"Kung Fu": TV Series with David Carradine, Nine Lives

#6 (Prod #166146) "Nine Lives"
Teleplay By:: Herb Meadow
Directed By:: Allen Reisner
First Broadcast: ABC, February 15, 1973
Guest Stars: Albert Salmi (also pilot & #39), Dana Elcar, Royal Dano; Special Guest Star: Geraldine Brooks
Regular Cast: David Carradine, Philip Ahn, Keye Luke, Radames Pera

Caine tries to help a miner find a cat which the man needs in order to go back to the fields where he thinks he has discovered gold. But in order to get a cat, the two of them have to dig a well for a widow.

Pilot & First Season
Available on DVD

"'I have no need to be rich.' - Caine
'You are a liar or a fool.'"

"To go anywhere, begin by taking a first step." - Caine

"He's half and half." - on Caine's Chinese ancestry

"The best charioteers do not push ahead. The best fighters do not make displays of anger. The wisest antagonist is he who wins without engaging in battle." - Master Kan (may refer to TAO TE CHING #68 or #69 or Sun Tzu's The Art of War)

"Is this not a contradiction?" - Caine, questioning his teachers

"This is the power of not contending. It is how the weak overcome the strong." - Master Kan

"Will revenge get you a cat?" - Caine

"Something is wrong." - Caine

"The sound of pain." - Caine

"'The hands. . . are the eyes and tongue of touch. Through them a man may reach out and see another's feelings or speak his own.' - Master Po
'Is it not sad, Master, that the hands of a man may strike a blow as well as caress?' - Caine
'Pain and pleasure are like two bells, side by side, and the voice of each makes a trembling in the other.' - Po
'Are pain and pleasure then so alike?' - Caine
'Are the eyes and tongue alike. We see the butterfly and an ugly wound. The same tongue which screams also laughs.'" - Master Po (Pilato claims the script went on with "There are nerves which can bring on an illness of the body, or in the spirit. And those which can restore health. Those nerves are like millions of tiny rivers, and to master these rivers is to be master of the body through which they run." - Master Po^*2*p52

"His hands and his feet should be considered dangerous weapons." - about Caine quoting the 'wanted poster'

"What do I know of gold? Ask me knowledge of what I know: how to overcome those much larger, or how weak are those who bellow their strength like the charging bull." - Caine

"The teacher is only as water to the soil. He cannot grow a pomegranate from mustard seed." - Caine

"You $10,000 man." - to and about Caine

"You seek still to be rich." - Caine

"Sean, let the rope down." - Caine, in a mild non-begging tone of voice, though he does say it twice

"You are angry because you betray me." - Caine

"Sean, there is a way...Let us try." - Caine

"'This is not possible.'
'Keep pressing against my back, do not even slightly relax.'" - Caine, trying against the odds

"Put your arms around my neck." - Caine, trying to save a man who was going to turn him in for the reward

"You're putting me to shame." - a man whose life Caine saved after the man said he'd turn Caine in for the reward

"'Must you always be on the run?'
'Not always. In his own time each man finds a place to stand.'" - Caine

In this episode Caine's shoes are stolen and from here on he mostly goes barefoot and carries any shoes he may have.

In America Caine is sometimes (as in this story) called "oriental heathen" and while growing up in China he had been called "foreign barbarian" by some other children.

This story starts off in a mining camp called Dirty Nose Canyon.

There is a flashback scene herein which is repeated in "Ancient Warrior" and reported under that episode.

"The body may cease to be, but the soul flowers endlessly in many bodies." - Caine^*2*p67