Subgenres
Kung Fu films are a significant movie genre in themselves. Like westerns for Americans, they have become an identity of Chinese cinema. As the most prestigious movie type in Chinese film history, Kung Fu movies were among the first Chinese films produced and the wuxia period films(武俠片) are the original form of Chinese Kung Fu films. The wuxia period films came into vogue due to the thousands of years popularity of wuxia novels(武俠小說). For example, Jin Yong and Gu Long, their wuxia novels directly led to the prevalence of wuxia period films. The most famous wuxia film made was the Ang Lee masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which was based on the Wang Dulu series of wuxia novels: it earned four Academy Awards, including one for Best Foreign Film.
In Chinese-speaking world, martial arts films are commonly divided into two subcategories - the wuxia period films(武俠片), and the more modern Kung fu films(功夫片, best epitomized in the films of Bruce Lee).
Read more about this topic: Martial Arts Film