Review: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

 Everybody is Kung-Fu fighting, and you better believe they're moving as fast as lightning.

As I stated in his character profile, Shang-Chi is one of those characters that I have known about for years, but I really couldn’t have told you anything about him until earlier this year when I started looking into him in preparation for this film’s release. They obviously took a LOT of liberties with the character, both for legal reasons, as they no longer have the rights to names like Dr. Fu Manchu, and to fit into the MCU as it exists today. But I think it works really well. Enough preamble, let’s get to it, shall we?

 

I’m going to cover Shang-Chi’s backstory all in one go. I know I try to recite the story as is, but the flashbacks are kind of all over the place in this one, and parts are told out of order. It’s just easier on my noggin to do it all at once. Kay? Kay.

 

Kick ass poster.

We begin the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, not with the titular character but with the man that shaped him. This man, later revealed to be named Xu Wenwu, was a warlord in Asia 1000 years ago. He somehow had gotten his hands on ten bracelet like rings that granted him immense power, chiefly immortality and energy blasts. He spent the last ten centuries setting up a shadowy empire, called The Ten Rings, that spanned the world. He was fine with this life style for centuries, but things changed in 1996. He’d discovered the way to Ta Lo, an ancient city that was believed to be capable of making him more powerful. He made his way to a bamboo forest and tired to make his way to Ta Lo, but the shifting bamboo maze really kicked his ass, knocking the jeep he was riding in to the off the side of a cliff. He still was able to make it inside the forest and met Ying Li, the guardian to Ta Lo. The two face off, the mysterious woman being the first person to actually beat Wenwu, possibly ever but for sure since at least 1100 AD. I guess… he was… into that? As he and Ying Li quickly fell for each other. Wenwu was rejected by the people of Ta Lo, so he couldn’t move in with her, so they left to live in the modern world. The two had two children Shang-Chi and Xialing, Wenwu gave up his Rings to be live as normal a life as possible with his family, and they were happy.

 

FYI if the naming conventions confuse you, China and most of Asian go with Surname followed by given name, instead of given followed by sur as we do in the west. So, if we wrote the names European style, they’d be Wenwu Xu, Li Ying, and Shang-Chi and Xialing Xu. Get it? Got it? Good.

 

Love at first fight.

Unfortunately, this happiness ended when enemies of Xu Wenwu, the Iron Gang, found his hidden house. Li, whom had given up her powers when she left her role as Guardian of Ta Lo, fought them and killed a LOT of them, but she was eventually overwhelmed and killed. Wenwu, furious in his grief, redonned his Rings, and began training seven-year-old Shang-Chi as an assassin, while largely ignoring Xialing. Shang-Chi angry, heartbroken and wanting to make his father proud, threw himself into the training. At the same time, Xialing secretly began training on her own. After seven years of training, Wenwu told his son that the Ten Rings had tracked down the last of the men responsible for Li’s death. He sent Shang-Chi to finish him.

 

…

 

We open in the present day with Shang-Chi, now going under the extremely unimaginative alias Shaun, who is living in San Francisco. He is working as a valet with his best friend Katy, and is generally living a happy if somewhat underachieving life. As shown when he and Katy have dinner with a high school friend who kind of shames them with the fact that they’re two of the smartest people she knows are working dead end jobs, only for them to spend the night singing karaoke.

 

The next day while on the bus to work, Shang is attacked by a group of Ten Rings looking to steal the pendant that his mother gave him when he was a child.  He does pretty well against the grunts, much to Katy’s shock, but kind of hits the wall against this group’s leader, the noticeably white, Razor Fist. He has a machete for a hand. Using the environment of the bus and Katy’s driving, he’s able to force Razor Fist back, but the assassin is able to steal the pendant. Shang, knowing that Wenwu will need both for whatever he is doing, takes a post card his sister sent him and goes to warn her. Katy insists on going with, and while hesitant, Shang agrees and tells her everything. She mocks him mercilessly for his bad alias.

 

They arrive in Macau and go to Xialing’s building, at the top floor they’re met by Jon Jon the MC of a superpowered cage match syndicate. He rather excitedly tells Shang, whom he refers to as Bus Boy given the fight on the bus that went viral, that he’s going to fight in the main cage match. Shang is really not into it, but Jon Jon tells him that he already signed the waver, and promises to help Shang find Xialing when the fight is over. We get a quick look at a fist fight between Emil Blonsky aka Abomination vs. Wong. Props to Abomination for his first film appearance since The Incredible Hulk back in 2008, and is now sporting a more… comic accurate look. Wong beats Blonsky by using portals to have him punch himself out. In a post-fight convo, we hear that this is apparently a recurring training program that Wong has been putting Emil through, as he chastises the titan for not controlling his punches like they practiced. Shang is brought into the ring, and faces off against… Xu Xialing. Shang tries to talk to his sister, but Xialing is still pretty pissed at him for abandoning her ten years ago. She knocks him out, winning the fight. After, Katy, whom won a bundle betting on the younger Xu, joins Shang in Xialing’s office. Shang tells her about the pendant theft, but confuses her when he mentions the post card she sent. Turns out, that was from dad, for some reason. The Ten Rings attack Xialing’s building. Xialing and Jon Jon bail, leaving Shang and Katy to fend for themselves.

