Today, the world of martial arts mourns another loss in the family as David Carradine has been found hanging in a Bankok hotel room. This deeply saddening event has kicked up a storm of media and speculation so, rather than drive into the depths of the unverified and the half-truths, we prefer to shine the light on what Mr. Carradine loved and gave to us, film.
Mr. Carradine, 72 this year, was extremely active on the silver screen throughout his career and managed to stay embedded in the cult pop of martial arts cinema as well as non-Kung-Fu based films, as early back as 1965 with Bus Riley's Back in Town and The Violent Ones in 1967.
Up until 1972, David was best known for his roles in Western movies such as The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969), Young Billy Young (1969), and Macho Callahan (1970) where cowpoking and gun slinging (perhaps the grandfather of Gun-Fu) filled the screen and Mister Carradine met with great success.
In 1972, Kung-Fu hit the small screen and lit the homes with, what most people would have to admit, was their very first introduction to, not just the physical side of the arts, but also the intellectual aspect of the arts as well. This series ran into 1975.
David carradine moved through genres again and managed to carve out a niche in the car race films with his parts in Death Race 2000 (1975), Cannonball (1976), as well as Thunder and Lightning (1978).
Mr. Carradine returned to the Kung-Fu (or Eastern Westerns) with The Silent Flute (1979) but only temporarily as he also settled back into Westerns while acting in a wide range of film types throughout the eighties before and during his exploration of war movies such as P.O.W. The Escape (1986), Armed Response (1986), and The Misfit Brigade (1988).
Through the Nineties, action films saturated the market and David Carradine found himself taking on roles to just stay active like Evil Toons (1991), Karate Cop (1993), and Children of the Corn V (1998) and capped the twentieth century off with a series of David Carradine exercise workout videos.
The new century is when his legendary status truly brought David back into the limelight and re-enforced his status as a martial arts tough guy with Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill movies, Hell Ride (2008), and Crank: High Voltage (2009) where he played the disgusting, yet hilarious villain, Poon Dong.
It is beyond unfortunate that he has passed and we are a lesser world without having him with us, but this much is true; whether he was gunslinging, car crashing, karate kicking, or just generally being a man's man, David Carradine will always be remembered as one of the legendary silver screen badasses!
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