The adventures of Kwai Chang Caine, a half-white/half-Chinese Shaolin monk wandering throughout the Wild West, helping people along the way with sage wisdom for the good people and devastating expertise in martial arts for the bad ones.

When it premiered, it was a unique [[TheWestern Western]] series with an Asian lead character ([[{{Yellowface}} albeit played by an actor with no Asian ancestry]]) who refused to use a gun and looked out for the innocent, especially the minority groups that the genre typically ignored. The emphasis of the series was very much on philosophy, particularly Eastern philosophy, rather than gunplay.

While it has elements of a SternChase (given that he is wanted for killing the Chinese Emperor's nephew after he fatally shot his beloved master in cold blood), it was usually not a pressing matter for the character outside the occasional bounty hunter. Caine is also a stern chaser, looking for his half brother. He often enters a town only a few days [[MissedHimByThatMuch after his brother has left it]].

It has since become seen as the archetypical WalkingTheEarth show with a wandering adventurer who has higher spiritual aspirations, but is still ready to get tough when called for. Some of its dialogue became cliches in their own right (calling students "Grasshopper", and "[[WhenYouSnatchThePebble When you can take the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave]]" are two of the best known of these).
A SequelSeries, ''Kung Fu: The Legend Continues'', featured Caine's IdenticalGrandson and his own estranged son, a modern day cop. It lasted longer than its namesake, though it failed to gain nearly so much attention. ''Kung Fu 3D'' was a series of 12 {{Webisode}}s hosted on the Warner Brothers website in 1999; while it featured a character named Kwai Chang Caine voiced by David Carradine, it deviated from the show's canon. Caine is [[DoorstopBaby left on the temple's steps by his mother as a baby]], and he is in search of his father instead of his brother. The web series had NoEnding.

Either invented or introduced the concept of a kung-fu Western to...well, ''Western'' audiences.

If you're looking for martial arts tropes, see ThisIndexKnowsKungFu.

P.S.: Contrary to popular belief (including the movie ''DragonTheBruceLeeStory''), Bruce Lee had exactly '''nothing''' to do with the series.

!!The original series provides examples of:
* AdventureTowns
* AnnoyingArrows: In one episode, one of Caine's enemies (the henchman of a Tong killer) attempts to assassinate Caine ([[CommercialBreakCliffhanger before a commercial break, of course]]), by shooting him in the back with an arrow while he is meditating. In a later scene after the commercial break, Caine pulls what is probably one of his finer moments by confronting his assailant, reaching around, pulling the arrow out of his back, and then contemptuously throwing the arrow at his enemy's feet.
* [[AliensSpeakingEnglish Asians Speaking English]][=/=]TranslationConvention
* BadassFamily: The Caines, naturally.
* CatchPhrase: "Grasshopper" among others.
* DissonantSerenity: In one episode, Caine is traveling some settlers who are going into hazardous territory. Along the way, Caine is playing his flute and one of the settler asks why he is doing that when they don't know what fate they will be facing. At that, Caine asks, "If I stop playing, will that fate change?"
* DoesNotLikeShoes: One of the only times Caine wears footwear is to attend a wedding.
** Conveniently for the stuntman, Caine is wearing shoes on the occasion when he walks through a pit of rattlesnakes.
* FakeMixedRace: Caine is half Chinese. David Carradine is not.
* FightingSeries
* FlashbackEcho
* HandicappedBadass: The blind Master Po.
* HeroesFightBarehanded: Kwai Chang Caine.
* HumbleGoal
* {{Koan}}. Well yes, naturally.
* LastNameBasis: Caine introduces himself as "I am Caine," and people call him Caine. However, when he finally finds his brother (and nephew he didn't know he had) before letting them know that he's related, he introduces himself as Kwai Chang.
* MagicalAsian: Masters Po and Kan to Caine and Caine himself to most white people he meets.
* TheManTheyCouldntHang: In "The Nature of Evil"
* MartialPacifist: Caine never wants trouble, but woe be anyone who forces him to fight.
* PunishmentBox: Caine finds himself in a two-man Box, and teaches the other man in the box to meditate so as to avoid the torturous aspects of being in the box. The guards & other prisoners are amazed that they're able to leave under their own power instead of being carried out.
* SternChase
* StrictlyFormula: In a lot of episodes Caine basically goes to a town, townspeople don't like him, finds open-minded ally, finds enemy, must fight, makes monk-ly decision concerning friend and enemy, flashback to the power of five, win fight, credits roll. (The producers eventually mixed this up a bit, with some later episodes set entirely in China.)
* WalkingTheEarth - TropeNamer; well, [[Film/PulpFiction indirectly]].
* WarriorPoet
* TheWestern
* WhenYouSnatchThePebble: This is the TropeNamer.

