The characters are complex enough that they do surprising things, don’t just follow a simple template, yet their motivations make sense.

There is Machiavellianism but they don’t pile it on (one of my pet peeves about current American culture is they constantly make a point of signalling how amoral they are, it’s really weird)

It has some tropes (martial artists can fly/become weightless) but only here and there, not so they overwhelm the story.