The legends of the Southern Shaolin kungfu heroes, especially popular in the late Qing and early Republican periods, not only added down-to-earth input to the period films, "even more important," avers Huang Chien-yeh, "was the way they stirred up martial arts nationalism." In comparison with the films of miracle-working swordsmen, kungfu movies not only depicted fighting more realistically, they also showed different social strata.
尤其是清末民初、出於南方少林英雄的傳奇故事，不僅增強了刀劍武俠電影的歷史寫實訊息，「更重要的是武術民族主義的闡揚」，影評人黃建業認為，比起神怪刀劍的武俠電影，功夫電影擴張了武俠映像的現實風格與社會歷史層次。