Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings arrived in 2021 as the 25th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the first from Marvel Studios with an Asian director and a predominantly Asian cast. Destin Daniel Cretton directs from a screenplay he wrote with Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham. Simu Liu plays the title role. The film runs 132 minutes. It is an action, adventure and fantasy picture, and it is very good at two of those three things.
Trailer, via Marvel Entertainment.
A Valet Named Shaun
The setup is the best part. Shang-Chi has built a life in San Francisco as “Shaun,” and his best friend Katy, played by Awkwafina, works as a hotel valet. He tells her nothing about his past. Then the Ten Rings organization attacks a bus and takes a pendant his mother left him. Liu carries the split well. Cretton has said Shang-Chi is a fish out of water in the U.S. who hides that with charisma and does not know “who he really is.” That is the movie’s real engine, and Liu plays it with more weight than the marketing suggested.
He does not know who he really is.
That phrasing is Cretton’s, not a line of dialogue.
Macau, Xialing, and the Fight Club
The middle stretch is the strongest. Shang-Chi tracks his sister Xialing, played by Zhang Meng’er, to a secret fight club she built in Macau after escaping their father at 16. Wenwu, their father, arrives to take them both. Tony Leung Chiu-wai plays Wenwu as a man who conquered kingdoms for a thousand years and still cannot let go of his wife. He is the best thing in the film, and the film knows it. Ben Kingsley returns as Trevor Slattery, a joke that lands better than it should.
What the Rings Cost
The third act goes to Ta Lo, the mythical village, and the movie leans hard on spectacle. The family story underneath is strong enough to survive it, but only just. Cretton has framed the whole film as a journey for Shang-Chi to find his place in the world, and Liu has said the identity struggles matter more than the martial arts. That is the correct instinct. The problem is that the finale trusts the spectacle more than the instinct.
The casting is the film’s quiet triumph. Liu tested again on July 14, 2019, and Marvel cast him on July 16. Awkwafina was the first actor cast, and she has said “it was apparent that [Liu] was Shang-Chi from the jump.” She is right.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings does not fully solve the problem it sets itself. It wants to be a family drama and a Marvel tentpole at once, and the tentpole wins too often. But Liu and Leung give it a spine, and the grounded first half works best when it stays small. That is worth more than the last twenty minutes cost.
Score: 7.5/10 (TMDB audience score, 10,723 votes)
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
