All of us have some kind of past.
Whether it's our own personal history or more broadly your family history, it's not something you can really escape. Although that doesn't mean people aren't going to try. People do their best to forget what they did, particularly if it causes them emotional or physical pain. It's just easier to live as if these things didn't happen. Just because we choose to forget or ignore it, doesn't mean it's gone. You may choose to focus on what's going on right now or your future, but other people might not. If it's important enough, people will pass down what happened and look for ways to deal with the past in the present. So much so that you and your family might create myths and legends around these events so you can pass it down not only through your own family history, but through other people as well.
Such things are so important that leaving them in the past isn't possible. You have to deal with them. Knowledge of these legends can actually help you deal with it. They often include details you wouldn't otherwise notice, or perhaps you only recognize the wisdom of it in retrospect. Only at the most important moments does what these legends mean give you insight. After a time like that, you can find yourself transformed. Maybe even made better by them. When you finally see it, you can then offer this legend to others. Help them to see the power of the messages these legends have. It creates the opportunity to continue passing down the knowledge. Giving you a form of immortality that most of us will never really achieve in real life, but it's the closest anyone will ever come to living forever.
Kung Fu is fundamentally about the process of continuing a legend. Nicky Shen, as played brilliantly by Olivia Liang, is the latest in a long line of powerful warriors chosen to protect the world from those who would like to use a legendary power for their own ends. Despite wanting to escape her life and the responsibility that goes along with it, she has to find a way to accept her own history and the legends of her family. It's far from an easy process. There are people trying to get in her way, even within her own family. People who know more about her own history than even she does. Or at least that's the way it appears in the beginning. Like in most family legends, it's a lot more complicated than it seems.
Nicky has to learn about the secrets of her family history so that she can uncover the knowledge necessary to protect the legend and the power it possesses. It makes her a powerful force in her own right. Something she can wield towards helping those around her solve their own problems. It's fascinating to see the whole thing play out.
Do yourself a favour and check out Kung Fu as soon as you can.
Check out Kung Fu on HBO Max in the United States, Amazon and iTunes has first and second season for elsewhere.