My Own Kung-Fu Movie

Imagine, please, the following scenario – tomorrow, a Hollywood executive comes knocking on my door and says “Hey, we’ve read your site, it’s pretty great, and now we want you to write and direct your own kung-fu movie, which I’ll produce. What do you have to pitch me?” I know, I know, it’s pretty hard to believe, but bear with me here for the sake of argument, okay? I’d need to come up with a movie that’s thrilling, exciting, fresh and new while also paying homage to both classic kung-fu tropes and modern staples of cinema. What kind of movie would I come up with?

I believe that the story should star someone who actually doesn’t know kung-fu at the beginning of the movie. Some of the best kung-fu movies star protagonists who go on to learn it later, so I’m thinking that the protagonist should start off being completely ordinary, but learn how to fight later, like in “The Matrix”. That protagonist isn’t entirely ordinary, though. Let’s make them female, a young woman in her early 20s. She suffers from autism, which leaves her being very socially inept, but also allows her brain to process information related to her niche a lot better, and that niche is patterns. She’s excellent at figuring out patterns, and has actually made a bit of a career for herself by managing to find exploits in online casinos. Her days are always the same – she visits sites listing the best UK online slots (since she’s British – British accents are cool), discovers some new online slot with a huge jackpot and then exploits its patterns in order to win it.

Well, all goes well for a while, until one day she receives a phone call. Being rather socially awkward, the woman decides not to pick up, and instead lets it go to voicemail. The message left is simple – “Get out of there NOW, people are coming to kidnap you”. Scared and confused, the woman tries to call the police, but before she can do anything men dressed in black SWAT uniforms step in and attempt to take her. Luckily, a man in casual clothes bursts through the door and manages to fight off the kidnappers using both kung-fu moves and the various items in the room. As it turns out, the people who have employed the SWAT team have discovered an ancient computer-like device with an unbreakable code. Their plan is to kidnap the woman and use her pattern recognition abilities to attempt to crack it open (as traditional hacking wouldn’t work at all), but if that happens they’ll gain control of whatever information there is inside.

Once rescued, the woman is told by the man that she has a choice – she can either let him kill her so that the men in black can’t get her, or she can come with him, learn how to defend herself and ensure that she’d never be taken. And thus starts their adventure – while being hunted, the two of them must ensure that the woman is properly trained (with the help of an old Asian sensei, of course) and, if possible, they must also steal the computer and attempt to open it themselves. Now, keep in mind that in most kung-fu movies the person with the better technique and better reflexes would win every time, but not here! Due to the woman’s ability to perceive patterns a lot better than others, she’d be able to use that to turn the tide in her favor… as long as she survives for long enough to even see a pattern, of course. While in online slots she can take all the time in the world, here she has to think on her feet, and considering her mental condition she wouldn’t always be able to do that. Overall, I think the result would be pretty interesting – I, for one, would love to see a movie like this! And you?