Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: A Hopeful Viewer’s Experience
As I learn and experiment with different writing techniques (I have no experience before this) I figured it might be cool to try writing a post where I start before an event, and then complete it after the event. I decided this post will be that post, and as you might assume from the title I’ll be using Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to do it. Let’s see how this goes!
Pre Movie
There has been a lot of buzz going on about Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings for quite some time. It’s part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next era after the phenomenal Infinity Saga and is the first Marvel movie to feature a superhero of Asian decent. The closest thing we had before this was Wong from Dr. Strange (great character, but neither a superhero nor a main character unfortunately. Also people forget the Ancient One was Asian in the comics but was given to Tilda Swinton? I guess I hear what they were trying to do but come on).
After Wong it’s either the fact that Mantis and Drax the Destroyer are played by Asian actors (Korean & Filipino, respectively) or, if you really wanted to reach, Hawkeye most likely seeing Tom Cruise in Last Samurai for the first time and deciding to change his name to Ronin and spend the post-Blip phase of his life in Japan wielding a samurai sword (Endgame).
An Asian superhero is very exciting for a lot of us, and I haven’t seen the media buzzing about an Asian blockbuster since Crazy Rich Asians (haven’t seen it to be honest).
The reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are overwhelmingly positive, and in about four hours I’m walking into the movie theater to see if the movie will deliver on those reviews.
Things I’m Hoping For, in no particular order
Kung Fu Action (Of freaking course we’re all pumped for this)
Crisp, clean fight choreography - This is assumed, but specifically talking about when the punches and kicks thrown by each fighter are fast, but not too fast that it looks blurry and sloppy. It’s also nice when blocks have solid impact to really make you feel it as a viewer. This scene from Stephen Chow’s masterpiece, Kung Fu Hustle, does a good job helping the viewer feel a piece of each block in their chest/limbs. It also coincidentally stars a character named the Tailor who is basically Shang-Chi. Asian social media loves this bit.
Use of environment - The element that makes Jackie Chan so fun to watch, besides his knack for mixing humor into the action, is his masterful use of any object around him as either a weapon, a deflector, or a separator between himself and his enemy. Check out either this scene from First Strike or this scene from Shanghai Noon (the Shanghai Noon/Knights movies don’t get enough credit) as an example.
Cameos/side roles from older Asian actors
Lots of people know Jackie Chan, but there are a whole bunch of other actors from the Hong Kong/Asian film industry that I’ve seen many times. Many of these actors/actresses are legends in their own right. Folks like Yuen Wah or Sammo Hung who were classmates with Jackie Chan at their Opera school, or of course Gordon Liu (36 Chambers, Kill Bill) are some of my favorites.
Homages to older kung fu movies
Would be cool to see homages to older kung fu movies, like a Shaw Brothers/Golden Harvest film.
Nice ~ Asian ~ touches
This ones hard to describe. Some of it likely is more about the ethnicity of the person saying/doing something rather than the act itself. Easy example here, I bet many of our grandmas constantly urge us to eat more and stuff our faces with food whenever we see them. But man it is cool for me to see an Asian grandma doing that. As the kids say, it just hits different.
Would be cool to see things like Asian neighborhoods, or little decorations I recognize around the home like a Guan Gong or some “medicinal herbs” that smell kind of funky.
Hearing the languages!
Little ways we pass the time (ie cutting fruit or karaoke nights)
A nice sidekick
Shout out Mushu and the Lucky Cricket. The Mulan reboot really did you both dirty (among doing other things very dirty).
Learning about Shang-Chi
My dad was a big comic book kid when he was younger. Growing up we still had boxes of his comic books lying around the house, and I read a ton of them. Avengers, West Coast Avengers, Silver Surfer, X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil, etc. Interestingly, he didn’t own any Shang-Chi comics and I had never heard of Shang-Chi until this movie was being promoted.
A racist getting wrecked
It’s just catharsis at this point.
Things I’m Hoping Don’t Happen
Too much dialogue about “honor” and “duty”. It’s way too played out for Asian characters (and yes, kung fu is too but ignore it because kung fu is sick and a cultural phenomenon)
Too many fu manchu moustaches (Not none! One will do, although stereotypical, it’s a pretty iconic style)
Non-Asian character playing a pivotal part in the success of the plot. Please just let us have this one, you’ve had all the other Marvel movies already.
That’s about it for now! I’m actually supposed to be cleaning up a few rooms in my new place, but I got the sudden idea to write this so I started it without telling Brenda what I was doing. I was actually supposed to clean up the room I’m specifically writing in a few days ago. Can’t disappoint her! See you all after the movie!
