Last surviving original Kung Fu star has one criticism of The CW reboot, which he hasn't watched

Entertainment Weekly

Radames Pera, who was 11 when he was cast a young version of David Carradine's Caine, AKA Grasshopper, takes issue with The CW reboot using the same title. In particular, he emphasized that the original resisted using violence and was anti-revenge, in contrast to the Olivia Liang-led version. "I want to be positive and not be critical of (the new version), except for the fact they're taking very big licenses with the original show," says Pera, who admits he's only read the pilot script and hasn't watched the show since he lives in France. "David Carradine once said that Kung Fu was an anti-revenge series. The character walked through life trying to make as few ripples as possible because of his mixed race status. But he'd immediately be the focus of people's negative attention and bigotry, so he would have to deal with these jerks coming at him. Despite that, he always tried to do the least amount of harm." Pera, who is white, also addressed criticism of the original having him and Carradine playing mixed-race characters even though they didn't have Asian ancestry. "They did the best they could at the time," said Pera. "They were taking heat from the Asian community from the onset. So they actually made a deal with some of the representatives from Asian American community to hire everybody in town, whether they were Korean, Japanese, Chinese, or Filipino who had a SAG card. They also gave cards to those who didn't have one by giving them their first job in a union production. Literally every Asian actor in town worked on that show."