Yuen Woo Pings Tribute to David Carradine
This short excerpt is from Yuen Woo Ping it is taken from the magnificent www.kungfucinema.com site
Back in June, Yuen reacted to Carradine’s death by posting a eulogy on the official site.
I was just finishing a new piece of diary when the sad news of David Carradine struck me. David, my good friend, passed away in Thailand on June 3.
David and I knew each other from the movie KILL BILL. Before that, I have of course seen a lot of his work. He is among the first Hollywood actors to perform Chinese martial arts on the big screen. In real life he is also a genuine kung-fu fan, and knows Tai Chi, Qi Gong and Chinese medicine. He wrote several books on Tai Chi and Qi Gong, spreading Chinese wisdom to the English-speaking world.
David has acted in more than 200 movies and TV drama. In early years he was a brilliant stage actor too, acting in various Shakespeare’s plays. Same as I, people shall always remember his role Caine, “the grasshopper,” in TV drama KUNG FU in the ’70s, which was a really unforgettable performance.
It was Quentin Tarantino who had the great eye to cast David as Bill in KILL BILL, for which I trained Uma Thurman and other actors to do the action sequences. With David, the training was like practice sessions between friends. It was great fun working with him, and he often had a lot of fresh ideas for the actions.
I feel both great honor and regret that TRUE LEGEND is one of David Carradine’s last works. I certainly feel proud that he is a part of our movie, and hope he would feel the same.