Going into this movie, I was extremely hyped. One, I am a LOVER of the Marvel Universe. Two, I am a LOVER of Japanese and Chinese architecture and stories. And three, what could be better than both of these combined? Shang-Chi is perfect blend of these two loves of mine. This post will be my thoughts on the movie.
What is Shang-chi and the legend of the ten rings?
It all begins when a man by the name of Xu Wenwu discovers something called the ten rings, which are in fact ten individual rings. These rings provide Xu Wenwu immortality, and powers of the 'gods,' which on screen is super cool to see. Xu lives to be over one thousand years old controlling an army called the ten rings, and reigning over nearly everything, that is until he meets Jiang Li in a mysterious forest. Jiang li is a woman, the guardian of her village that Xu is trying to find. Jiang and Xu fight, in a tango like, lovely manner, with Jiang ending up the winner of this fight. However the two fall in love, and in this love, Jiang decides to give up her powers and Xu decides to put up his rings. They have two children, Shang-Chi and his sister Xu Xialing.
The mother of Shang-Chi and Xu's wife is eventually murdered by some of Xu's old foes. This enrages Xu who then begins to use the ten rings once more, and trains his son to be an assassin. From a young child, this is what Shang was trained to be, an assassin. And when he turns fourteen, his father assigns him his first task: to assassinate his mothers killer.
Shang leaves to accomplish his mission, but never does. He runs away. He creates a new life for himself running away from his brutal life he had with his father, and in the meanwhile creating a best friend named Katie. Speeding forward, after ten years, Shang is led back to his father and finds out his father knew where he was along, he simply allowed him to live his own life for ten years, but that time is up.
The real reason his father brought him back was because he believed their mother was still alive, locked behind a gate in the village that she once guarded. He says he WILL get her out of the gate, even if he has to burn down the village. The village that his wife once lived in, and loved. Shang decides he will not stand for this.
He makes it to the village after an amazing scene, and finds out something shocking... and that is where I will leave it
Action
I think the action is the best part of this movie. The action scenes are wonderfully shot, beautiful in their nature. It's not hard to follow at all, and they are clever with how they do it. Forcing you to look somewhere, and then playing around with where they force you to look. The fighting scenes in and of itself were absolutely creative. They did many things I have never seen before in action shots. It's not your basic punching fights, they are creative with the fights and I love it. When you add the abilities of the ten rings, it get's even more juicy too. The action in this movie is 100% a 10/10 for me.
Story
I think the plot itself was great. Maybe, and I mean MAYBE, a little bit was shoved too much into one movie, but overall it was fantastic. You really did not know what the point of the movie was until later though, so the first part you are really wondering what you are even progressing to. The other complaint I have is some of the writing. The jokes are mainly really hilarious, I definitely laughed out loud a lot. Then there were some jokes that they let marinate, but there was awkward silence in the crowd. Also some of the lines were cheesy. I feel like sometimes the responses of one person didn't make sense to say after whatever the first person said, sometimes the conversation seemed unnatural. But besides for those few complaints, I LOVED the journey and the ride the story took you through, I would say 6/10.
Vibe
I am definitely bias but I loved this vibe. Chinese architecture throughout, the music was awesome, and the Chinese lore was awesome. I loved seeing the beautiful gardens throughout the movie and was bopping my head like every five minutes to a new jam. Besides that, the tone was mildly humorous and epic. Great vibe, I'd give it 9/10.
Overall
I definitely enjoyed this movie. The action makes this movie something you should see all by itself. The story is awesome, and I am sure will contribute greatly to the bigger Marvel story, but all by itself it stands tall. The dialogue for me was iffy, but definitely did not ruin the movie at all. I laughed, the visuals were amazing, I was excited to see what happened. Definitely something I would recommend seeing!