"Kung Fu": TV Series, One Step to Darkness

#53 (Prod #166265) "One Step to Darkness"^*2*
Teleplay By: Robert Sherman & Theodore Apstein (also #49)
STORY: Gerald Sanford
Directed By:: Marc Daniels (also #49, 59, 60 & 62)
First Broadcast: January 25, 1975 (Saturday)
Guest Stars: Leslie Charleson, David Huddleston (also #22), Bruce Carradine (also #28) and Stephen Manley as a younger young Caine^*4*
Regular Cast: David Carradine, Philip Ahn, Keye Luke, Radames Pera

Caine comes to the rescue of a woman and for his trouble is arrested by her army officer husband. The woman turns out to be addicted to a Chinese drug (opium?) and she introduces Caine to a mystical world where he meets a demon who claims the priest's life for a wish the very young Caine had made while sick with typhoid.

"We all encounter a demon when our conscience is not at rest." - Master Po

"'I cannot remember.' - Young Caine
'Cannot? Or is it that you do not choose to remember?'" - Master Po

"My wish is to live." - Caine

"You say you are sorry. . . . Yet I am here in custody." - Caine

"As the tapestry is mute, so are we so long as we are held immobile by the tightly woven threads of fear." - Master Po

"I mean you no harm." - Caine

"I broke the lock." - Caine, when asked how he got out of jail

"I sense the joss holds some answers for me as well as for your wife." - Caine (Thomas Moser informs us that "joss" "means fate or luck or destiny")

"I did not come for your money." - Caine

"You trade on human weakness." - Caine (with a least some contempt)

"'That's her look out.'
'Not any more.'" - Caine, interfering

"The mind seeking to protect itself, looks for something outside itself." - Master Po

"I do not know where I live at present." - Caine

"A truth that will help me reach a different world." - Caine

"To run from your demon is to have him pursue you. Better to advance to meet your demon in his world than have him pursue you into yours." - Master Po

"The torment is in your mind." - Caine

"The two events are not bond together." - Caine, denying cause and effect in a situation

"How do you account for this strange and violent behavior. . . . What demon possesses you to abandon the ways of Tao?" - Master Po

"I am not afraid." - Caine, his usual answer when accused of it

"You must fight. . . . You seek to escape. Instead you must go in even deeper." - Master Po to Caine

"The plea of a frightened boy cannot change the will of destiny." - Caine

"'I command you to die.' - Demon to Caine
'And I command you to be nothing.'" - Caine to demon

"I did what I did for myself." - Caine, when offered gratitude

"The mind is free to create its demons or its guardians." - Caine

"We choose our own directions." - Caine, in spite of believing in destiny