Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings marks the first time I returned to a theater in more than a year and I am glad to say I made a good choice. Shang-Chi is good! It’s a hell of a lot of fun, feels like a fresh entry into the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and mixes up new faces with only the most meager of interconnected tissue with the MCU. Much in the vein of Iron Man, it can stand alone as a story and shows its strengths don’t rely on having the backing of a cinematic universe. It’s also the first Asian-American led MCU movie with a majority Asian cast (specifically, Chinese) and I feel like I’m obligated to say that up front lest anyone is not aware.
In Shang-Chi, Simu Liu plays the titular hero who is living in San Francisco, far away from his father, the head of a criminal organization called the Ten Rings. He spends his days with Katy, his best friend, living a low key life. Unfortunately, his father comes calling and Shang-Chi has to reunite with his family, confront a difficult past, and stop his father from unleashing a dangerous power.
Simu Liu brings all of his excitement and enthusiasm to the role. He has a radiant smile, here paired with a relaxed and easygoing West Coast charm. I’ve read some disparaging takes that say Shang-Chi is sort of a millennial slacker type, and I disagree. “Shaun” is a valet and there’s nothing wrong with that and he seems really happy to spend time with Katy, his best friend played by Awkwafina. In our culture of overwork, finding joy in friendships and family is a lot more important than work. There’s a subtle message in the first few scenes that establishes how Katy, despite her Berkeley degree, has not found the right direction for her life. The movie doesn’t dig any deeper into that but we are clearly meant to infer that Katy finds her direction in misadventures with Shang-Chi and not speeding down the hills of San Francisco in a sports car.
I think it’s critical to say that the test for Liu had nothing to do with a physical transformation or workout, him being Chinese-Canadian, or anything like that. The test was whether he was going to be able to hold his own against the legendary Tony Leung and he does pretty well even though at times you must concede that the movie is really more about Leung’s tragic villain, Wenwu. This movie belongs to Tony Leung. He is stellar, imbuing Wenwu with pathos, humor, heart, and coldness. Of course, no one could ever doubt that Leung would bring his best work. He’s been lighting screens (and hearts) on fire for decades, so I don’t want to say that Americans have “discovered” him as much as they are seeing him for the first time in a massive setting. I hope this leads more people to dig into his prior work and become fans for life.
Even though the movie is good, I wish it had given Wenwu and Fala Chen’s Ying Li more of a real story and Chen in particular more to do. Who was she before she met Wenwu? How was she so charmed by him despite his past (besides the fact that he looks like Tony Leung)? She loves her children but how does she feel about never being able to return to her village? Chen does great work with what she’s given and she and Leung work well together, but unfortunately there just wasn’t enough room in the script to elaborate on her as a character. I also wish there had been more time with Wenwu, Xialing, and Shang-Chi together beyond what we got. In particular, I wish Xialing and Wenwu had gotten time to talk to each other as father and daughter, and for her to have the chance to voice her anger over his neglect. Family drama and tragedy is at the heart of this movie and I found part of that somewhat lacking.
Meng’er Zhang is fantastic as Xialing, Shang-Chi’s younger sister who becomes a self taught fighter and expert with the rope dart and meteor hammer. She gets significantly more to do than Chen but gets a little lost in the third act. The same holds true for Katy. Katy ends up being integral to the plot and gets some moments to shine, but she is also somewhat sidelined as the third act becomes about a father and son reckoning with their past. Still, Awkwafina and Liu have a nice rapport and their friendship seems comfortable. I am thankful that the movie did not feel the need to push her too much into “comedic sidekick” territory, though she certainly is funny.
These are ultimately some scripting issues however. While David Callaham, Cretton, and Andrew Lanham craft a pretty straightforward story of familial tragedy and dischord, some characters get less to do simply by way of the movie needing to keep the plot moving. I appreciate that the movie gets going almost right away, but there are times it lingers too much, particularly in the flashbacks. I would have appreciated perhaps another 5 to 10 minutes to give certain characters, like Xialing and Ying Li more dialogue and screen time. For a movie that is so focused on familial tragedy, estrangement, and grief there is surprisingly little room for all of the characters to feel that together. Wenwu might be a dangerous, 1,000+ year old warlord, but Tony Leung is able to convey so intensely how much he grieves and how much he is driven by love that I wish the rest of the movie didn’t need to be as much of a punch-em-up. It would have been nice to just sit with this family for a few more minutes.