Xialing is pissed.

 

The duo does try to climb out the side of the building on top of bamboo scaffolding, but are attacked by the Ten Rings goons. Shang holds them off to the best of his ability, but Katy’s safety keeps him distracted and on the ropes. Xialing comes back to help, telling Shang that he now knows how it feels to be abandoned. One of their father’s chief lieutenants, Death Dealer (who’s super cool name is never said aloud), swoops in and steals the pendant. Shang-Chi chases him down and the two battle. Shang seems to be particularly invested in beating Death Dealer as he was in charge of Shang’s training, but the fight is interrupted by Wenwu’s arrival. He greets his son and takes the group back to the Ten Ring’s compound.

 

At the compound, they have a very awkward dinner with the Xu patriarch. There’s a particularly funny moment where, after asking Katy what her Chinese name is, (Ruiwen), he goes into the fact he’s still pissed about the whole AIM Ten Rings thing. He talks about how important names are, how he was only Wenwu to Li, and that when the terrorists at AIM wanted a boogeyman for their plot but didn’t know his name, they dubbed him the Mandarin. He’s super pissed that his groups name was used and he was given the name of a chicken dish. The funny bit are the Xu siblings rolling their eyes at what is probably the hundredth rendition of this rant.

 

It’s my understanding that its fairly common for Chinese immigrants to have both a legal, Chinese name but also an English nickname. Mostly to avoid racial prejudice and crap like that.

 

Oo, crazy water magic.

After dinner, Wenwu shows his kids and Katy what he wanted the pendants for. He uses them with a dragon statue in the compound, placing the pendants over the dragon’s eyes. It creates a water map of the bamboo forest, revealing a direct path to Ta Lo. The path is only open one day a year. Wenwu explains that he plans to travel to Ta Lo, and destroy it. Not just for vengeance, but also to “free” Li, who’s voice has come to him, claiming that she’s been imprisoned on the other side of a sealed gate in Ta Lo. Shang and the others obviously think this is nuts, but when they object, they’re put under house arrest by Wenwu.

 

The trio meet up and discover a most surprising prisoner, Trevor Slattery. Turns out, while he’d been captured years ago with the intent on execute him, but they actually enjoyed his acting so he’s been held as their personal thespian. He’s also accompanied by Morris, a faceless winged furry beast called a Hundun in Chinese myth, whom Trevor is quite pleased to learn isn’t a hallucination. Morris is from Ta Lo, and Trevor says that he’s willing to show them the way through the bamboo forest in exchange for bringing him home. And obviously Trevor needs to come with to translate. Turns out, there is a way through the forest on any day, the day three days from then just being the easiest time to make it through said forest. They escape using the tunnels that Xialing had used to escape four years before. They steal Razor Fist’s car to do so.

A very fun quintet. 

 

They travel through the bamboo forest, using Morris’ directions to follow the “pocket” the open space that seems to travel randomly through the forest, to the gate. They pass through and enter Ta Lo. They pass giant temple guardian beasts, nine-tailed white foxes, and other beasts from Chinese myth, arriving at a small village. There, they meet Ying Nan, another Guardian of Ta Lo and Ying Li’s sister. She takes her niece and nephew and explains what is happening to Wenwu. Turns out, he’s not hearing Ying Li. No, he’s hearing from The Dweller in Darkness. This beast once attacked Ta Lo, destroying much of their civilization until the Great Protector, a serpentine Asian dragon, fought the Dweller back and sealed him behind the Dark Gate, a gate made of Dragon scale. While trapped, the Dweller has been able to reach out to people it believes could free it, Wenwu being it’s most recent and best chance at freedom. Shang-Chi, Xialing and Katy want to help stop Wenwu, so begin training. Shang-Chi gets personal martial arts lessons from Nan, Xialing practices with her throwing dagger on a rope (rope-dart) weapon in the open for the first time, and Katy is kind of tricked into learning archery. They’re also given weapons and armor made from Dragon scale, the only substance that can protect for and harm the Dweller in Darkness and its minions. Still feeling that something is off, that night, Shang has a talk with Katy. He reveals that he lied to her. He had previously claimed that his falling out with his father happened when he couldn’t bring himself to kill the Iron Gang leader. Turns out, nope, he was disillusioned after killing the man and discovering that it didn’t fill the hole in his heart that his mother’s death created. Katy tells him that it’s not on him, as he was a teenager radicalized by his father. Feeling free, Shang threw himself back into his training.

