Speculative fiction is full of stories about people who've lost their identity – AMC just gave us a dreamlike remake of The Prisoner in which Number Six forgets who he really is, and Dollhouse returns Friday with more mind-erasing fun. But it's weird to see the trope of "fighting for selfhood" merged with that action-movie staple, the entertaining killing spree.

Recently, I was re-watching chunks of X-Men: Origins: Wolverine and thinking about that movie's insane body-count — both before and after Logan starts trying to regain his elusive humanity. In Wolverine, the mutant known as Logan is caught between his bestial nature and his dignity as an individual. For a hundred-odd years, he is a slaughter machine for the military, and then he joins a super-secret mutant taskforce. But in mid-atrocity, he suddenly starts questioning orders, and then he goes… rogue. (No, he doesn't bleach part of his hair and start talking in a Southern-girl voice. He just wanders off the reservation.)

The point is, Wolverine is just as much of a killing machine after he starts asserting that he's not just part of the machine, or not just an animal. He never makes the connection between the sacredness of his own personhood, and the sacredness of human life in general. I get that you have to fight for your freedom sometimes, but the movie makes a big point of showing Wolverine killing when he could just as easily disable his opponents — one of the movie's few great fuck-yeah moments involves cold-blooded murder. (Sure, he's killing scumbags. But he was just as much of a scumbag twenty minutes earlier.)

Likewise, Terminator Salvation (newly on DVD) gives us Sam Worthington's tormented cyborg Marcus, who discovers that he's basically a reanimated corpse with metal parts — and he makes the choice to be human, slaughtering several of John Connor's men in the process. (During his heroic escape from the resistance compound.) But it's okay, because Marcus' emergent selfhood is more important than any sense of self all of those dead people might have possessed. (Actually, I might need to — shudder — rewatch this sequence. I know a bunch of the rebels die, but some of them die due to hydrobots that attack afterwards. Does Marcus actually kill anybody directly, or just cause their deaths by tearing apart their security?)

And then, of course, there's District 9, in which Wikus also fights to regain his humanity — by putting on a battlesuit and shredding people with alien weapons. This film at least subverts this trope a bit, by having Wikus use alien weaponry that he's only able to use because he's losing his humanity — and the film doesn't exactly reward Wikus for his mass murder.

This odd combination — the hero who devalues human life in the process of exalting his own — has been around for ages, but seems to be on the rise. RoboCop and the Universal Soldier movies give us cyborg heroes who struggle to re-humanize while killing lots of other humans. Michael Bay (surprise!) gave us The Island, in which a clone grown as an organ donor kills his "original" self, along with a number of other people, on the way to becoming a full-fledged person.

For almost as long as there have been action movies, there's been the high body count: watching a Rambo movie in the 1980s, you don't stop and think that everyone of these bodies flopping to the ground is another person who won't come home to his/her family. It's one of the conventions of action movies that we accept that this carnage isn't really happening – even as the movie expects us to suspend our disbelief about a guy falling out of a helicopter on fire and surviving, it asks us to maintain full disbelief that mass murder is taking place in front of us.

On some level, too, we stop thinking that those people dying in front of us are really people – especially in a movie with tons of bad CG (like Wolverine). We can watch the corpses piling up because we know they're not human.

But the action-movie body count and the "search for identity" plot are great separately — I love a good John Woo bloodbath — but they sit uneasily together. The more people we see your cyborg or mutant kill — and the more casually they're killed — the less we can identify with our hero's quest for selfhood. The whole thing starts to feel more like a first-person shooter, and the main character more like a video-game avatar, rather than an individual who Deserves Human Rights and all that stuff.

If life is so cheap, then who really cares about Logan's quest for self? Not to pick on Wolverine, but these questions keep coming back as you watch the movie, as if they have a mutant healing factor.

How do you square the contrast, between the hero's inalienable uniqueness and everyone else's disposability? Maybe it's because Our Hero is a Nietzschean ubermensh, whose will to power makes his individuality more precious than everyone else's? What do you think?

Note: I mention kung fu above, but I'm also going to touch on other martial arts in this post. I hope that's OK.

Totally random factoid: as a young reporter, I wrote a story about Sir Run Run Shaw, the legendary Hong Kong movie producer responsible for Five Fingers Of Death, and actually met him and shook his hand. I am still excited.

1960s.

Bruce Lee co-stars in The Green Hornet, a scifi-ish Shadow ripoff about a newspaper publisher and his Asian valet, who team up to fight crime as the Green Hornet and Kato.

