on Spike.
Other shows to look out for:
¦ They're just an average group of 17-year-olds in Bristol, England. But the dramedy takes a far-from-average look at them and their coming of age.
The gang is led by Tony, who's handsome and popular. His best mate, Sid, is forever lusting after Tony's dishy girlfriend, Michelle, while Tony takes advantage of Sid's insecurity. Chris is the class clown. Jal can play her clarinet like no one in the British Isles. Anwar claims to be a practising Muslim but doesn't let the Koran interfere with less spiritual pursuits.
The ethereal, lovable Cassie is a self-destructive anorexic with zero self-esteem. And that's not all the characters who populate "Skins", already an award-winning series on British television. It premieres on BBC America tomorrow at 10 p.m.
¦ Presidents come and go, but journalist Helen Thomas — who covered nine of them during her career of more than a half-century — will forever be known as the First Lady of the Press. Since her days reporting on President Kennedy, it was Thomas who often asked the first question at White House press conferences, then concluded each session with, "Thank you, Mr. President."
A documentary portrait, "Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House" tells her story, with her hearty participation as, now in her 80s, she reflects on her illustrious career, and the mission she shared with the rest of the White House press corps.
"Presidents deserve to be questioned, perhaps irreverently, to bring them down to size," declares Thomas, who began as one of just a handful of women correspondents.
The film, directed by Rory Kennedy, premieres on HBO at 10 p.m. on Monday.
¦ Josh Bernstein doesn't know if there was really a great flood around the time of Genesis or a chap named Noah who built an ark. But Bernstein isn't the sort to just sit around and wonder. He plunges into that rich mystery, and others, to try to find answers on his new Discovery Channel series, "Into the Unknown".
An explorer, writer and wilderness educator, Bernstein devotes an episode to chasing the rumor that life might have started not on Earth, but Mars. He tries to track down a reason for the sudden disappearance five centuries ago of the fierce Chachapoya tribe in northern Peru.
And on the premiere (Monday at 11 p.m.), he revisits the Roman Empire to investigate gladiators. Were they slaves? Or celebrities?
¦ It won't be long before high schools across the land are summoning students for another year, and for some of those youngsters, the distance will be minimal from classroom to wherever discipline is meted out. A new reality series, "The Principal's Office", lets viewers see student life through administrators' eyes.
Episodes visit various principals who display distinctive styles and face surprising challenges.
In back-to-back half-hours, Thursday at 9 p.m. on cable's truTV, a student named John decides to leave the campus of his Connecticut school for lunch — and gets caught red-handed by the assistant principal. In Arkansas, a student who is consistently late to class is handed a choice by the principal: detention or a paddling.
And New Jersey high school student Cody lands in trouble for Photoshopping unflattering pictures of his principal.
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Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore@ap.org
