Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

 

A thousand years ago, Wenwu (Tony Leung) discovered mystical rings that gave him power and longevity. Raising a personal army (The Ten Rings) named for the artifact, he became a conqueror who toppled governments throughout history. Still hungry for more, Wenwu set out to discover the mythical village of Ta Lo. However, the would-be conqueror was bested in combat by the village’s guardian, Ying Li (Fala Chen), who became his wife. Years later, tragedy led Wenwu to resume his martial ways, training his son, Shang-Chi as an assassin. After fleeing his father, Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) is living in San Francisco as the unassuming valet “Shaun.” When his father’s minions seek him out, Shang-Chi and his friend Katy (Awkwafina) travel to warn Xialing (Meng’er Zhang), Shang-Chi’s sister who has not forgiven her brother for running away and abandoning her.

 

Freed from the burden of widespread recognition and the expectations it conveys, Marvel Studios has often found success adapting some of the lesser-known characters from comics lore. Shang-Chi certainly fits the bill. He’s been around for nearly fifty years, but in a universe filled with mutants, super soldiers, cosmic-powered captains, and Norse gods, “elite martial artist” tends to get lost in the shuffle. To a lesser extent, that’s true of this film as well. This is as much the story of Wenwu (a version of the Iron Man villain The Mandarin) as it is of Shang-Chi, and both are competing with mythical elements for screen time as well. Yet despite this and a few questionable creative decisions, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is an exciting, visually adroit film that is still has enough sincerity to tackle issues of family, legacy, and identity.

 

Much was made of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings being Marvel’s first Asian/Asian-American-led production and the breadth of representation that it represented. In a meta-sense, at least, it succeeded, showing that a director (Destin Daniel Cretton) known for smaller-scale dramas and a Hong Kong-based actor (Leung) known for playing romantic leads could pull off a superhero blockbuster with aplomb. Wenwu is significantly toned down from his comic book inspiration (who wore a ring with a different power on each finger instead of energy-projecting wristbands), yet Leung’s take – charismatic, sentimental, yet absolutely brutal when he needs to be – is refreshingly complex. Meanwhile, many of Cretton’s action set pieces are well-crafted homages. Shang-Chi battling Ten Rings thugs aboard a moving bus calls to mind Jackie Chan’s violent slapstick while Ying Li and Wenwu’s introductory fight references classic wuxia battles.

 

As mentioned, Liu is sometimes overshadowed despite occupying the title role, but that may be a testament to Leung rather than a failing on his part. If nothing else, his training for the role is evident. As Katy, Awkwafina is grating at times, but she does provide an audience surrogate of sorts, and she deftly avoids “token love interest” trappings. Michelle Yeoh – unsurprisingly – elevates her relatively small part. The film even manages to bring back Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery, the loony drunken actor who impersonated the Mandarin in Iron Man 3. He provides comic relief while also rectifying one of the previous film’s major problems (reducing the character to a smokescreen for an undeserving white terrorist).

 

That being said, the film hits a major snag when the action shifts to Ta Lo, the kind of place where all myths are true. This isn’t the first time that Marvel has utilized a mystical Asian setting (see Kamar-Taj and K’un-L’un), and the studio previously took heat for having done so. And yet, despite that prior criticism of stereotyping and appropriation, when we finally see a rendition of such a place from an Asian creator, it contains the very things – dragons, a grumpy old mentor, etc. – that sparked those earlier critiques. Couple that with a pseudo-genre shift, and the last third is narratively the film’s weak point even though it is beautifully rendered.

 

Overall, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings brings vitality, verve, and a sense of possibility to the superhero origin story despite its faults.