“The hardest brick is the easiest to break,” says martial arts master White Crane as he places a tomato on a stack of bricks, then presses downward and shatters the bricks while leaving the tomato intact.
“The bricks are nothing,” White Crane tells his young protege in a near-whisper. “Only your own will, your intentions, are important.”
Eastern wisdom is abundant, and action, too, in “Kung Fu Killer,” which brings together David Carradine (White Crane) and Daryl Hannah for the first time since the “Kill Bill” films.
This two-part miniseries, set in China in the late 1920s, follows White Crane, an orphaned son of Western missionaries who was raised as a Wudang monk, on his journey for revenge and justice.
Infiltrating the Shanghai underworld, he meets Jane Marshall (Hannah), a lounge singer from Brooklyn on a mission to find her brother, who, by convenient happenstance, is being held captive by the same war lord whose mercenaries raided White Crane’s temple.
“Kung Fu Killer” was shot entirely on location in China, with principal photography at Heng Dian Studios in the Zhejiang Province. A lush, lively saga in which Hannah makes her singing debut, it premieres at 10 p.m. Sunday and Monday on Spike.
Other shows to look out for:
“Skins”: They’re just an average group of 17-year-olds in Bristol, England. But the dramedy takes a far-from-average look at them and their coming of age.
The gang is led by Tony, who’s handsome and popular. His best mate, Sid, is forever lusting after Tony’s dishy girlfriend, Michelle, while Tony takes advantage of Sid’s insecurity. Chris is the class clown.
Jal can play her clarinet like no one in the British Isles. Anwar claims to be a practicing Muslim but doesn’t let the Koran interfere with less spiritual pursuits.
And that’s not all the characters who populate “Skins,” already an award-winning series on British television. It premieres at 9 p.m. Sunday on BBC America.
“Into the Unknown”: Josh Bernstein doesn’t know if there was really a great flood around the time of Genesis or a chap named Noah who built an ark. But Bernstein isn’t the sort to just sit around and wonder. He plunges into that rich mystery, and others, to try to find answers on his new Discovery Channel series,
An explorer, writer and wilderness educator, Bernstein devotes an episode to chasing the rumor that life might have started not on Earth, but Mars. He tries to track down a reason for the sudden disappearance five centuries ago of the fierce Chachapoya tribe in northern Peru.
And during the premiere at 10 p.m. Monday, he revisits the Roman Empire to investigate gladiators: slaves or celebrities?
“The Principal’s Office”: It won’t be long before high schools across the land are summoning students for another year, and for some of those youngsters, the distance will be minimal from classroom to wherever discipline is meted out.
A new reality series, “The Principal’s Office,” lets viewers see student life through administrators’ eyes.
Episodes visit various principals who display distinctive styles and face surprising challenges. In back-to-back half-hours at 9 p.m. Thursday on cable’s truTV, a student named John decides to leave the campus of his Connecticut school for lunch — and gets caught red-handed by the assistant principal.
In Arkansas, a student who is consistently late to class is handed a choice by the principal: detention or a paddling.
And New Jersey high school student Cody lands in trouble for Photoshopping unflattering pictures of his principal.
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