Alright! This weekend the newest Marvel movie on the schedule was churned out to prove theatrical exclusivity still matters, even though we definitely didn't already know that from A Quiet Place Part II, F9, and Free Guy's healthy box office numbers.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is my first time having a truly marvelous experience at a Marvel movie. You always hear about how audiences didn't care about characters like Iron Man or Ant-Man or Black Panther before their respective movies, but that's never been the case with me. Due to intaking superfluous amounts of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, I've been a pretty big fan of every character the MCU has adapted thus far.
The one exception is Guardians of the Galaxy, which differed so greatly from their comic counterparts that I barely registered they were in Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. But I did technically know about them (and I didn't see that movie in theaters, anyways). So Shang-Chi is my first time walking into a Marvel movie not because I love the character, but because the Marvel brand lends credibility and the reviews were good. And I ended up really, really liking it.
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| Unlike most movies, the subtitling was pretty consistent between characters. |
The action, the humor, the costumes, fantasy vibes, and the villain made Shang-Chi great. This is exactly the type of movie that Marvel needed to prove that they still have magic and can coexist with the Disney+ shows. While Black Widow felt like a disappointing placeholder until the next episode of Loki, Shang-Chi was a truly unique experience.
And that's partly because it barely resembles a Marvel movie. No emotional moments are undercut by ill-placed humor. The score is great (And please, please, please let it become a leitmotif). The CGI, aside from one shot in the beginning, is consistently great, and there's hardly any tie-in to a large multiverse aside from a reference to the Blip and an unexplained Wong cameo (Seriously, what was he doing there?). Someone with zero knowledge of the MCU could walk into this movie and be satisfied.
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| Between airbending and reducing gravity 10%, this was a pretty good appropriation of Asian fight scenes. |
Speaking of that action choreography, the action here is frequently insane. Maybe it's never The Fugitive's train scene, but, especially for a Marvel movie, especially after the last one being Black Widow, Shang-Chi just kept giving us exhilarating fight scenes. Will a superhero train fight ever not be cool? The answer is no.
Maybe it didn't exactly have me on the edge of my seat, but it was a lot more engaging than shaky cam and quick cuts. Destin Daniel Cretton's grip on fight scenes was reminiscent of epics like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Sweeping camera angles, a firm hand, and fast choreography made it interesting. I love it when a fight scene moves so fast that your heart stops for a moment. Shang-Chi had a moment like that in the finale, the entire theater was like "YOOOOO!"
Another thing I absolutely loved was the villain. The real Mandarin shows up here, and he is brilliantly portrayed it hurts. The movie's enjoyable, but Tony Leung takes it to another level. I just wish the movie had pushed his drive a bit harder. They hint at it, maybe say it a few times, but I feel like we got so many layers to the character that one more would have made him perfect.
I have split feeling about the protagonist. On one hand, the movie starts out with this super-relatable parking valet who has potential but is content just doing whatever with his best friend Katie. Then his father contacts him and he's fairly passive. There was this point when he finally faces off against his father and I started questioning why he was even there. There was little emotional drive despite the movie point-blank telling us that there was emotion. Luckily that was fixed.
Shang-Chi and the Mandarin have an extremely epic third act fight interspersed with some pretty hard-hitting dialogue between the two. Then I felt the emotion, the drive. Suddenly why Shang-Chi was fighting, why he was the title character instead of his father, became clear. And it wasn't undercut by a cheap joke! Marvel's learning!
But that does bring my to some things I really didn't like about the movie. The second act is a slog. It moved really slowly. The plot of the movie is super clear, they get to the father, aannnnd..... it stops. Flashback sequences start bogging the movie down, exposition starts in excess, and it takes too long. I feel like 10 minutes could be cut and the movie would be lean and much, much better.
And for a movie that has "Legend of the 10 Rings" in the title, I don't really feel like it's about the rings. It just sounds cooler than "Shang-Chi and his Grieving Dad." The movie barely addresses where the 10 Rings come from, unfortunately. I would've liked a bit more mythology in there.
The finale was all over the place. It reminded me of Aquaman in a lot of ways - just so large you kind of want to pause and breathe for a moment, but it's so undeniably cool you keep watching. But then the movie ends and you're all the better for watching.
I really liked Shang-Chi. I'm really excited for him to show up in a future MCU project, and I'm hoping that's as soon as possible. There is some huge potential for fun interactions here. Spider-Man team-up when? Can he please show up in Multiverse of Madness? And, for the love of everything, let his theme become a leitmotif in the vein of Black Panther and the Avengers. Imagine you're in the theater when this theme shows up. Everyone knows what's about to happen.
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| I'm pretty invested in some random dude I've never heard of before. |
Now, for two spoilers:
My single biggest problem with the movie is when the Mandarin dies. You have such a powerful character and emotional arc, Wenwu finally meets the creature that's been lying to him, further breaking his family apart, making him believe that his wife is still alive - he meets this force causing him this pain, and now he has a son that he loves and wants to protect.
And what happens? Squish. It reminded me of Polka-Dot Man's death in The Suicide Squad. But while that was a comedy and prided itself on random deaths, Shang-Chi was trying to make me emotionally invested in this character. It's so sudden and jarring and such a big missed opportunity. If I hadn't already published my Easy Fixes that would've made movies THAT Much Better article, this would've been #1. One of the biggest missed opportunities in any movie I've ever seen. You literally could have brought the audience to tears with an emotional, character-driven fight, but you didn't.
It annoys me so much because the movie is good, but it could have been great with that emotional build-up and pay-off. A 9/10 at least.
The second thing that annoyed me was the mid-credits scene. When Wong said Kamar-Taj picked up some weird energy, I just about had a heart attack because I thought they were talking about K'un-Lun, where Iron Fist is from. I don't know what caused the confusion, but I was sooo excited for a moment! Iron Fist in Shang-Chi 2? What a giant tease for the audience! What a perfect way to end the movie!
But no, they were talking about the place from Doctor Strange. It's not a flaw with the movie, but upon introspection, it would have been the perfect end and I don't really see why they didn't put it in. Maybe they have other plans, but I was super stoked for a moment. I was having flashbacks to seeing Thanos in The Avengers.
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