The best Sam Lee’s adventure movies

Episodic saga from the first half of the 20th century follows Hero Hua from an ill-omened June day in his youth to a showdown 17 years later with a disaffected member of his martial-arts school, a Japanese named Invincible. Tensions between Chinese and Japanese, plus U.S. racism, mark the tale. Hero marries Jade, leaves her in China when he goes to America as an indentured servant, rebels against cruel labor conditions, and is joined by her in New York City where she has twins. Jump ahead 16 years: their son Sword comes to New York looking for his father. There, Sword hears many stories of his father, which we see in flashbacks, and the stage is set for the battle with Invincible.

A night like any other in the streets of Hong Kong: in the midst of the tangle of night-owls, cars and vendors, a group of passengers climbs aboard a minibus that is to take them from Mongkok to Tai Po. The group is as diverse as the city: there’s a young man on drugs, an arguing couple, a woman with prayer beads and a girl who has just fallen in love. And behind the wheel sits the chatty driver. But as the bus emerges from a tunnel, everything is suddenly quite still: the streets and buildings are all empty and there’s not a soul to be seen; it’s as if everyone has suddenly been swallowed by the earth. Only the millions of neon lights continue to blink, as if nothing has happened. The eclectic group of passengers seek refuge in a deserted café and discuss what they should do. Then they make an horrific discovery…

A ruthless pack of thugs force mild-mannered, caught-in-the-middle-of-something-bigger Nami to murder her fiance's sister, decidedly ruining her pending marriage and landing the poor girl in the most brutal women's prison ever seen. Inside the hellblocks, she decides to stop being a victim at all costs, and ends up becoming stronger and even more vicious than the craziest inmates in the pen. She eventually escapes in a most unusual way, gets valuable fight training from a mysterious mountain man and returns to the streets in order to make the thugs who ruined her life pay.