!!''The Legend Continues'' adds:
* ArbitrarySkepticism: In ''The Legend Continues'', Peter often frowned on the idea of supernatural phenomenon being the cause of the episode's case. Even after they had often faced various such phenomena up close.
* ByTheBookCop: In the first season of ''The Legend Continues,'' Peter often disapproved of his father's interference in police investigations. By the time he himself [[TookALevelInBadass re-learned his own childhood martial arts training]], he began to value Caine's assistance more.
* DressHitsFloor: In the pilot episode, Marilyn (a woman who asks Kwai-Chang Caine for help) is brought to the offices of the crime lord Tan, and is told to take her clothes off. Her dress drops to the floor just before she kisses Tan and then slaps him across the face.
* FriendOnTheForce: Several of the cops in ''The Legend Continues,'' although most of them simply couldn't figure out the senior Caine at all. Peter himself was this for his father.
* IAmNotMyFather: Peter cites this trope in ''The Legend Continues'', during the first season's opening sequence:
--> '''Peter:''' Look, I'm not my father. I don't do kung fu. I'm a cop. ''That's'' who I am; ''that's'' what I do.
** Very nearly subverted in the Season 3 finale, when Peter undergoes the full Shaolin training regimen but stops just short of finishing it. The subversion is completed in the series finale; he takes the tiger/dragon brands, becoming a Shaolin priest, and turns in his badge.
* IdenticalGrandson: Kwai Chang Caine from ''The Legend Continues'', grandson of Kwai Chang from the original series. Both played by David Carradine. Implied on occasion to actually be the same man.
** David Carradine also played Matthew Caine, Kwai Chang's son & Kwai Chang II's father, in an episode or two of ''TLC''.
* IceCreamKoan in the PilotMovie for ''Kung Fu: The Legend Continues'' when Peter quotes his father back to him.
--->'''Peter:''' "Ah yes. Darkness shall overcome the light," as you would say. "But splinters of black will easily be crushed. The illumination of one candle shall forever touch mankind's luminous spirit."
--->'''Kwai Chang:''' I never said anything like that. means absolutely nothing.
--->'''Peter:''' I know. Sounded great though, didn't it?
* LevitatingLotusPosition: Kwai Chang Caine did this sometimes while meditating in ''The Legend Continues''.
* TheMagnificentSevenSamurai: ''The Legend Continues'' had an episode called "Dragonswing", where Caine and Peter assemble a team of Shao Lin alumni to help a friend rescue his girlfriend from the thugs who've taken over his Northwestern town. Robert Vaughn guest-starred as Rykker, a mercenary very similar to his ''Magnificent Seven'' character.
* SpeaksInShoutouts: The perp in "Secret Place" speaks by quoting famous movie stars' roles.
* TookALevelInBadass: In one of the early episodes of ''The Legend Continues,'' Peter's in a bind against the VillainOfTheWeek, who's beating the crap out of him like nobody's business. Then he instinctively taps into his forgotten kung fu skills via GroinAttack. The next season would focus on him gradually re-learning everything he'd been taught as a child.