Kung Fu
Kung Fu Season 1 Episode Summaries:


Episode 1 - "King of the Mountain";
Written by Herman Miller; Directed by Jerry Thorpe; 10/14/72
Caine befriends a young boy who just lost his parents. Later when the priest goes to work for a woman whose ranch is in disrepair, he asks to bring the boy. Meanwhile, on the mountain overlooking the ranch, a bounty hunter plans to earn the $10,000 reward for capturing Caine.

Episode 2 - "Dark Angel";
Written by Herman Miller; Directed by Jerry Thorpe; 11/11/72
Caine goes to Lordsville where his father was born. There he discovers that he has a brother and that his grandfather abhors having a half-Chinese grandson. He also meets Serenity Johnson.

Episode 3 - "Blood Brother";
Written by Herman Miller; Directed by Jerry Thorpe; 1/18/73
In Kilgore, Arizona Territory, following up a return address on one of Danny's letters, Caine discovers that an old friend from China has been there. The priest first seeks his friend-then his body-then justice.

Episode 4 - "An Eye for an Eye";
Written by John Furia Jr.; Directed by Jerry Thorpe; 1/25/73
This episode about vengeance for a rape won Emmys for best director and best cinematographer. Throughout the story people keep asking, "If I don't have a right to vengeance, who does?" Caine finally answers: "No one."

Episode 5 - "The Soul is the Warrior";
Written by Ron Bishop; Directed by Richard Lang; 2/8/73
The search for Danny leads Caine to a man who tries to take revenge on the brother for what he feels Danny did to him. When this man tries to shoot Caine, a sheriff interferes and brings down on himself the wrath of the man's father.

Episode 6 - "Nine Lives";
Written by Herb Meadow; Directed by Allen Reisner; 2/15/73
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.

Episode 7 - "The Tide";
Written by A. Martin Zweiback; Directed by Walter Doniger; 2/1/73
Caine, recognized from his poster, is handcuffed and shot by the sheriff of a coastal town. After he escapes, wounded and still handcuffed, he is then rescued and cared for by Su Yen who thinks she can trade Caine for her father, a poet who has been imprisoned by the Emperor back in China.

Episode 8 - "Sun and Cloud Shadow";
Written by Halsted Welles; Directed by Robert Butler; 2/22/73
Caine becomes involved with Chinese miners who are in conflict with a man who claims their mountain. One killing leads to another. Meanwhile, a Manchu assassin arrives from the Dowager Empress.

Episode 9 - "A Praying Mantis Kills";
Written by Robert Lewin; Directed by Charles S. Dubin; 3/29/73
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.

Episode 10 - "Alethea";
Written by William Kelley; Directed by John Badham; 3/22/73
Caine gets caught up in a stage hold-up and an honest young girl thinks she sees him shoot a man. On her eyewitness testimony, he is sentenced to hang. In flashbacks the young Caine, who is sent on a mission with a 400 year old scroll, is tricked by a magician.

Episode 11 - "Chains";
Written by Gene L. Coon; Directed by Robert Butler; 3/15/73
Caine is chained to an uneducated, angry man and with whom he escapes prison. They are hunted down by an Army tracker and surrounded by Utes on the warpath.

Episode 12 - "Superstition";
Written by Ed Waters; Directed by David Moessinger; 4/5/73
Unjustly accused of stealing, Caine is forced to work in a mine over an Indian burial ground. The other prisoners/miners are convinced that uncovering human bones results in the death that day of whoever does so. In the flashbacks, Master Po shows the young Caine just what such beliefs produce.

Episode 13 - "The Stone";
Written by A. Martin Zweiback; Directed by Robert Butler; 4/12/73
Caine runs into a Brazilian who knows a style of fighting that Caine has never seen before, an Armenian who wants to revenge massacres in his homeland, three children who want to hire him to kill, and a misplaced diamond.

Episode 14 - "The Third Man";
Written by Robert Lewin; Directed by Charles S. Dubin; 4/26/73
Caine befriends a charming gambler who has been held up by two thieves. Later the thieves try to steal more money and in the dark, the gambler is killed by a third, unknown gunman.

Episode 15 - "Ancient Warrior";
Written by A. Martin Zweiback; Directed by Robert Butler; 5/3/73
Headed for Santa Fe, Caine befriends an old Indian who just wants to return to die and be buried in the land of his birth. That land - his according to a deed - is covered by the mining town of Purgatory, whose people can't forget a massacre by Indians eight years earlier, though they don't remember the fact that Indians were massacred before and after that.