When you hear the phrase martial arts, the first few names that come to mind are Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li. They’re the icons, the legends, the posters on bedroom walls. For decades, martial arts and the big screen were basically inseparable, and the genre thrived on that relationship. Cinema gave it scale, spectacle, and the kind of aura that turns a fight choreographer into a god.
While television was never invited to the party, it gatecrashed into the genre. Over the past two decades, the small screen has been the place to find satisfying martial arts storytelling that movies can’t pull off structurally. It’s been taking its time and slowly building, making you sit with the character long enough for the battles to feel personal. A fight scene hits differently when you’ve spent hours becoming emotionally invested in the lives of a group of characters. These 12 martial arts shows are proof that TV can offer the full package, too.
‘Bloodhounds’ (2023 – Present)
K-dramas have a gift for taking a simple premise and wringing every possible drop of tension out of it. Netflix’s Bloodhounds does the same. It follows two rookie boxers, Kim Geon-woo (Woo Do-hwan) and Hong Woo-jin (Lee Sang-yi), who stumble into a world of ruthless loan sharks and organized crime. What starts as a story of debt and desperation escalates into something violent and operatic.
Based on a webtoon, the Netflix series arrived in 2023 and immediately landed on Netflix’s most-watched charts across multiple regions. The action choreography deserves its own conversation. The fight scenes are chaotic, close, and exhausting to watch. The show roots its combat in realistic mixed martial arts rather than wire-fu theatrics. Both stars are committed to the physical training, and their chemistry as reluctant partners-turned-brothers-in-arms is great, too.
‘Kung Fu’ (2021 – 2023)
A young Chinese-American woman runs away from her life, spends three years training at a Shaolin monastery in China, and comes back home to San Francisco to find her family fractured and her city crawling with danger. That’s Kung Fu in a nutshell. The CW reboot of the series that ran for three seasons in the 1970s blends themes of identity and justice into its family drama and martial arts action.
Olivia Liang played Nicky Shen and brought emotional specificity the role, which prevented the series from feeling like a superhero-adjacent exercise. Since it’s a reimagining, many compared Kung Fu to the original. While the 1970s series was meditative and sparse, this version is warmer, messier, and more tangled in community. The show’s martial arts narratives were truly excellent, and fans are still upset about the 2023 cancellation.
‘Heroes: Reborn’ (2015-2016)
Heroes: Reborn premiered in 2015 with a fresh take on the original premise of Heroes: ordinary people discovering extraordinary abilities. While not strictly a martial arts series, its fight sequences often feature hand-to-hand combat, with characters like Hiro Nakamura and others using both skill and power in battles that are both inventive and visceral. Martial arts are still a key part of how these “heroes” fight, survive, and define themselves.
The storytelling often pivots between personal struggles and larger conflicts, which gives the fights an emotional undercurrent. The format of Heroes: Reborn also stands out. Instead of cramming everything into a tight arc, it allows the characters to evolve gradually and unevenly. Heroes built a steady following. Many viewers came in through the global Netflix algorithm and stayed because the show is actually good.
‘Iron Fist’ (2017 – 2018)
Look, Iron Fist had it rough. Critics were not kind, and much of the early discourse around the show centered on its troubled production and its comparatively weak fight choreography within the Marvel Netflix lineup. There were also questions raised about casting Finn Jones as Danny Rand, a white man raised by monks in the mystical city of K’un-Lun.
Although these were legit conversations, two seasons in, Iron Fist is a more interesting failure than it gets credit for. The show works best when it stops trying to be Daredevil and embraces its weird comic book roots of corporate intrigue and the Hand mythology. The decision to end with Colleen Wing inheriting the Iron Fist mantle proved that the writers finally understood what the show should have been from the beginning.
‘Wu Assassins’ (2019)
Netflix’s Wu Assassins has a premise that’s tailor-made for martial arts fans. Set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the series followed Kai Jin (Iko Uwais), a chef who becomes the latest Wu Assassin, tasked with stopping supernatural warlords who wield elemental powers. It’s a mix of mystical fantasy and gritty street-level fights, which is the whole appeal.
