Do many Westerners have a skewed perspective of China and martial arts especially in action films (and movies in general)?

So I am curious is it the same with China? Not merely with China’s reputation of martial art being synonymous with the country’s culture and image as the “all Asians know martial art stereotype” but also in regards to movies. Almost all movies the West get from China are action movies, mainly martial arts heavy flicks where the good guys take out a multitude of machine gun armed punks with his arms. Or Wuxia flicks with lots of piloting, jump-start, and swordsmanship.

I am curious on the movie front, does this skewers opinion of the Chinese movie industry for outsiders especially in the West? I entail having simply started exploring Hong Kong cinema, I am surprised at the big quantity of soap opera, romance, dramas, and other genres that in total outnumber martial art heavy flicks. Even many action movies feature far more hitting than unarmed combat in the mode of Bruce Lee!

Now specifically in regards to Kung Fu, how common is it for the mainstream Chinese to practise fighting? Specifically the middle class and thugs or troublemakers? Anecdote but a Chinese immigrant I had as a classmate was a huge bully Nonetheless he was a large boy( 6′ 1) who chiefly hoisted loads rather than struggle and in addition he had almost no knowledge of kung fu except executing a hard hitting straight and using generic football kicks on people knocked down on the soil. In fact he depicted no those who are interested in martial arts at all despite bullying people and vanquishing them up and opted other activities to strengthen his bullying abilities such as playing soccer.

I write this because many people( not just Westerners but I gratified French people, etc) assume your average mugger or gangbanger in China is a master of Wing Chun or some other style. Nonetheless knowing a agitator irl who didn’t give a poop about contending athletics but flog people readily because he was a six footer who grew so freakishly strong from weight qualifying is what made me so curious.

Do many Westerners mistakenly associate China too much with kung fu much like Japan is assumed to be an anime/ manga and gaming paradise by Western otakus? How much more exists to China beyond martial art? I entail some of the best Chinese movies and Hong Kong flicks I watched for the past periods were Romance movies and comedies , not Wuxia!