Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Destin Daniel Cretton, 2021)

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is the twenty-fifth entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's amazing to consider the Bond franchise, the longest running film franchise in history, is about to release it's twenty-sixth entry. Dr. No, the first film in the Bond franchise, was released in 1962. Iron Man, the first film in the MCU, was released in 2008. The average of almost two films per year, with a comparatively consistent level of quality. With a few exceptions, all of the Marvel films have been made well enough to be fun, with a few standouts as great action fantasy films. 

Like the Bond franchise, the MCU has developed a formula, most especially where it's "standalone" films are concerned. The big "crossover" films are where we're more likely to get surprises. The formula by itself is obviously crowd pleasing, considering the box office success Marvel still enjoys, as Shang-Chi is currently demonstrating. The question of whether or not Marvel films succeeds, beyond the box office, is in how well this formula is executed. Despite the protestations and accusations against Marvel by no small number of film enthusiasts, nearly all major Hollywood studio produced films are formulaic. There are degrees of separation which can produce more willingness to experiment with those formulas, but rarely does one of the big Hollywood studios produce something which is genuinely innovative. At the end of the day though, the question is basically always the same, how enjoyable is the experience of watching the movie? 

The official synopsis is "Shang-Chi, the master of unarmed weaponry-based Kung Fu, is forced to confront his past after being drawn into the Ten Rings organization." To flesh it out a bit, there's a good deal of family drama at the center of the story, as well a connection to some fantasy elements created from different aspects of Chinese folklore and myth and a much needed update from the Marvel comics origin of the character. 

Shang-Chi is pretty enjoyable. The credit for this starts with Simu Liu as the lead character, Shang-Chi. In the context of the MCU, Liu's Shang-Chi sits somewhere between Tom Holland's Peter Parker and Chris Evans' Steve Rogers. Evans success as Captain America is the degree to which we in the audience feel there is an intrinsic goodness to him. With Peter Parker, there's an underlying sense of kindness which audiences can feel attached to. Simu Liu exudes warmth and kindness in the role of Shang-Chi, and the films story does well at adding a sense of duty, to family and to the more general "right thing." He also brings a great sense of youth to the character, but he's not a kid anymore either. As a character, Shang-Chi feels like a he expected to have bit part, and ended up being center stage, and not in a bad way either. Liu has a combination of skills which can take him anywhere he wants to go. Along with the warmth he exudes, he is able to convey a combination of everyman delivery with a sense of underlying intelligence. Let's all hope the success of Shang-Chi leads to him being able to have his pick of future projects, that his choices in those projects are interesting, and give him the best opportunity to explore what is obviously a well of talent not yet fully realized. To put it bluntly, he's very obviously a great young actor. It's clear Shang-Chi has barely scratched the surface of what he's going to be capable of. 

Tony Chiu-Wai Leung is excellent as Shang-Chi's father and the primary protagonist. He brings the sense of confidence which is perfect for his character, while being able to convey the loss and desperation which is necessary. There's also some very smart writing for his character. Where the majority of other films in the MCU and this genre would turn toward the menacing and villainous, there are repeatedly instances of the character turning toward warmth and seeking connection with his children. It's something which may seem small, but is part of creating the overall difference in tone between this and the more recent MCU films. His character is capable of terrible, horrific things, as we see in the prologue, making a sense of menace part of the atmosphere around him, but the central conflicts of this film aren't coming from him being a dastardly villainy. He's not a character who has become the antagonist due to a hunger for power, greed or vengeance. His achievement of power and wealth lead him to seeking what they couldn't give him, and it's his desperation to restore this which is the motivation behind the films central conflict. It's a nice change for the MCU formula. This also plays into the conclusion of the film, thematically. 

[NOTE TO READERS: Let me make this the moment to suggest to anyone who is reading this, if you haven't seen In the Mood for Love, starring Tony Chiu-Wai Leung and Maggie Cheung, directed by Wong Kar-wai, make it a priority. I am rarely deeply moved by romantic dramas, and this is one of the best I've ever seen. It will also give you an appreciation for Leung's depth of talent. Hands down, it is a masterpiece. There are others as well made, but it would be hard to find other entries in the genre which are better. It's also a perfect introduction to a master filmmaker. It's a breathtaking work of art.]