With Uwais (already a legend thanks to The Raid films) bringing his signature intensity to every scene, the fights were sharp, kinetic, and brutal. His presence gives the fight scenes credibility, while the supporting cast, including Byron Mann and Katheryn Winnick, adds depth and charisma. The fact that it was canceled after one season remains baffling, given how much story there was to tell.
‘Daredevil’ (2015 – 2018)
Before the MCU figured out what it wanted to do with street-level heroes, Daredevil arrived on Netflix in 2015 and immediately raised everyone’s expectations. Matt Murdock — blind lawyer by day, masked vigilante by night — wasn’t new, but Charlie Cox made him feel fresh. His conflicted, Catholic-guilty, physically reckless Daredevil, and that infamous hallway fight in Season 1 became instantly iconic.
The show also placed Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk at the center of the story. Fisk is a villain so carefully constructed that even though multiple scenes with him contain zero action, they’re still the most gripping. Season 3 brought the brutal discipline back into action scenes after an uneven second run. Daredevil is a fan-favorite, so when Disney revived the character for Daredevil: Born Again in 2025, the decision felt inevitable.
‘The Brothers Sun’ (2024)
It’s rare for a show to open with a Taiwanese crime boss getting shot in his own home and then turn into something funny about family dysfunction, but The Brothers Sun pulls it off without breaking a sweat. The Netflix series follows Charles Sun (Justin Chien), a Taipei gangster who travels to Los Angeles to protect his mother (Michelle Yeoh) and younger brother Bruce (Sam Song Li), who has been kept sheltered from the family’s criminal empire.
While it could have been a straightforward crime saga, a few episodes in, The Brothers Sun becomes a layered exploration of family and loyalty, all punctuated by incredible fight sequences. Yeoh’s presence elevates the show instantly, while Charles’s combat style reflects his cold, economical upbringing. Its eight-episode season and strong cult following make it a must-watch.
‘My Name’ (2021)
Grief fuels the central story in My Name, a Netflix revenge thriller that follows Yoon Ji-woo (Han So-hee), a young woman who infiltrates the police under a false identity to avenge her father’s death. The K-drama combines undercover drama with relentless martial arts combat. Han’s performance is a true revelation. She single-handedly carries the show with intensity, vulnerability, and physical commitment.
At that point, most audiences knew her primarily from Nevertheless. However, she absolutely destroys any expectations her previous roles had set. Every fight scene reflects the fact that she trained for months for the role. She fights with rage and efficiency, and the choreography matches her psychological state at any given moment.
‘Into the Badlands’ (2015– 2019)
Feudal warlords, cotton fields, and a caste system built on violence. Into the Badlands is AMC’s post-apocalyptic saga, and it constructs one of the most visually distinctive universes in recent TV history. Daniel Wu stars as Sunny, a lethal “clipper,” whose skill in combat is matched by his quiet humanity. There’s wuxia-inspired choreography with a Mad Max–style setting, and it’s a balletic visual feast for martial arts fans.
The Hong Kong action cinema influence sits right on the surface, and the show wears it proudly. Fight coordinator Master Dee brings a theatrical vibe to the sequences, even though elements like silk, blades, acrobats, and a saturated color palette felt completely alien to American audiences at the time. Into the Badlands never got the audience it deserved during its run, but its reputation has grown considerably since its cancellation.
‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ (2024 – Present)
Taking on Avatar: The Last Airbender as a live-action adaptation was either the bravest or most reckless creative decision Netflix made in 2024. The animated original is so beloved that the fanbase has memorized episode numbers and will tell you exactly where any previous adaptation went wrong. So, when the Netflix version arrived, people paid close attention.
Fans didn’t expect the series to genuinely respect the source material and translate the four-nation world and the bending disciplines with such visual commitment. The bending choreography is rooted in distinct real-world martial arts styles for each element. This gives each fight something outstanding. While the show stumbles in places, it has the scale and emotion to make sure Season 2 fixes those mistakes.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
