"Kung Fu": TV Series with David Carradine, The Praying Mantis Kills

#9 (Prod #166149) "The Praying Mantis Kills"^*2*
Teleplay By:: Robert Lewin^*2* (also 14 & 27)
Directed By:: Charles S. Dubin (also #12 & 14)
First Broadcast: March 29, 1973 (from the DVD) 1973
Guest Stars: Wendell Burton, Norm Alden, Don Knight, Jason Wingreen, Murray Macleod, Bill Fletcher, Victor-Sen Yung (also pilot & #21, 30 & 50)
Special Guest Star: William Schallert
Regular Cast: David Carradine, Philip Ahn, Keye Luke, Radames Pera

Caine, the only one willing to testify against bank robbers, ends up helping a boy first deal with his father's death and then try to fill the sheriff's shoes. (Novelization by Howard Lee^*2*) (Note: we have been informed by David Spencer that Howard Lee was a pseudonym.)

Pilot & First Season
Available on DVD

"They were threatened with death if they spoke. . . I do not fear death." - Caine, explaining his willingness to testify

"No." -Caine's answer to the suggestion of being locked into protective custody

"I do not eat meat." - Caine, when asked if he's a good cook

"I do not believe in killing to eat." - Caine

"Is that not a waste?" - Caine, on hating

"I do not ride." - Caine, when asked if he can help break a horse

"'I do not use archery for killing.' - Caine
'What do you use it as?'
'A form of meditation.' - Caine
'Meditation? What do you think of.'
'I think of nothing but to be one with the target.'" - Caine

"I do not do it. It is not done. . . It is only experienced. It happens." - Caine, on hitting a target without looking

"Bow, arrow, target are one. Not many things. Not different things. One." - Caine, on himself, bow, arrows and target

"When you cease to strive to understand then you will know without understanding." - Caine (very zen/ch'an)

"The horse lives. I live. I share this with all nature. We are one." - Caine

"I belong to myself." - Caine

"'You are different from just about anyone I ever met.'
'That is good, I hope.'" - Caine

"It is not something one man may teach another." - Caine, on not being afraid of death

"It is rare to ask your questions. It is more rare to listen to the answers." - Caine

"'I was cleansing my mind of impurities. Disturbances.' - Caine
'...how's that work?'
'It lets me see the nature of things as they really are.' - Caine
'Is that what keeps you from getting mad?'
'It is how I may encounter life's many faces with some sense of peace.'" - Caine, on meditating

"There is nothing to forgive. We are friends." - Caine

"Just because you can get out there and think about things doesn't mean you know everything." - to and about Caine

"'What is the purpose of so difficult an exercise?' - Caine
'Discipline. That you may strike with such strength. Yet, in one place and no more.'" - Master Kan

"'We learn to make powerful the force of our bodies. Yet, we are taught to reverence all against whom we may use such force.' - Caine
'When your life is threatened or the innocent life of another, you will be prepared to defend them.' - Master Kan
'Being thus prepared better than others, should I not always stand and fight?' - Caine
'Ignore the insulting tongue. Duck the provoking blow. Run from the assault of the strong.' - Master Kan
'Are these not the actions of a coward?' - Caine
'The wild boar runs from the tiger knowing that each being well armed by nature with deadly strength may kill the other. Running he saves his own life and that of the tiger. This is not cowardice. It is the love of life.'" - Master Kan

"You have taught me to claim no possessions that none may claim me." - Caine to Master Po (relates to what is said in #18 "The Chalice")

"'Master, are you never lonely?' - Caine
'Do you feel loneliness?' - Master Kan
'No. But I do not understand why, denied the experience of so many things that other men desire, I do not.'" - Caine

"'Man, like the animals, is meant to live together with others like himself. But the meaning of belonging to such a group is found in the comfort of silence and the companionship of solitude.' - Master Kan
'Is that why you let me enter and taught me?' - Caine
'We taught you, young man, because you already knew.'" - Master Kan on what the monks discovered by watching the Young Caine, who stood patiently in the rain and didn't play games with the other boys when applying for admission to the temple

"Yes. I get lonesome. Sometimes." - Caine

"Is a gun the only measure you know by which a boy becomes a man?" - Caine

"'You won't shoot or fire a bow. Will you load?'
'No. But I will help.'" - Caine, refusing to have anything to do with guns

"Martin. No!" - Caine, stopping the boy from killing his opponent

"I must go. . . . It is right for me." - Caine, when asked to stay

"I will remember you, both" - Caine

"'It will be lonesome.'
'Yes.'" - Caine

"That is good." - Caine, when the boy tells him he couldn't kill

Caine seems judgmental about praying while preparing to kill.