Meng'er Zhang plays Shang-Chi's sister, Xialing, and steals a few scenes on her way through the film. She's got a great presence. She's charismatic, funny, shrewd and shows great physicality in her action scenes. The sequence where we're introduced to her gives her a spotlight, and she shines with every second she's given. Like Simu Liu, Meng'er Zhang has what it takes to be a proper Movie Star. There are a few more emotionally driven scenes she shares with Liu, and it's clear she can handle any acting assignment as if it were effortless. 

Fala Chen as Shang-Chi's mother, is also very good in her limited screen time. This is a brilliant piece of casting as well. Chen brings to the screen a sense of deep warmth, which when we see something similar in Simu Liu's performance, gives their relationship as mother and son more depth. It takes a step beyond the lines and story, giving the audience the sense of how deeply the relationship was felt. It's not just just being told she is his mother, but it feels like she is his mother. This sense of warmth she brings also helps make other aspects of the story more believable and have more weight. It's a casting detail and decision which should be taken into consideration more often. 

Unfortunately, there are some issues with Awkwafina's character, Shang-Chi's best friend, Katy. Some of the writing for her character doesn't work. It's clear she's been cast because of her comedic abilities, but there are a number of instances where the material she's given is just really flat. While she does get a few moments to put those talents to use and give the film some instances of comedy, there may not be anyone alive who could have made some of these jokes work. They're just bad, and that's all there is to it. Given this, it's hard to tell if the flat aspect of a one or two of the more dramatic scenes are a writing problem or a performance problem. There are moments where there does feel like a genuine sense of connection between Katy and Shang-Chi, like they have been close friends for more than a decade, so it can't all just be chalked up to Awkwafina not being up to the dramatic aspects of the role. Ultimately, Katy feels like a character tacked on to be an audience surrogate. 

There's also a writing problem with Michelle Yeoh's character, Ying Nan. We're not introduced to her character until end of the second act/the beginning of the third act  Considering her place in the story, in connection to Shang-Chi and the rest of his family, and the importance family plays in the story overall, there just isn't enough time to give Yeoh's character much to do except dump exposition. It's a real loss for the film, as Yeoh is also a world class actress, and as she's clearly cast here for her action bonafides, she is more than capable of bringing dramatic weight to her roles. Both Yeoh and her character deserve better. 

The film itself has an overall sense of fun and buoyancy which has been lacking in a number of the most recent MCU offerings. Black Panther was probably the last to feel as freely fun as an exploration of a character. In part this is due to Simu Liu, but it's also due to the choices of Destin Daniel Cretton as director. There are a few night sequences, either drenched in neon and light in cities or highlighted by open sky and bright starts away from cities, and the daylight feels warm and alive in both. He also has an eye toward using performance as something which brings the necessary weight to the story, but using this as a way of always suggesting opportunity, not just doom. There's a sense of optimism to Shang-Chi, which isn't tinged with being world weary as much it is calm acceptance. Cretton keys in on the idea that people and life are full of possibilities, without veering into the too sentimental as to become sickly saccharine, but without coming up as cynical. Walking this fine line suggests a deeply tuned, deft sensibility for how each scene plays and how they intersect to create a connectivity in the overall tone of the film. 

There is a very well executed action scene on a bus, following closely after the prologue. It is extremely fun. It's well shot for the variety of scene that it is, and it calls to mind a little bit of the history Hong Kong action cinema Jackie Chan would become a world superstar representative of. It's fast, energetic, chaotic and sprinkled with slight bits of comedy. There are also a few particular choices in cinematography in this scene which are standouts. It's among the best action sequences in the MCU, without question. 

Here we come to issues the film has. 

There is a fight scene, where two of the character meet for the first time, which is clearly inspired by the wuxia tradition is Chinese cinema. This tradition can be played out on a spectrum from the seriously dramatic or comedic to outright operatic. This scene touches on the more operatic end of that spectrum, but fails to commit to it. The majority of American audiences would be familiar with this operatic approach from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a clear example. It's often defined by shots lasting longer than are standard for action sequences, and using choreography to help tell the story and illuminate character. This gives these scenes a sense of balletic romanticism, and room for the action to be part of the drama of the story. It felt very much like this scene was intruded on by the instinct of too many MCU films to try to instill drama in the action through editing. There are too many quick cuts, instead of pulling the camera out to a wider shot, and letting the scene play out in longer shots. This scene in particular, would have been the perfect place to use this influence and exemplify some of the beauty of martial arts choreography. It's clear Cretton and company are nodding to this tradition, but in nodding to it and not fully embracing it, it's disappointing. Had the influence not been suggested, it might not have been as much of an issue, but the second it's clear this is part of the inspiration for the scene, it creates an expectation and desire for one of these more operatic scenes. The performances from the actors carry the weight to help the scene fulfill it's purpose in the story, but this seems like a real missed opportunity to have brought an added dimension of artistry and another layer dramatic depth. 

