“We shot that scene in a traditional Hong Kong style, I’d say,” Leitch says. “Every three moves has a very specific angle, and then we cut. It creates a dramatic effect, but it takes a bit longer to shoot.”

In a career that stretches back over 20 years, Leitch has been on a mission to redefine how action is portrayed on screen. In 1997, he and his friend Chad Stahelski – director of the John Wick movies – formed 87Eleven, an action design production company built around their love of Asian movies.

Leitch and Stahelski would make up their own fight scenes, tape them on VHS and edit them to learn which camera angles worked best. Leitch used that experience when he became a stunt man, and later stunt coordinator and second-unit director. He cites working on the Matrix movies with Yuen Woo-Ping and his team as a turning point for himself.

“That first Matrix movie is arguably what really brought Hong Kong fight scenes to Western cinema,” he says. “At that time Asian filmmakers and action directors were ahead of the curve.”

“Ringo had this theory: if the action is good, you can put the camera anywhere. You don’t have to worry about forcing the angle or forcing the perspective. Just make sure the action is good. His attitude was action and drama are not any different.”

That approach runs counter to many Hollywood productions. Fight scenes are often shot in a day or two, with multiple cameras covering multiple angles that editors will later piece together.

“When I shoot a fight, it’s generally one camera,” Leitch says. “This is the angle, get the moment, move on. That’s very much in the style of how we learned to shoot from Woo-ping.”

That strategy worked wonders in Leitch’s Atomic Blonde , where Charlize Theron battles her way through one scene that spreads over several apartments, corridors and staircases, all seemingly in one take.

“We had Charlize for four weeks, three days a week for a couple hours,” Leitch remembers. “And we drilled and drilled and drilled and found a physical language that worked for her.”

Working on a Fast & Furious movie may seem like another big step up for Leitch, but he points out that he has already faced a similar challenge in directing Deadpool 2 .

“It’s daunting, but I had to figure out how to be true to that Deadpool universe, and then sort of bring my own swagger to it. It was no different here. I’m always up for the risk,” he says.

Apart from the action, Leitch also saw the dynamics between Dwayne Johnson (as federal agent Luke Hobbs) and Statham (as Shaw) as a way to resurrect the jokes and repartee that were a hallmark of buddy-cop movies like Lethal Weapon.

“One of the things I really loved about Hobbs and Shaw in the past three Fast & Furious movies was their dynamic, the way they give each other a hard time, how they’re polar opposites who somehow find a way to work together when they need to. They’re like the leads in classic ’80s buddy cop movies.”

The four stars of Hobbs & Shaw – Johnson, Statham, Idris Elba (as supervillain Brixton Lore) and Vanessa Kirby (as Hattie Shaw, a soldier accused of treason) – have different backgrounds and abilities. Leitch had to find a way to make it seem as if they were operating on the same level.

“Dwayne’s been around the block in so many fight scenes, so he didn’t need a massive amount of training,” Leitch says.

“Idris was excited to get to do the action, to work with stunt guys, to do fight scenes. As much as you think of him as an action guy, he really hasn’t fought that much in a movie. And now he’s like, ‘I want to do this more.’ The important thing was to get him into the 87Eleven training style, get with the stunt guys, figure out what the talents are, and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

“Jason has an incredible work ethic. He’s proficient in fights because that’s been his bread-and-butter for years. He’s that guy who loves to be there early. He’s got a lot of input on his character and on the choreography. He gives 110 per cent because he cares about the project. So the language was easy for us.”

Kirby, on the other hand, has built a prestigious theatrical career in the UK, and recently won a BAFTA award for her portrayal of Princess Margaret in The Crown. But her supporting role in Mission: Impossible – Fallout suggested to Leitch that she might pull off action scenes.

“When we brought her on board we told her from the get-go, ‘Look, you’ve got to fight as good as the guys,’” Leitch recalls. “‘You’re Shaw’s sister, that defines your character and it defines your relationship with him. You need to step up and do this.’ And she’s like, ‘I’m in, I’m in.’”

Leitch praises Kirby’s aptitude and discipline for action, adding that his team kept coming up with new fights for her as the shoot progressed.

“A couple of times it felt like Hong Kong cinema because we would get to make up a little piece for someone who was proficient and really had a skill set for it. She was like a chip off the old block of Shaw street fighting,” he says, referring to the reputation of Statham’s character.