 

Wenwu and the Ten Rings attack. The Ta Loans battled the Ten Rings, Xialing and Nan battle Razor Fist and Death Dealer, and Shang faces off against his father. He holds his own against Wenwu, but ends up being thrown into the river. Wenwu makes it to the Dark Gate and begins beating the gate with the Rings. He either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care when tiny monsters wriggle through the cracks he creates. The minions attack the Ta Loans and Ten Rings, killing Death Dealer (ironic), convincing the Ten Rings to help the Ta Loans to fight the beasts off. Shang-Chi seems to awaken the Great Protector sleeping in the river. The Great Protector uses their Dragon scales and claws to mow through minions while Shang faces Wenwu again. The dual is much more evenly matched this go round, with Shang capturing the rings and seemingly to convert them to his use. But, during the fight, the Dweller is able to free itself from the Dark Gate. Wenwu is captured, and rather than fight him off, Wenwu transfers his rings to Shang-Chi.

 

Eternal struggle between father and son.

So, it’s up to Shang-Chi, the Ten Rings, his allies and the Great Protector to defeat the massive Dweller In Darkness. You’ll have to see the movie to find out.

 

The good first. I love the cast. Simu Liu is amazing as Shang-Chi, a brilliant but trying to hide that young man with the fighting skills of a marital arts master. He did the majority of his own stunts in this film, given that it’s much harder to swap out Shang’s bare face for a stunt double as it is for, say, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man covered face. He was already a taekwondo, gymnastics and Wing Chun practitioner, but also learned tai chi, wushu, Muay Thai, silat, Krav Maga, jiu-jitsu, boxing and street fighting to help sell that he’s a martial arts master. He had great chemistry with Awkwafina aka Katy. Awkwafina was great as Shang’s best friend. Someone that keeps him up when he’s feeling down, but also kind of feeds into his impulse to try to lay lower than he could. She made me laugh hard in several places. I also like that there’s no romantic plot between the two of them. Nope, they’re just… bffs. It’s good to see, assumedly, Cishet opposite gender friends. It’s a relationship we could always use more of.  And Then there’s Meng’er Zhang as Xu Xialing. She’s great as Shang’s little sister. Sure, the “daughter wants to her dad’s respect just as much as her brother” thing is a fairly tired plot point, they made it work for her. At one point, when she and Katy have a moment to chat in private, she mentions that all Katy will have to do to avoid Wenwu’s notice is to not say anything and nod, as that’s how she grew up after her mother died. She claims that he couldn’t look at her without seeing Li, and they actually demonstrate this by Wenwu never once addressing Xialing specifically. Speaking of Wenwu, I really enjoyed Tony Leung in this part. His character is an amalgam of Shang-Chi’s comic book father Fu Manchu and the Iron Man villain the Mandarin, dropped the most problematic parts of those characters and made a very interesting character. Sure, Wenwu is the villain of the story, but his goal isn’t all that evil in principle. He is a man in grief, and in his grief is obsessed with the impossible idea of getting back the one person in a thousand years that made him feel. I kind of get it. Oh, and reworking the Rings that the Mandarin wears from finger rings to bracelets/training band like rings really works well with the emphasis on martial arts in this film, and makes Wenwu visually distinctive from the Mandarin. Oh, and Ben Kingsley is great as Trevor Slattery. It’s been like 7 years but he’s still as drugged out and out of it as ever.

 

The bad is limited, but noticeable. I really hated Razor Fist. He just seems off for a group like the Ten Rings. A guy who literally paints his name on his car and walks around with a machete for a hand is just way too obvious for a group of assassins, let alone him being the only obviously white member of the Ten Rings we see. No personal offense meant to Florian Munteanu, but it’s pretty clear that he’s a big fighter first and actor second or third. It really feels like he took the place that Death Dealer should have had as Wenwu’s #2. Speaking of, the flashbacks and only fight between Shang and Death Dealer made it feel like we were building to a “abused defeats his abuser” plot, but it really doesn’t go anywhere. And finally, the final fight with the Dweller feels… off. The fact that the big bad is a huge monster that needs the Great Protector to do most of the fighting instead of Shang is a bit of a letdown. I’d really have preferred the Dwellers form to be that of a smaller human that Shang-Chi and Xialing could have fought fist to fist would have been preferable to me.

 

I really enjoyed Shang-Chi. I’d give it a solid A. I think it’s my favorite origin movie of any of the MCU, topping even Spider-Man: Homecoming, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel, my previous three favorites. Simu Lui, who I know pitched playing this character years ago, put a lot of heart and passion into the character. While some lackluster villains (Razor Fist), use of villain (Death Dealer), and third act big bad (The Dweller) does bring it down from a perfect grade, it’s still a really fun ride. This is the first MCU movie I’ve seen in theaters twice in years. I’m really excited to see how the MCU will use Shang-Chi in the future, and how the next big film, the Eternals, is going to turn out. Thanks, cast and crew of Shang-Chi, for this perfect addition to the big, complicated web that is the MCU. Have a good night, everybody!

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