**NO SPOILERS FOR SHANG-CHI, BUT MAJOR SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS MCU FILMS - ESPECIALLY IRON MAN 3 - ABOUND WITHIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.**
Despite the world (at least, in certain areas already predisposed to it) largely returning to past levels of Covid caution, I'm fortunate enough to still be able to go to the movies with all necessary precautions, and especially now that Disney has decided not to follow suit with the pattern set by Black Widow and do a hybrid release for their next Marvel tentpole. Whether it was because they were afraid star Simu Liu might take a page from Scarlett Johannson's book and sue for lost profits (though as outspoken as Liu can be, I doubt this would be a battle he'd pick) or because they think it might hasten a cultural return to normalcy (a sentiment I might be able to appreciate even if many around me wouldn't), who knows.
But for this second of four MCU movies to drop in 2021, Marvel pulls out all the visual stops in such a way as to justify the cost of the theater tickets.
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| Ten rings, but at least ten times as many distinct powers. |
Though Marvel hasn't entirely done away with origin stories from their roster - even back in 2019 we still had Captain Marvel making bank to the tune of over a billion bucks worldwide - having this one here really helps show for the first time how much Phase Four won't be entirely dependent on Marvel spinning its wheels by rotating old faves in and out. It's the first Phase Four piece to reveal a whole new character, with some assists from previously established faces - including fan fave Wong, making a welcome cameo or two - but Simu Liu is given the field to run with, establishing himself as a strong new MCU presence, surrounded by a pretty strong supporting cast as well. Awkwafina playing her brash comic relief strengths to the hilt as Katy, Zhang Meng'er popping off the screen so well as Shang-Chi's sister Xialing that it's easy to forget this is her very first role anywhere, Michelle Yeoh doing what she does best in the role of Auntie Nan, Fala Chen as Shang-Chi and Xialing's loving mother (gone too soon), and especially Tony Leung as Xu Wenwu, Shang-Chi and Xialing's dad and our Big Bad.
Leung's character is an especially interesting one for the fact that he is revealed as the true face of the Mandarin, the supposed villain in Iron Man 3 before it became clear that Ben Kingsley was a character within a character, a washed-up actor paid to play terrorist. The scene where Wenwu, at dinner with his kids and Katy, reveals this truth is a pretty good poke in the eye at Marvel of the past - the Mandarin having been completely reimagined back in 2013 in an attempt to avoid the potential for offensive racial stereotypes, only to end up being so in-name-only that too many fans simply couldn't be bothered accepting it. Hell, there's the very fact that the Mandarin is Shang-Chi's dad here - as I understand it, the original comics have Shang-Chi being the son of the even more offensive Fu Manchu and a white woman. So this movie leaning much more into its Asian origins - helped by the presence of an almost entirely Chinese cast, plus Japanese-American director Destin Daniel Cretton (the MCU's first Asian-American tentpole header, with Chloe Zhao immediately following on his heels in two months' time with Eternals) - helps it stand out so much better among other MCU films.
For this one, though, I have to say that while most MCU movies deliver best in the visuals department, there were also some pretty noticeable flaws. As beautiful as the aesthetics of the movie are as a whole - whether we're in an ancient Chinese temple, an even more ancient hidden forest and village in the style of Shangri-La (with a touch of the maze from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as well, albeit made of endlessly shifting bamboo this time), or a neon-lit Macau to rival Madripoor as seen in that one episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier - the movie does have surprisingly patchy CGI work a lot of the time. A scene where Wenwu almost falls off a cliff after his first attempt at reaching the village of Ta Lo suffers from bad green screen when his SUV (and all the rest of his entourage) fall off the cliff, not to mention some pretty poor compositing of elements in the movie's Act 1-ending huge set piece, involving the destruction of a city bus in San Francisco (though you try filming the equivalent of Speed in that city, with its streets as hilly and tightly gridded as they are.) The movie's final battle also does suffer from a bit of the same syndrome as, say, that of Endgame - the sky suddenly turning dark in such a way that it completely doesn't jive with the lighting on the actors, and the whole beautiful environment suddenly morphing into something with the color and consistency of a rock quarry (hugely ironic given that this one didn't film in Atlanta like most other Marvel movies in recent years.)
On the writing level, this movie is also somewhat hit or miss too in a few ways. As much as it's fun to get another origin story for a completely new hero who we may expect to hold his own with the Avengers in the next few years (assuming we'll be building up to such a crossover anytime soon; none has been announced that I know of), the movie also must therefore dish out heavy portions of exposition, as my roommate noted on our way out of the movie theater - it ends up bogging down the pacing a lot at times, especially when the movie makes (very heavy) use of flashbacks to explain some plot phenomena that just happened. Like, Shang-Chi starts out just being "Shaun" in SF, a valet driver whose friend Katy (whom her grandmother ships him with, of course) is already more cut out to be some kind of superhero with her quick wit and deadly skills behind the wheel (even if she's also slightly less moral, given that her establishing character moment involves taking a sporty BMW on a joyride), and then they're on the "SFT" bus (which I misread as "SFIT" at first - Big Hero 6 in the MCU confirmed amirite?) and Shang-Chi's got a cadre of Ten Rings guys trying to steal his mom's pendant from him. So...he kicks their asses, after a fashion. And then he has to explain to Katy a lot of how he knows all these martial arts, only to be interrupted by the flight attendant offering them beef or vegetarian? (And then the vegetarian is all out according to the attendant's iPad, so it's just beef left in an example of one of those weird MCU comic relief moments that winds up overstaying its welcome.) And then there's even more flashbacks later on, clamoring for space in a movie where the origin story is trying so hard to maintain its forward momentum that it eventually has to sprint to catch up by the end.
But again, it's the acting where this movie really shines the most - and especially the family dynamics, and especially-especially the children forced to face their father as the Big Bad. Granted, the movie does also have a Greater Scope Villain, but Wenwu makes a most effective simultaneous villain and super-sympathetic anti-villain, while Shang-Chi and Xialing, as the children of their immortal warmongering father and their mother of ambiguously heavenly origin (my guess is that a lot of aspects about Ta Lo's nature and place in the greater multiverse are left up to viewers to determine, and especially to encourage research into any and all Chinese legends that would no doubt have inspired it to begin with) also feature such duality in their personalities. Both are our heroes in this movie, but they've also got some dark truths in their pasts as well - as well as Xialing's present especially, since we first see her as the head of an underground fighting ring. As far from underground as it gets, though, being set in a Macau skyscraper (which for some reason has construction scaffolding made of bamboo all over its exterior - and though I'm sure bamboo is sturdier than most Westerners would give it credit for, it still manages to fail for dramatic purposes during one particular escape scene...)
I have no idea where Marvel will take these characters next, and especially wondering if the jam-packed origin story exposition will rear its ugly head but better in Eternals in November...but for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, I'm giving this one an A- and hoping that Disney holds true to their promise of putting it up for streaming in 45 days, if only for the sake of those who can't be lucky enough to see it in theaters.
Till next time, Pinecones...
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| #FeedTheRightWolf |
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| Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
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