In the films climax, we also run up against the limitations of doggedly following the Marvel formula. The big CGI battle. There are going to be spoilers in the next section, so readers who want to avoid explicit aspects of  what's in the film may want to skip to where it says "End Spoilers" in bold.

There is some gorgeous design work in this climax. The rendering of the mythical creatures from Chinese folklore is beautiful, and it was a personal delight to see a Chinese dragon taking flight on a big screen in a live action film. It's not something American audiences get to see often, and as much of an ignorant American as I am where Chinese culture is concerned, I've loved the artistic representations of the creatures of Chinese folklore that I've been exposed to. They can be astoundingly beautiful. It's clear a great degree of care went into how these creatures were designed, and how well they presented as moving images on screen. They look great. They're beautifully designed on an aesthetic level, and they feel like they have appropriate weight and mass etc. 

That being said, this climax feels too chaotic. There is just too much going on, and again, the instinct to cut every two or three seconds hinders more than it helps. We have two gigantic flying creatures doing battle, while one of their hordes attacks the two parties which had been fighting each other, just a few minutes before. We're cutting around to keep track of five or six different characters, and give each their chance to have their "moment" in the big battle. There are these beautifully designed and rendered fantasy creatures, including this gorgeous dragon, and we barely ever get more than a second to get a decent look at them. The very quick moments where we get some bit of the feeling of riding along with Shang-Chi on the dragon start to be exhilarating, but lose that feeling because we inevitably cut away too quickly to let the feeling build or resonate. There is one shot where we get some small suggestion of the majesty of the lion like creatures, and that's it, despite their establishment earlier. All of this is being intercut by overly chaotic shots of the residents of Shang-Chi's mothers village and his fathers men fighting bat like creatures. These shots are too fast and full of moving pieces to be able to focus in on any specific detail. 

This is where Marvel and maybe Destin Daniel Cretton could have taken a page from something like the opening of Saving Private Ryan. Longer, steady shots of chaotic violence can do plenty to heighten drama, and a wide shot perspective gives a filmmaker the opportunity to pack different necessary pieces into one shot, instead of using four different shots. Even a camera moving through this chaos would give one the opportunity to showcase any number of different things they felt they needed to spotlight. Let the choreography, camera and design do their work. Marvel has had time to learn this, and this criticism of the action sequences in the MCU films has been the most persistent criticism. They've also had feedback demonstrating audiences respond to a different style, where there were two long continuous shot sequences in the Daredevil Netflix series which garnered waves of positive response. The sequences in the finale of Endgame that brought the most positive response also involved less frenetic cutting, and giving the action enough room to breath. The climax of Shang-Chi works on a dramatic level because of the strength of the performances by Simu Liu and Tony Leung. Marvel may not be so fortunate as to have two actors who can give future films enough dramatic weight to prevent this formula for shooting action from robbing the audience of a satisfying conclusion to the story. 

End Spoilers

Overall, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a satisfying, fun, light action adventure fantasy. It's among the better entries in the MCU. It works because it has a cast which is outstanding, and is able to carry the story. Simu Liu is a great addition to the cast of MCU heroes, and it's going to be fun to watch him bring his talents to whatever future cross over films are in store. We can also hope future Shang-Chi standalone films continue to pull influence from Chinese tradition in both film and folklore, as they're interesting in a storytelling sense, and in the visual opportunities they present. It's also worth mentioning one of the reasons this film does work is the lack of weight from the rest of the Marvel universe. Shang-Chi, as a character, isn't contending with the consequences and relations to the rest of the MCU. It's just his story. The wider MCU is referenced, but it's not weighing the story or the character down, and this is part of why it gets to be fun, optimistic, warm and light. It may be in Marvel's interest to keep at least one of it's flagship characters from becoming so mired in the shared universe they can't continue to come back to this tone. 

3.5 out of 5 rings.