I have, I think, a fairly unusual appreciation of kung-fu movies. It’s not just that I enjoy them, but that I’ve invested so much in them in terms of personal mythology. Like wrestling and like comic books, kung-fu movies are, at heart, a battle between Good and Evil. The characters within the genre are interchangeable, the level of violence variable. Fight sequences act as a kind of hand-to-hand chess match—the winner isn’t often the clear-cut best fighter, but the man or woman who has the best read on the board, who better anticipates his opponent’s strategy. Good defeats Evil, as it must, but Evil gets plenty of good licks in before the end of the film, looks sexier, feels more dangerous. Read more