Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Written by Anna Harrison

75/100

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, as Marvel’s first introductory story since Avengers: Endgame, has a lot riding on it. The Avengers we know and love are slowly fading out, and now Marvel has to fill the rosters with newcomers and hope audiences latch onto them the same way they did Iron Man and Captain America; plus, as Marvel’s first Asian-led film, the heavy baggage of representation also rests on Shang-Chi’s shoulders. The film neatly emerges from Marvel’s sleek assembly line, yet this time, under director Destin Daniel Cretton’s sure hands (and helped by a beautiful score by Joel P. West, who bucks the tradition of forgettable Marvel melodies in favor of more memorable motifs), it feels a little fresher, a little bolder, and shows that Marvel might be slowly eking towards something a little bit braver as it begins (somewhat) afresh in Phase Four.

It helps, of course, if you have one of the world’s greatest living actors in your movie. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings opens with Tony Leung’s Wenwu single-handedly decimating an army with no weapon other than the ten rings that adorn his arms. Wenwu is the MCU’s new Mandarin (old, technically, since he’s been around for a thousand years) as Marvel handwaves away Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3 and gives the power behind the Ten Rings a new name in the process—and a good thing, too, considering the original Mandarin from the comics was steeped in racist caricatures and preyed on yellow peril, something that Iron Man 3 tried to lampshade with varying degrees of success. (“He didn’t know my actual name. He invented a new one,” Wenwu says of Killian. “He gave me the name of a chicken dish. It worked. America was afraid of an orange.”)

An expository voiceover reveals that Wenwu had used the power of the Ten Rings to gather power for more than a thousand years until the day he met his match, Ying Li (Fala Chen). Through the sensual power of Tony Leung’s eyes and wuxia-inspired fight scenes, Wenwu and Ying Li fall in love, and both of them abandon their old lives to start a family. While this beginning is certainly exposition-heavy, the lushness of the scenery and grace of the choreography pave the way for what’s to come, and Leung radiates an intense, quiet charisma (though Chen ably holds her own as well).

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While Tony Leung’s name may not be ubiquitous in the West, his legendary status in Asia is most decidedly well-earned, and his presence as villain Wenwu elevates every scene he appears in; as Simu Liu, the titular Shang-Chi, told GQ, “[Leung is] Leonardo DiCaprio, Marlon Brando, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, all rolled up into one.” Marvel has a talent for racking up, well, talent, but even among peers such as Sir Anthony Hopkins and Glenn Close, Leung stands out, and not just because I’ve nursed a massive crush on him since I first saw In the Mood for Love in my intro to film class, though that certainly has made me biased.

So it stands to reason that the children of these two powerful warriors would be poised for greatness, right? Well, maybe not. After the death of Jiang Li, Wenwu slipped back into his terrorist ways, driving away son Shang-Chi and daughter Xialing (Meng’er Zhang) in the process; when we first lay eyes on adult Shang-Chi, he’s working as a valet in San Francisco and going by the Anglicized “Shaun,” and he and his friend Katy (Awkwafina) spend their free time getting wasted in karaoke bars. Soon enough, though, his father has roped Shang-Chi and Xialing back into the world of the Ten Rings.

Shang-Chi is at its best when exploring the fractured family dynamics whose effects have continued to ripple out even years after Jiang Li’s death: Shang-Chi ran away, preferring to bury the pain of his past, and Wenwu relapsed into his life of crime and murder, but both abandoned Xialing, whose icy exterior developed as a way of protecting herself from further abandonment. The moments where they come face-to-face with each other and are forced to grapple with their own failings are among the film’s strongest, and again Leung excels in a role that could have easily been one-note in the hands of a lesser performer. Though Wenwu sends assassins after his children and locks them in prison, and Leung delivers his lines with a cool cruelty, at his core, Wenwu is a tragic, heartbroken romantic, the only peace in his life having shattered with Jiang Li’s death. There is perhaps no one better at forlorn love than Leung, and though his younger co-stars are all capable and admirable performers, Leung acts circles around them (which is more a testament to his skills than a dig at the others; Zhang in particular is a standout).

The movie stutters as it enters its exposition-laden third act and introduces an entirely new threat which fails to completely mesh with the earlier portions of the film. Still, even as the typical Marvel CGI finale ensues, said finale stands apart from its brethren, as do the rest of Shang-Chi’s fight sequences, due to its stellar fight choreography (and, uh, the fact that there’s a dragon…). The late Brad Allan, a member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and stunt choreographer here, puts in the work, and the results are eye-popping fights whose use of martial arts gives them a kinetic energy that Marvel fights often lack.

Even with its stumbles, Shang-Chi ultimately finds its balance and opens up an entirely new side of the Marvel universe. Aside from a few fun but non-vital cameos, Shang-Chi largely exists within its own sphere, and so is not beholden to the larger mythos at play; instead, it crafts its own, and lets the MCU creep out a bit from its hyper-American roots. Its majority-Asian cast is both welcome and overdue (and especially relevant with the recent spike in anti-Asian hate crimes), and while Shang-Chi may not feel entirely like a breath of fresh air, it’s at least a nice breeze to cool you off.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings Trailer

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is currently out in theaters.

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