engage2

This has to be one of the best shoes of its time. Kwai Chang Cain along with Raven and other martial arts weekly specials revolutionized television in the 90s. But this one in particular has more to it than fighting. Even today it has the same morals and lessons that you can use years later. Kung Fu the legend continues portrays the most touching themes between father and son, while adding some of the purest music of any show I've ever seen. The spirit of eastern philosophy is wrought throughout this series, despite what new challenges the duo face. For those of us who are not horror or violence enthusiasts, this show contains those elements in some of the occasional challenges the protagonists face, and it can end with a message or reflection on them. One such was the episode "The Possessed", where at the end Peter recalls to his father that he's never went up against anything like that, and the experience of going up against "real evil" to which he asks, "how'd we do?" to which Cain responds with a shrug of humility, "this time... we won." For those of you who also appreciate the art of reflection, there is a main reminiscence of the past in each episode that aids in the preparation or comprehension of some present event. The Shaolin Temple is shown to be the sanctuary from which the Cains developed their abilities and understanding of much more than can be found in society. Their memories of this are irreplaceable in the consistent survival of father and son, especially in the risky field of policing. It is mainly through his son's work that Kwai Chang Cain is able to track information on criminal activity and more. Sometimes, but less often, trouble finds its way to him.

No snakes were harmed during the filming of this movie. The concept was interesting. A brilliant doctor has the formula to help mankind survive the event of the holocaust and other cataclysmic proportions. Think of this, a snake with the intelligence of a human. So the girlfriend of the human test subject, David, witnesses her boyfriend's demise in the freakish predicament of a snake, his precious life ends at the paws of mortality itself, the otherwise innocuous ferret, who, in this case, does not stop to think that the snake he is killing for his next meal might and could just be a human, which the very same species he depends on for his survival.

How could the so-called medical geniuses not have seen it all along, turning humans into snakes to endure the next holocaust? What are my hard earned tax dollars going toward if not funding for the study of human-snake transformation! Idiots!

In a few ways this movie is reminiscent of The Matrix. Where David (Bruce Willis) discovers his "potential" through Elijah (Samuel L. Jackson), similar to Neo and Morpheus. It likens us to the possibility that a "sane man in an insane world" could be an "insane man in a sane world" and vice versa.

The story is about David, an ex-football star turned security guard with a wife and son who makes regular pay and wakes up every morning with an empty feeling. Elijah acknowledges this empty feeling to David as a sadness and then proceeds to tell him, "...maybe its because you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing." David feels burdened by Elijah's theories as evident in not only his skepticism, but as well, his downright defensiveness. Gradually, he begins to accept them however.

By the time David comes to his realization, he rekindles the broken contact between him and Elijah, and, as you might guess, comes to understand what he must do. The movie now takes a turn in a very different direction, when David, as a regular man with a genetic edge discovered only by Elijah, must now conquer his doubts and fears over Elijah's theories and any concern he might have over whether or not his actions undermine his sanity, to enter what the audience has all been waiting for to see, superhero territory. Remember, this is the same guy who eats french toast for breakfast with a glass of Tropicana.

The movie basically centers around Elijah's theory, which is about the closest link between the superhero world of comic books and ours. We see the burdens David faces when he has to reconcile everything he knows about his basis in real life with that of Batman, Superman, Spiderman and other gods from the pages of panel-by-panel mythology. It makes us wonder about the possibility and explores the brightest and darkest aspects of the human psyche. This "crossing over" aspect I found very reminiscent of The Matrix but without the farfetchedness. Which is what drives this movie much more closer to home than The Matrix could ever be.

The movie ends on a note that leaves us to imagine the future to come. We are forced to question what we believe to be good and evil.