Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is an Asian-centric superhero origins story based on Marvel Comics and the 25th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Just Mercy) from a screenplay written with Dave Callaham (Wonder Woman 1984) and Andrew Lanham (also Just Mercy) and is the first Marvel Studios film with a predominantly Asian cast.
Shang-Chi is compellingly played by Chinese-Canadian actor Simu Liu (Pacific Rim), who often takes the back seat to a variety of scene-stealing supporting turns – predominantly in the form of Awkwafina/Nora Lum (The Farewell), who plays his best friend Katy who provides the roles of Shang-Chi’s defender, drinking buddy and driver (well, fellow valet car-parker, but I wanted the alliteration).
This action-adventure fantasy utilises the anti-gravity fighting styles of wuxia fiction – as seen in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – combined with Avenger-type superpowers. Cretton navigates potential clichés such as flashback sequences and timeworn training montages (even Rocky had a montage!) with aplomb – even thrusting the film forward as we travel back in time.
The film reveals that Shang-Chi has been hiding some things from Katy, including his name (although as she points out, the two pronunciations are not particularly different), the fact that he has been trained to be a fighting weapon and his childhood as the son of a powerful secret crime-lord called The Mandarin (Tony Leung – The Grandmaster) who found power and eternal life with the 10 mysterious rings. In the original Marvel comic Shang-Chi was the son of the offensively-stereotyped Fu Manchu –the inimitable Tony Leung marks a wise rebrand!
Shang-Chi fled the order of the Ten Rings after his mother’s death, aged 14, but now they want him to return to support his father’s impossible mission. Some of the plot is best off ignored, while you embrace the frenetic fight scenes, special effects and entertaining cameos from Awkwafina and Ben Kingsley.
The film is complimentary and celebratory of Chinese culture without being tokenistic. The soundtrack is incredible and the two leads, Shang-Chi and Katy, manage an incredibly rare feat of remaining just friends throughout the whole film – I hope they don’t ruin this in a sequel. It is already rightfully regarded as one of the best MCU films to date – for me, it slots in as #2 behind Thor: Ragnarok. It is well worth a trip to the cinema to catch this while it is still on the big screen!
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