In 2000, forty-five-year-old Chow Yun-fat played a middle-aged martial artist, Li Mubai, in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Released in Chinese language, this film not only achieved critical and commercial success, but also enhanced Chow's stardom in the global film market. Three years later, Chow starred in Bulletproof Monk (2003), which was deemed by many film critics to be an example of Hollywood's attempts to reproduce the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the global film market (Koehler 2003; Ebert 2003). Despite their different market performances, both films were somewhat unusual at the time for allowing an older-generation martial artist to play central characters given the genre in which the two films are situated, namely martial arts.

One may note that, in the majority of Hong Kong's martial arts films produced from the 1960s to the 1990s, older generation-martial artists are either presented as a supporting character or are simply absent from the narrative (such as in Once Upon a Time in China I–III 1991–1993, New Dragon Gate Inn 1992 and Heroes among Heroes 1993). A significant reason behind this situation is the genre's convention of emphasising the actor's physical potency, adaptability and flexible movement, all of which are often associated with the notion of youth or young bodies.

In order to perform within the parameters of the genre's demanding physical culture, many film stars in martial arts cinema are trained extensively. Examples include Bruce Lee, who developed his own style of martial arts in Jeet Kune Do; Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, who both received martial arts training at a Peking Opera school and worked as stunt performers before becoming stars; and Jet Li, who started learning martial arts at the age of eight and won multiple gold medals in Chinese national martial arts championships prior to acting. Although cinematic techniques (such as special effects, stunts and computer technology) are widely known to be used to make the stars’ bodies and physical performances more powerful, they are often downplayed in a film's publicity. Instead, the martial arts training background of these stars was often highlighted to demonstrate the authenticity of the action sequences in their films.