In some ways, the writers had difficult needles to thread. They had to tackle the issue of the Ten Rings, the organization first referenced in Iron Man and then seen (sort of) in Iron Man 3. In Iron Man 3, the head of the Ten Rings was called the Mandarin and he was played by both Ben Kingsley (as Trevor Slattery) and Guy Pearce (as Aldrich Killian). The character has quite a problematic history in the comics and Shang-Chi represents a sort of reset for the MCU to explain why they used Trevor Slattery and Aldrich Killian to play the Mandarin, to acknowledge it was problematic to approach it this way (though I will caveat that Iron Man 3 is fantastic), and to move forward.
It must be noted, this movie looks fantastic. I’m glad this movie wasn’t shot in an Atlanta backlot. I have read anecdotes that it’s too dark at times; I didn’t have that experience in my theater, so I think it might be a screen issue more so than a movie issue. I will say that the third act fight could have been clearer. Overall though, the costuming is full of interesting colors and textures, and much of it bridges the traditional Chinese costuming of wuxia films and more modern sensibilities, like Wenwu’s elegant suit jackets, Shang-Chi’s letterman jacket, Katy’s neon green pants, and Xialing’s flowy coat.
The movie places a lot of emphasis on bringing together the flow of wuxia and Tai Chi and the dynamism and aggression in other forms of martial arts, like Wing Chun. This isn’t unusual at all, and I want to avoid talking about this as a Chinese American take on the kung fu movie, even though it is essentially that. Simu Liu is no stranger to martial arts training, which is really useful for both stunt work and selling Shang-Chi’s heroism. There’s something for everyone, in terms of a variety of combat styles. While there is heavy emphasis on martial arts, there are also more fantastical aspects like the power of the ten rings and the aforementioned wuxia. Magic plays a part as well, and I expect this to be more prominent in future films.
Destin Daniel Cretton does a great job of directing, in part because the martial arts action is clear and well-choreographed. It certainly seems that he didn’t have much need to cut around actors’ faces and stunt doubles. The colors in this movie pop and though we bounce from San Francisco to Macau to Wenwu’s compound to Ta Lo, the mysterious village that Ying Li is from, I do wish there had been more work to give us a good sense of geography. This is probably due to the fact that Ta Lo was built in a Sydney soundstage but I was sure they could have described what part of China it was supposed to depict.
As talented as Cretton is, he can’t get away from Marvel’s third-act-itis. The third act of Shang-Chi, similar to other Marvel movies, is a bit overstuffed, full of CGI, and in a hurry to race to the end. In general, action movies tend to need to raise the stakes, so a fight in the first act might be great but our hero needs to step it up in the third act. At times, I felt like the movie was too long and also not long enough.
There are going to be a lot of pixels spilled about Chinese representation, with a movie that mashes up Marvel comics with Chinese mythology, a cast that is mostly of Chinese descent, a Japanese American director (Cretton), and a Chinese American writer (David Callaham). My take is that increasing Asian American representation in our media can best be seen as individual stones added to a strong, beautiful house that is never finished but continues to be built. Each stone represents a step towards the broader design but one stone is not going to build the house by itself. Just because this is a good step in Asian representation doesn’t mean that anything is done or that any individual movie represents everyone. Many Asian Americans will not see themselves in this movie and honestly, it shouldn’t be a Marvel thing or a blockbuster thing. All kinds of movies are necessary.
One last note – I was over the moon that at least 20% of the movie (by my imperfect estimate) was in Mandarin Chinese. I adored the way it was employed as simply part of the characters’ lives, no different than any other language. It’s not unusual or foreign or weird, it’s just how billions of people communicate each day. I hope that this continues in future movies. As long as Asian representation continues and is paired with complex, interesting characters, the house will keep getting built.
