As the title character in Kill Bill, the latest blockbuster film from director Quentin Tarantino, David Carradine shows he still knows how to inflict some damage.

There's more than meets the eye to the engaging David Carradine. Actor. Director. Musician. Artist. Philosopher. And true cigar connoisseur. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, grasshopper. Perhaps best known for his starring role as Kwai Chang Caine - Shaolin priest and master of opening up the proverbial can of whoop ass on malevolent foes - in the "Kung Fu" television series, Carradine is a prolific actor, having starred in over 100 movies and numerous TV series.

His latest, Kill Bill Vol. One, from the energized, prominent-jawed Quentin Tarantino, features Carradine in a manner that only foreshadows his role in the second volume of the two-part cinmatic epic, set for release on February 20, 2004.

"I'm a mystery in the first one," Carradine reveals one recent Saturday afternoon in California. "In the second installment, I pretty much dominate the show. Somehow or another, though, I manage to apparently dominate the first show pretty well with just my voice and my hands and a shot of my boots kicking cartridges out of the way." Carradine is likely alluding to a scene where he, as the leader of an all-female assassination squad, maliciously guns down one of his assassins, Black Mamba, played by the slinky femme fatale Uma Thurman.

The ensuing action entails Thurman plotting and executing - quite literally - her plan to avenge the act by snuffing out the perpetrators in whatever grisly way she decides they deserve. "She wants revenge against everybody that had anything to do with it," says Carradine. "And she saves me for last. I'm not going to tell you whether she gets me or not. ... Then I'd have to kill ya." Not knowing whether the mysterious Carradine was serious or not, I conveniently avoided that question during the duration of our interview. After all, I'm not skilled in martial arts and didn't want my ass kicked on such a lovely day.

The rest of Bill's nefarious crew includes the ever-grimacing Michael Madsen as Bill's brother; ultra-versatile Daryl Hannah as "California Mountain Snake," Bill's second-in-command; tough-as-nails Lucy Liu as "Cottonmouth;" and vivacious Vivica A. Fox as the deadly "Copperhead."

Kill Bill, however, is just the latest film for Carradine, whose career has spanned five decades. When asked what role he feels he was born to play, Carradine searches for an answer. After some thought, he concludes, "That's a toughie. But the character in Kill Bill comes pretty close. No doubt about it. Probably the best performance I've given. I mean, ever."

Then, after a brief pause, he ponders aloud, "'Born to play? Hmmm. Probably Romeo... or Hamlet, I guess. Also, I'd be a great Alexander the Great." He also talks about a project where he was cast as the author Norman Mailer. Carradine felt quite natural in the part, even talking about taking up boxing - since Mailer was an amateur fighter - and winning two out of the three official fights he had while preparing for the role. For whatever reason, the production got cancelled. "It would've been a really good movie," he asserts. "There are so many good movies that should've been made that didn't get made."

So, what was it like for a seasoned veteran to be directed by Quentin Tarantino, who, for all his notoriety, has actually directed only four films to date? Carradine describes the experience in glowing terms, which catches me off guard, since he has worked with the best of them, from Hal Ashby to Martin Scorsese, Walter Hill to Ingmar Bergman. "Well, he's the best," beams Carradine. "There's just no doubt about it. I've worked with a lot of real heavy hitters, and Quentin is maybe heads and shoulders, at least a forehead, above just about anybody I've ever worked with."

"He's got enormous energy. I don't think the guy ever sleeps. And he knows exactly what he's doing."

Though Carradine lobs all the conventional accolades at Tarantino, such as his being kind to the actors, and making a "dynamite" movie, there seems to be more of a connection between the actor and director than meets the eye. Perhaps it's partly because of Tarantino's affinity for what Carradine calls "trashy" movies, which by his own admission he's made a lot of.

"I felt really close to Hal Ashby and Walter Hill. But, somehow Quentin and I intersect in a lot of areas," says Carradine. "You've got to be so hip to be into these things, and Quentin is that hip. Nobody I've ever worked with has been that hip to so much of that stuff." Like the shimmering booty that remains a mystery in Tarantino's most popular film, Pulp Fiction, so too do these connections to which Carradine refers - though he does allude to a mutual appreciation of comic books. He relates his intention to send Tarantino the latest in the Frank Miller "Dark Knight" series.

Tarantino's aforementioned enormous energy is well illustrated in the array of locations chosen for the Kill Bill movies. "The film was shot everywhere," says Carradine. "China and Japan. The deserts all around California. A lot of talent stayed here in Los Angeles and in Mexico. We were also supposed to shoot in the Canary Islands, but they axed that one."

Since Carradine's character is virtually unseen in the first installment of Kill Bill, avid fans of "Kung Fu" will have to wait until Kill Bill Vol. Two to see him perform his martial arts. Not to worry, though, since Tarantino has been quoted as saying, "He is all over Vol. Two, which is really all about the confrontation between Bill and Black Mamba." So, almost exactly 32 years after the first episode of "Kung Fu" aired, Carradine will most certainly be seen flexing his muscles and kicking some serious ass.

In discussing Tarantino's inspiration for casting him as the title character in Kill Bill, Carradine admits it was partially due to his background in "Kung Fu," but there was much more to it. "I think that was part of his casting," he says. "But, Tarantino has seen all of my movies. He's seen my good stuff, he's seen my bad stuff, he's seen the ones I directed, he's read my autobiography. There's an awful lot of things he knows about me, all of which I think had something to do with his casting."

When it comes to preparation for his roles, Carradine says it really depends on the part. For his role playing Woody Guthrie in 1976's Bound for Glory, a part which earned him a Golden Globe nomination, Carradine listened incessantly - "even in my sleep" - to archived tapes of the legendary folk singer to try to capture his vocal quality. Surprisingly, though, Carradine admits to going into the part of Caine in "Kung Fu" cold. "I just walked into it and started doing it," he says. "I had no preparation whatsoever for that. Whatever I had when I walked in was what you saw." Not so, however, for Kill Bill. For this part, he engaged in three months of intensive training with Yuen Woo Ping, kung fu choreographer for The Matrix and action choreographer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Preparing for the non-physical aspects of the role was quite a bit easier. Seemingly a tribute to Carradine's background and accomplishments, Quentin Tarantino paid him the ultimate compliment with the role of Bill. "There wasn't really much for me to do," Carradine notes, "because he wrote the part for me. So, it was kind of built in."