The Legion Of Superheroes introduces Karate Kid, whose superpower should be pretty obvious, in Adventure Comics #346, published in 1966. Karate Kid is the son of Black Dragon, a 30th century Japanese supervillain, who gets defeated by Japan's main superhero Sensei, who raises him to be a good guy and appreciate painting and sculpture. And he's been playing a major starring role in the recent Legion cartoon, as well as Brad Meltzer's revival of the Justice League comic. In his first appearance, Karate Kid was one of four teen heroes who applied to join the Legion — but one of them was secretly a villanous infiltrator. (Shockingly, it was the one named "Nemesis Kid.") (And check out this fantastic Legion cover gallery.)

1970s.

Sonny Chiba starred in a number of classic science fiction films, including Message From Space, a Star Wars-inspired film about the peaceful planet Jillucia under threat from the evil space Emperor. Sonny Chiba has to rescue a set of "holy seeds" that can save the planet somehow.

A volcano opens up and the evil Princess Dragon Mom emerges, in Hong Kong's Infra Man (1976). A scientist named Rayma volunteers to be implanted with electronics so he can become the unstoppable martial arts fighting machine Infra Man. Besides super strength and amazing martial arts skill, he also gains X-ray vision, plus ray beams and rockets coming out of his body. We have the original trailer above.

Doctor Who suddenly starts featuring a lot of martial arts, with Jon Pertwee's version of the Doctor claiming to be an expert in "Venusian Aikido" and "Venusian Karate." (Supposedly the producers preferred aikido because it's mostly a defensive art, and fit in with their vision of the Doctor as a pacifist.) Here's someone's compilation of the Doctor's greatest smackdowns:

1980s.

In 1983, director Kirk Wong puts out Flash-Future Kung Fu, a mash-up of Blade Runner and old-school martial arts melodrama. In a grungy neon-lit future, Eddy Ko, the star pupil of a martial arts school, secretly takes part in underground "black boxing" bouts. And a group of Neo-Nazi punks wants to take care of Ko and his friends using an army of mind-controlled zombies.

Just a year after Robocop hits in the U.S., Hong Kong puts out Roboforce, a comedy version featuring a robot dominatrix who shoots missiles out of her arm.

Japan creates the Super Sentai Series, about a team of super-soldiers in color-coded outfits who use martial arts and super-advanced weapons to fight monsters. They also join their robotic vehicles together to form a giant robot to fight giant monsters. In the 1990s, the Super Sentai Series got redubbed in English and mixed in with new footage of American actors, to create the Power Rangers series. The most awesome version of Power Rangers is Power Rangers In Space, in which they have to fight a villainess with the amazing name of Divatox.

1990s.

Hong Kong puts out a few awesome science fiction films, chief among them Tsui Hark's Wicked City, which features Yuen Wo-Ping in a supporting role. It's been a while since I've seen this film, but I don't remember it having much martial arts, despite Yuen's involvement. Hark also produced Black Mask, starring Jet Li as a super-soldier engineered not to feel any pain, who goes AWOL and tries to lead a quiet life as a librarian — until his old squad starts killing innocent people. And then he dons the eponymous black mask to bring down his former comrades. Hark also directed a sequel, Black Mask II. Here's the masked Jet Li kicking a guy about 20 times, and then dealing with rollerskating machine-gun thugs, using only a couple of compact disks (Kenny G is deadly!) And meanwhile, some crazy dominatrix turns out to have a razor blade in her mouth, which might make this scene not entirely work safe. And then there's Robotrix.

Plus, director Nam Lai Choi put out one of the strangest martial arts movies of all time — The Cat (Lao Mao), about an alien entity that goes around possessing people and creatures. The movie's setpiece, a giant martial arts smackdown between a dog and an alien-possessed cat, uses all of the cliches of martial arts movies, including the slow-mo wire work and the instant replay. (But no naming of the moves as you're doing them, sadly.) Here's a clip:

Meanwhile, Jean-Claude Van Damme puts out two of the greatest science fiction movies of all time: Universal Soldier and Timecop. He's an unstoppable cyber-zombie, or he's a windmill-kicking law-enforcement master from the distant year 2004. He kicks you so hard, your arm shatters. There's also 1995's Virtual Combat, in which a virtual character from a fighting video game somehow gets into the real world and kicks people in the head. A lot. Oh, and Milla Jovovich first starts smacking weird creatures around in 1997's The Fifth Element.

