A positive to come out of Australia’s lockdowns and the load of movies banking up in cinemas across the country, is that today I get to see an MCU double! Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings now, with Eternals to follow. I hope they’ve got that popcorn cooking, because I’m hangin’!
Living his best life in San Francisco, Shang-Chi (Simi Liu), and his best friend Katy (Awkwafina), encounter assassins sent by Shang-Chi’s father Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung), who want to steal Shang-Chi’s necklace, believing it can lead to the soul of his long-lost wife and Shang-Chi mother, Ying Li (Fala Chen). Believing his estranged sister is in similar danger, Shang-Chi and Katy travel to China to team up with Xialing (Meng’er Zhang), and pretty soon become tangled up in family history and ancient organisations. Wenwu wields the ten rings, holding the powers of strength and immortality; he briefly gave up the rings when he fell in love with Li, a peace-keeping disciple of the Ta Lo, but he wears them again since her passing and hopes that one day Shang-Chi will continue their legacy. Destin Daniel Cretton directs this movie, while David Callaham co-wrote the story and screenplay; a name I think worth knowing from now on.
That’s a heavy plot summary, but I know what will lighten the mood… 🎵On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair…🎵 I don’t know what it is about Awkwafina but I think she’s amazing. Imagine being Katy in this movie – you learn your bum-around buddy is a martial arts expert, and heir to two ancient Chinese empires; you learn of moving trees, and winged wombats, and dragons – I’d need a Werther’s and lie down after only one piece of that shocking revelation. I’m sure I’m not the only one pointing out the coincidence of Awkwafina playing a mystical dragon in Raya and the Last Dragon, and saving the Great Protector dragon’s butt here – when Hollywood opened up its roles to incorporate Asian mythology in 2021, Awkwafina was ready. This movie probably contains only about a quarter of the jokes we can come to expect from a normal Marvel movie, but they are actually funny! I assumed from the trailer, when Katy finishes driving the bus and shouts out, ‘we make a great team 😊’ she was talking to Shang-Chi, but she was talking to the garbologist who helped slow down the bus from a tragic runaway smash; hilarious! And I think the guy on the bus filming Shang-Chi’s fight is perhaps the best comic relief since… Kat Dennings in Thor?
A sticking point for me through some of these Marvel movies has been how sometimes they treat the action sequences as a given, with not enough attention to detail to help them stand out. With Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, it seems the appeal of elevating a Chinese Marvel hero has been showcasing the styles of Asian cinema and their movie martial arts; there’s so many action sequences in this movie and I don’t think there’s a bad one. I was impressed by so many things in this movie, even down to the way the rings work, like a telekinetic whip of sorts, and you don’t always feel like you’re seeing something original, with the number of superhero movies existing on the big screen today being so high. How’s the movie actually daring to touch on Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) again, and giving validity to the Mandarin again – I know the previous use of the Mandarin was a sore spot for a lot of comic fans, and I just think Iron Man 3 is probably the worst movie in the MCU, but ‘way to go’ to the writers for remoulding trash into treasure. Wenwu is a fully actualised antagonist; a ruthless conqueror waywardly weakened by evil voices. And Xialing is that strong independent woman movies are always wanting – she’s created her own empire after being ostracised; a bit like Nebula in backstory, but without the psychotic rage. I feel like Katy and Xialing represent two subcultures that don’t already exist within the MCU – Katy is a little sloppy but relatable, and Xialing is almost gothic – and could go a long way to becoming fan favourites.
I mightn’t have been sure we needed to see the Dweller-in-Darkness demons in this movie; we had enough conflict going on within the Xu family for me. But this movie’s climax keeps pumping up the stakes and I was proven wrong again and again. I suppose you don’t know if a movie is going to get a sequel, so you can be tempted to throw in all the ideas and mythology you have, and I think sometimes movies overdo it, becoming unfocused and overwhelming. But my palms were literally sweating as Shang-Chi refused to let go of his sister, as I thought, ‘I can’t think of another way you’re going to get out of this, guys. There’s a bloody soul-sucker about to defeat your dragon while the ten rings sit idle!” But then Katy makes a lucky shot, and she’s apples. In short, I felt the action-packed finale only elevated the thematic drama and made for one solid movie. It’s even refreshing to have a movie where there is death after the final battle – for half a second, I waited for the souls to shoot back into our fallen soldiers, but death and sacrifice translate to stakes; look it up (!), few movies out there of late that are ‘just meant to be fun’; you know who you are.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is about family. It’s about embracing the light and the dark – themes that Rey and the final “Skywalkers” tried to encapsulate too, I might add, but sucked at it. Here, it’s done fantastically. This isn’t the first Marvel movie to try to manage an extended roster of villains and side-characters but this must be among the best it’s ever been done, especially for an introductory production – except for Death-Dealer, Shang-Chi’s original martial arts teacher; for such a vibrant costumed character, he sure kept getting his ass kicked like a chummmmp, and I would’ve liked to have seen him do at least something cool. But Razor Fist (Florian Munteanu) was neat, looking like Isaac Butterfield and all. I can’t wait to watch Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings again, already. I think that all us frequent moviegoers want, is something new, or something familiar done immaculately well, and Shang-Chi’ ticks both boxes – Black Panther introduced a hidden world where armies fight and unexpected creatures help protect the lands, and Black Widow was all about a fractured family too, but I connected with my heart more with Shang-Chi’s plight and drama, perhaps partly due to the fact that our heroes come into the fray as outsiders, like us audience. This movie can stand alone too, and doesn’t have to wedge its story into the existing narrative, like was Black Widow‘s burden, as well. It’s a pity that Shang-Chi won’t get to play with Danny Rand and Colleen Wing (the Iron Fists of the Netflix shows), but you can’t have it all, and it looks like Shang-Chi and Katy are going to buddy up to Wong and Doctor Strange, and that could be good.
So where is Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings going to sit within my MCU movie rankings? It’s been a while since I even cared to worry about that. Well, it jumps the Ant-Man movies without a run-up… Black Panther, Doctor Strange and the Spider-Man movies too. It’s going to rival a lot of them, because Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is getting the top score. I didn’t feel like I had my eye in trying to justify my feelings in my last review, but no, I’m centred again because this is exactly what I’m looking for in a movie – it’s fun, it’s epic, it’s serious and it has stakes. I had a blast. Bravo Marvel!
5.0
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