Wanted: Dead or Alive (TV Series) Black Belt (1960) User Reviews

Josh Ends Up On A Wong-Way Street

[ccthemovieman-1 · 7/10 · 21 December 2009]

Martial-arts TV shows and movies of several decades ago (Kung Fu, The Karate Kid, Bruce Lee movies, etc.) began a little craze in the Western World at the time but when this American western TV episode ran, not much was known about karate, and forms of it. That's why it had to be explained here in this episode which ran in March of 1960.

Josh and his now-regular partner "Jason Nichols" are hired to bring in "Sammy Wong," a dangerous karate-expert who, allegedly, killed someone. The person hiring is the grown-up son of the elder man killed. When Josh finds out where he is, and tries to take him in, he gets "chopped" right in the ribs and is laid up for a week. It's now Jason's job to capture Wong, who now is on the run. After a few days's rest, a very-sore Josh gets a telegram from Jason asking for help. Although he's unable to ride a horse with his injuries. he rents a buck-wagon and meets his partner to confront to dangerous Korean.

What happens, with a big (but not unpredictable) twist at the end, I'll leave that up to you so see. I found it on the Wanted: Dead Or Alive DVD of Season Two. By the way, the transfers on these old shows are excellent.

Finally, a note on Robert Kino, who played "Wong." Kino was last seen in a "Seinfeld" episode, believe-it-or-not. Fiinding a bio of this actor is almost impossible. IMDb has nothing, nor does any other place I've looked. It's all very mysterious.

Karate Galore

[Easygoer10 · 8/10 · 19 October 2019]

This is a cool episode. Why? In real life, Steve McQueen was taught martial arts by 2 legendary people: Bruce Lee taught him Jeet Kune Do (he later served as a pall bearer at Lee's funeral), & (9th degree black belt ) Pat Johnson taught him Yang Doo Do. Although he was friends with Chuck Norris, he was not trained by him (as is popularly thought). Norris taught McQueen's son karate. Anyway, this episode is quite relevant. A must see!

Everybody Wang Chung Tonight

[Johnny_West · 3/10 · 1 May 2022]

This is easily the worst episode of the series, and part of the reason is that Wright King was being used as a funny sidekick as was traditional in the Western genre. So Wanted: Dead or Alive started mining comedy by setting up Jason (Wright King) to find out that everyone working at the railroad was Asian. It is hard to believe that Jason did not have a clue. Then there is the bit with Jason peeling potatoes so he can look for Sammy Wong.

The worst part of this episode was when Sammy Wong is confronted by Josh Randall and clearly slaps Josh on the side of the head, but Josh has all his ribs broken. The healing protective vest that the doctor weaves out of dozens of 12" wooden paint mixing sticks is the cheesiest thing I have ever seen on any TV show. Not only did it cover Randall's ribs, but it went all the way up his body, like a body cast made out of flat balsa wood.

A lot of Westerns of this era had at least one episode about martial arts, samurai swords, etc. I am not sure what that was about, but every TV series of this era had one.