1999-today:

Yuen Wo-Ping arranges the fight sequences for The Matrix, the movie which proves virtual worlds feature more awesome flying head-kicks than real ones. The wire work is gorgeous, plus it's put together with a new "bullet time" special effect that makes all of the soaring and kicking look even more impressive.

The Matrix trilogy gives rise to a ton of kicking, smacking, chopping imitators, including Kurt Wimmer's Equilibrium and Ultraviolet, which introduce the new and amazing martial art of gun-kata. Now at last people can use guns to create a graceful battle tableau, instead of having to fight with fists or feet. Plus the Resident Evil movies and a host of other video-gamey films.

Jet Li also stars in the mega-awesome The One, in which alternate universes are real, and you can gain awesome superpowers by killing all of your alternate selves. There are only two Jet Lis left, and only one of them has cool hair. Which one will smack the other one into oblivion and become a dimension spanning god? And then of course there's Jackie Chan's The Tuxedo, where a super-suit gives him amazing martial arts skills... and the ability to channel James Brown.

According to CinemaBlend.com, the potential third-but-really-fifth (There was a fourth chapter as well, and no, I don't really get why they've decided that US2 was somehow spared in their ignorefest either) movie in the franchise is actually somehow a good thing:

The exciting thing here is that it's not just another direct to DVD sequel with a bunch of replacement parts. Jean-Claude Van Damme, who starred in the original Universal Soldier, is in talks to topline this new one. Right now they're developing it as a DTV project, but if they get him and if some of Van Damme's other upcoming projects like Full Love do well, there's a chance it could end up becoming a theatrical release. There've been whispers that Dolph Lundgren may be involved too, though that's little more than a rumor at this point.

Lundgren And Van Damme Return To Universal Soldier [Cinema Blend]

• Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer from Predator: As the only surviving member of a squad who encountered a Predator, Dutch isn't afraid to take risks and do what he needs to do to survive. He might not be the best at keeping everyone around him alive, but he'll make sure the objective is taken out no matter what the cost. Plus he's handy to have around for catchphrases and one-liners.
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• Second Lieutenant Juan "Johnny" Rico from Starship Troopers: Sure, he may have joined up for a girl, and he almost washed himself out after he got a squadmate killed, but when the going got tough he decided to man up for the job. Heck, he was even reported dead and survived a giant claw through his thigh.
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• Sergeant Todd from Soldier: As a genetically engineered soldier who has been trained since birth, Todd won't break down and start wishing he was back home during a skirmish in the rings of Saturn. He's a cold, calculating, killing machine, and he's there to get the job done. Just don't expect him to show any emotion.
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• Sergeant Andrew Scott from Universal Soldier: You'd need two sergeants to keep a group like this in line, so why not balance out Sgt. Todd's emotionless stare with the over the top insanity from Sgt. Scott? He'd be crazy enough to put the fear of god in you, and you probably wouldn't question his orders.
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• Master Chief from Halo: As another genetically engineered super soldier, Master Chief is already tough under his hardened battle armor, and he'd be the perfect man to throw at groups of invading aliens for some brute force action. Plus he seems to have an endless supply of lives on-hand, which could come in handy.
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• Mandalorian Supercommando Jango Fett from Star Wars: Jango Fett was so tough and feared that they eventually engineered an entire clone army of soldiers from his DNA. He could go toe to toe with Jedi Knights and survive (for the most part), although his clones didn't seem to be able to shoot that straight. He's handy to have around to serve as every member of the squad in case you lose someone.
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• Pvt. First Class Jenette Vasquez from Aliens: Vasquez was tougher than every man on her squad in Aliens, proving that she could trade bullets with the best of them. She lugged around a giant M56 Smart Gun, and she wasn't afraid to get down, dirty, and up close with a pistol. Plus, women in uniform who kick as much ass as she does are just hot.
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• Colonial Fleet Ensign Samuel Anders from Battlestar Galactica: As a former star Pyramid player for the Caprica Buccaneers, Anders has the moves and the stamina to pull off flanking maneuvers and keep going when the going gets tough. He's also just found out he's a Cylon, and I'm sure that means he has other capabilities as well. Of course, he might murder you in your sleep too.
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• Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart from Doctor Who: As the leader of U.N.I.T. (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), he's used to handling strange situations and issuing commands under pressure. From his dealings with the Doctor, he's also used to seeing a lot of really strange shit, so he'd be cool and calm while time-traveling wraiths try to invade. Also, he probably makes a darn good cup of tea.

• Thanks to Finite_Elephant for suggesting this triviagasm. Got other ideas? Let us have 'em!