Americans may have invented the action movie but Asian cinema perfected it.

That might seem like so much hyperbole but, over the last three decades, Hollywood has been taking its cues from Hong Kong and all points east. From the films of Quentin Tarantino (the “Kill Bill” saga, “Pulp Fiction”), the Wachowskis (“The Matrix”), Pierre Morel (“District 13”) in the ’90s and aughts to the contemporary works of Chad Stahelski (“John Wick”), Ilya Naishuller (“Nobody”), and just about anything with Jason Statham kicking his way through life, the concussive kineticism and brutal choreography of Asian films have migrated from the world of ’60s-era kung-fu films (once derisively called “chop socky”) to mainstream multiplex respectability.

These American and European directors owe their approaches of such directors as John Woo and Tsui Hark as well as producers The Shaw Brothers, choreographer Yuen Woo-ping, and actors like Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh, and many more. The sheer physicality of Asian action and crime films, spurred in part by the fact that many of the actors and choreographers have roots in the worlds of martial arts or Chinese opera, lends a dexterity to the action that doesn’t need to be artificially juiced up with quick cuts and special effects. And the rest of the filmmaking world took notice.

Now, the River Oaks Theatre is celebrating contemporary Asian action cinema with a weekly Saturday night screening through the month of May that I will be hosting. All the films shown are from the 21st century.

It starts May 2 with “The Raid 2,” director Gareth Evans’ absolutely electric and bone-crushing 2014 Indonesian crime saga starring Iko Uwais, a practitioner of the Southeast Asian martial art of Pencak Silat, as an undercover cop infiltrating the local mob. It also stars Joe Taslim, a former member of the Indonesian national judo team from 1997 to 2009, who has subsequently been seen in “Fast & Furious 6,” “Mortal Kombat,” “Star Trek Beyond” and the TV series “Warrior.” 

The series continues May 9 with Zhang Yimou’s more poetic and ravishing 2002 film “Hero,” a sumptuous, swashbuckling adventure in the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” vein starring Jet Li who had studied martial arts since the age of eight. His success in martial arts blossomed into a movie career that began with the 1982 production “Shaolin.”

Prachya Pinkaew’s “Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior” from 2003 follows on May 16 starring Muay Thai champ Tony Jaa. Though low budget, this Thai production sizzles thanks to Jaa’s charismatic athleticism. The film launched his career that now extends to Hollywood with such films as “Triple Threat” and “xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.”

Soi Cheang’s dynamic and gorgeously shot “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” (May 23) was released in the U.S. in 2024 but its heart is in an earlier era of Hong Kong. Set in the ’80s, inside the claustrophobic Kowloon Walled City, a real-world, gangster-run, high-rise slum that was demolished in the ’90s, “Warriors” harks back to the films of the time in which it takes place. It even co-stars Sammo Hung, a one-time Jackie Chan collaborator who, at 74, still has some moves.

Finally, there’s Nikhil Nagesh Baht’s vicious Indian action film “Kill” on May 30. Starring the singularly named Lakshya as a heroic commando stuck on a runaway speeding train with a crowd of thugs, “Kill” is basically what the 2022 Brad Pitt/Bad Bunny film “Bullet Train” should have been but wasn’t. In fact, Stahelski is reportedly remaking “Kill” for an English-language audience.