A joy to behold: Marvel does it again: Marvelous fantasy adventure.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
“The US government was almost toppled by a pretender named after an orange.” Wenwu (Tony Leung)
This quote is typical of the light-hearted but also serious addition to the MCU that is Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Although Marvel has always been less serious than DC, this time it leaves Superman and Batman to cry in their capes. Sweet superhero Sean/Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) has more humanity than almost any other hero, and he uses his martial arts only when pressed.
The opening sequence on a bus (you can see the bad coming from other cinematic bus rides such as in Nobody) is rousing and entertaining. It has a fight sequence I laughed through because of its ballet-like composition but satisfying because it sets up character and motivation.
When things get heavy, and they do because Sean must confront and potentially kill his 1000-year-old mobster dad, Wenwu, Awkwafina’s Katy, Sean’s girlfriend, is there with amusing one-liners throughout the adventure, right down to a life-saving shot in the big ending battle scene.
Director Destin Daniel Cretton deftly orchestrates his fights and his characters’ lines with the authority of a much more seasoned filmmaker. He never loses sight of the central motif—the affirmation of family primacy, so that the potential chaos of a giant cast and multiple plot strands hosts a unity glued by character and dialogue.
Shang-Chi is a Marvel for the whole family and especially the cinephiles curious how The Marvel Cinematic Universe can be so diverse, so entertaining, and so perfect a purveyor of our heroic fantasies.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of theTen Rings
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton (Just Mercy)
Screenplay: Cretton, Dave Callahan (Wonder Woman 1984), Andrew Lanham (Just Mercy)
Cast: Simu Liu (Kim’s Convenience), Tony Leung (In the Mood for Love), Awkwafina (Crazy Rich Asians)
Run Time: 2h 12m
Rating: PG-13
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com
