American TV series "Kung Fu" will be remade into the movie "Deadpool 2" directed by David Leitch

According to foreign media reports, David Leitch, director of "John Wick", "Deadpool 2" and "Fast & Furious Hobbs & Shaw", is expected to direct the rebooted movie version of "Kung Fu".

Universal Pictures has purchased the copyright of the 1970s American TV series "Kung Fu" and is incubating a movie remake. The American TV series "Kung Fu" starred David Carradine, who played the villain Bill in "Kill Bill". It was broadcast from 1972 to 1975 and made martial arts popular in the West for a while.

David Leitch and Kelly McCormick will serve as producers of the film, and original series writer Ed Spielman will also serve as executive producer.

The original drama tells the story of Qian Guanchang (David Carradine), an orphan of Chinese and American descent, who was taken in by Shaolin Temple after his grandfather's death. Under the guidance of Master Bai (Lu Xiqi), he learned advanced martial arts. After leaving the mountain, Guanchang met Master Bai on the street. The master was assassinated by a royal relative with a pistol because he advised the rampant officials. Guanchang shot the royal relative to death in anger. Under the guidance of Master Bai who was dying, he decided to go into exile in the United States to find his brother who was missing. In the western United States, Guanchang was involved in a series of disputes because of injustice. At the same time, the assassins sent by Emperor Qing followed closely...

The original American TV series "Kung Fu" has a connection with Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee's widow Linda once revealed that Warner Television plagiarized Bruce Lee's idea to create this series. The evidence is that on December 8, 1971, Bruce Lee said in an interview with The Pierre Berton Show: He had a script idea called "Warrior", which tells the story of a martial arts master coming to the American West. Both Warner and Paramount were interested in this project.

The following year, Kung Fu was broadcast, and the main plot was very similar to what Bruce Lee said: Kwai Chang Caine, played by David Carradine, was of mixed Chinese and American descent, with an American father and a Chinese mother. After his grandfather died, he came to the Shaolin Temple to learn Kung Fu, and as an adult he came to the American West to look for his half-brother.

Carradine is an American of Irish descent, so it's barely acceptable for him to play a Chinese-American character.

However, there is some controversy as to whether Warner Television "stole" Bruce Lee's concept.

In The Pierre Berton Show, Bruce Lee once told the host that American TV producers were worried that having Chinese actors play the leading roles in American TV series would affect the ratings. Both sides had discussed this, so the "Warrior" project might be difficult to accomplish. "They think it's commercially risky, and I don't blame them. On the other hand, if an American actor came to Hong Kong to play the leading role, and I were an investor, I would also worry about whether Hong Kong audiences could accept this setting."

In 1989, David Carradine said in an interview that Warner Television had approached Bruce Lee to play the leading role in Kung Fu, but for unknown reasons, Lee declined the offer. In 1971, Lee had returned to Hong Kong from the United States to film The Big Boss, and Way of the Dragon was also in the works. Perhaps returning to Hollywood was not that urgent, or perhaps the conditions offered by Warner Television were not good enough. There is no other evidence to support Carradine's statement.

The "Warrior" story concept mentioned by Bruce Lee in a 1971 interview was finally filmed in April 2019 and broadcast on the American Cinemax channel.

In addition, the CW also announced some time ago that it would reboot the series with a female protagonist. Greg Berlanti, the producer of Arrow, and Christina M. Kim, the producer of Blindspot, would be in charge.