Post Movie (SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT)
From Jet Li’s Fearless
Sheesh. Wow. Oh my goodness. That was an experience. I swear I did zero research about this movie beforehand, only heard about the media buzz, and they delivered on so much of what I was hoping for. Most likely not that hard, given I’m a pretty basic movie audience (in my author bio it even lists a low bar for movies) but this was awesome. The gif above alone is enough to summarize how I was throughout the movie.
Before the movie even started things were happening that made me crazy hype. As you can imagine, there were SO many Asian people in the theater, and not just East Asians either. On top of that, I heard Chinese being spoken in SEVERAL DIRECTIONS from my seat. AND it was both Mandarin and Canto/Toisan. Like what?! As the kids say sometimes, “we out here”.
As the lights went down, I turned to Brenda and was like “Yo this is crazy. We’re about to see a Marvel movie and the superhero is Asian. That’s so hype.”
Me waiting for the movie to start (from Rush Hour 2 bloopers)
As the movie kicked off, they had the everyday little things I was hoping for. So many I can’t recall all of them but off the top of my head…
The opening scene immediately hitting you with Chinese audio and bringing in the Chinese epic movie vibe
Shots of (what I assume) Chinatown with a slightly dingy dim sum restaurant sign having both Chinese and English on it
A Po (grandma) asking when Shang-Chi and his female friend (Maybe romantic by the end? Not sure? But def just friends at the time) are going to get married
Oh my god the BOWLCUT on young Shang-Chi’s head? I was actually shocked I was the only one who audibly laughed out loud.
SO much of the movie was in Chinese
KARAOKE BABY
The quick zoom of taking shoes off before entering the house
Awkwafina’s character, Katy, grappling with the expectations/hope from her family for her career compared to her job as a valet
The Kung Fu Hustle poster in Shang-Chi’s room
All these little things added up together created a rich visual and audial environment for me to the point where I felt like I could literally smell some of the scenes and understood the layout of the area even if it wasn’t in the shot.
Let’s touch on a few other items on punch list here.
Kung Fu Action
Crisp, clean fight choreography - Overall pretty good. Lots of fast, acrobatic movements, very enjoyable to watch.
Use of environment - Strong, notably the fight scene on the bus, Shang-Chi was bobbing and weaving around the poles like a young Jackie Chan. Use of environment waned in the later fights, but hard to incorporate the environment when you’re doing army battles instead of fighting in a pool hall or massage parlor.
I’ll also add, the music they used every now and then used some classic kung fu instruments as well which is a huge dub (drum, gong, cymbals, etc.).
Cameos/Side Roles
MY GUY YUEN WAH MADE IT INTO THE FILM (I didn’t immediately recognize him at first but he is the older guy in Ta Lo who seems to be one of the leaders or maybe just the archery master?).
Michelle Yeoh, an absolute icon who kicked ass in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon among many other movies, looking gorgeous as ever at 59 years old.
Tony Leung, one of the most widely acclaimed Hong Kong actors, plays Shang-Chi’s father. You may recognize Tony Leung from Jet Li’s Hero (Broken Sword).
Homages (as far as I could tell)
House of Flying Daggers - The Ta Lo bamboo forests, deep greens, and fighters dressed in green robes and straw hats. Additionally the mixing of kung fu combat and love story really made me think of this one. If you choose to watch House of Flying Daggers, know that the plot emphasizes a love story as much as, if not more than, the action.
Rush Hour 2 - That fight scene on the bamboo scaffolding and Awkwafina hanging off a separated pole. I heard Jackie Chan’s “don’t worry, Chinese bamboo is very strong” as I was watching this one. If you haven’t seen any Rush Hours yet, definitely get to watching them in order.
Kung Fu Hustle - The poster in Shang-Chi’s room, Yuen Wah getting a role, and the fact that the Ten Rings echo the Tailor’s weapon of choice in that movie make me think it wasn’t all a coincidence.
The list above most likely doesn’t capture everything but once again, just knee-jerk reactions to this wonderful movie.
Finally, I’ll end with some interesting facts I’ve learned about the movie.
The creature Morris that hangs around with the crew after they discover Trevor Slattery and comes from Ta Lo is a creature from Chinese mythology, a DiJiang.
The whole Trevor Slattery bit confused me, but I learned it’s a callback to Iron Man 3 where the character Trevor Slattery first appears and does a rendition of Shang-Chi’s father. This was used by Marvel to address past issues with the character.
The action choreography is orchestrated by former members of the famous Jackie Chan stunt team.
You can probably tell, I’m very happy with how this movie turned out. The plot itself is as strong as any other Marvel movie, with the same types of plot holes/weaknesses that I’m more than happy to turn a blind eye too because ultimately they are trying to compress wild comic book storylines into a single movie. I hope you all take some time to visit the movies (vaccinated, mask on) and see for yourself!
Had me like this after the movie
Kung Fu Hustle - The Barber
