Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) has spent a lifetime running from his father Wenwu (Tony Leung), the immortal leader of the Ten Rings. After a reunion with his sister Xialing (Meng’er Zhang) goes sideways, Shang-Chi and his best friend Katy (Awkwafina) decide to run toward their destiny, which will take them to Ta Lo, the mystical ancestral home of Shang-Chi’s late mother (Fala Chen).
While Shang-Chi put me in mind of Black Panther, I have to say that it’s not the instant classic that Black Panther was. Perhaps it’s that star Simu Liu isn’t quite as charismatic as the late Chadwick Boseman, or perhaps it’s the twenty minutes near the end of act two when the film slows down to accommodate too many flashbacks and montages. Shang-Chi isn’t a perfect movie, but it is lots of fun when it’s working. It is more infectious than Black Widow, which felt overly dour in places, and I will take, every time, the chipper pragmatism of Awkwafina’s Katy over David Harbour’s desperate mugging as the Red Guardian.
Moreover, I think Shang-Chi is the sort of film that is going to age very well when we see how the film expands the realm of the MCU; to be a Marvel fan is to live with one foot in tomorrow, thinking about how this franchise – now twenty-five films deep – will grow and evolve. In the way that we couldn’t wait to rush back into Wakanda, Shang-Chi creates a world of characters, creatures, and ideas that could fill at least a trilogy of its own. There are certainly theories to be generated about the film’s mid-credits sequence, while the post-credits scene tees up a very intriguing future, but at the end of the day Shang-Chi leaves us all too ready to see more. As much as Simu Liu isn’t Chadwick Boseman (then again, who is?), he’s engaging in a different way, human and quite powerful, and I can’t wait to see him team up with some of the heavy-hitting Avengers. (The presence of Wong, late of Doctor Strange, seems to tee up a natural next appearance.)
I’m a few weeks late to the Shang-Chi party, so I’ve read a lot of reviews about what a wonderful villain Tony Leung makes, and I have to agree. As ostensibly the “real” Mandarin (with a healthy helping of shade thrown in the direction of Iron Man 3), Wenwu is fascinating to watch because his goals are clear and distinct from other Marvel villains. He’s not trying to conquer the world or burn it down; his plans don’t, thank goodness, involve a giant laser beam in the sky or a third-act deception. Instead, he’s an undying conqueror with a particular axe to grind, even if we never quite learn how the titular ten rings work (they seem to be able to do everything the plot requires). Leung is never mustache-twirling but rather wholly realized as broken and furious, and his optimism at his short-lived family reunion is heartbreaking.
The redress of the Mandarin subplot from Iron Man 3 raises one of the better aspects of Shang-Chi, which may constitute a light spoiler about the cast. (If you don’t know who pops into the film, skip down to the next paragraph; you’ll only miss a spoiler and a brief gush about Awkwafina.) I had rightly predicted, based on some red carpet photos and a curiously-timed upload of the short “All Hail the King” on Disney+, that Sir Ben Kingsley might turn up in Shang-Chi to reprise his role as Trevor Slattery, the actor (“ack-tor”) hired to impersonate the Mandarin. It’s the sort of deep cut into continuity that MCU fans will appreciate, tying up a thread that could have been left to dangle, and Sir Ben has a knack for turning basic prose into comedy gold, as when he muses, “That’s a weird horse.” But the scene-stealer, aside from the toyetic and fluffy headless hundun Morris, is Awkwafina as Katy. Think Michael Peña’s Luis in Ant-Man – and as I type that sentence, I’m ready to pay money for that crossover – with Katy as the source of irreverent comic relief and the occasional Eagles lyric. What’s more, her friends-only chemistry with Simu Liu is a welcome change of pace from the MCU’s stubborn insistence on forcing its attractive leads to kiss.
But it wouldn’t be Shang-Chi without a decent martial arts display, and on that front the film succeeds more than once, from a bravura setpiece on a bus to a chase sequence on the scaffolds of Macau. Director Destin Daniel Cretton keeps the camera in close, and the absence of masks lets us appreciate that it’s truly our stars exchanging blows. While the third act of the film does get into Marvel’s overreliance on CGI special effects, the vast majority of the runtime is spent in action sequences where the digital seams aren’t quite as apparent. It’s that reality, that willingness to ground the numinous in the personal, that usually glues the Marvel Cinematic Universe together. I’m not sure what other genres are left to graft onto superhero stories, but Shang-Chi proves that the MCU still has the secret sauce to hold it all in place.
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