OVP: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

Film: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

Stars: Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Meng'er Zhang, Fala Chen, Benedict Wong, Michelle Yeoh, Ben Kingsley, Tony Leung

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I'll be real-coming out of Spider-Man: Far From Home, I was a bit over the obligation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  I knew that I wouldn't entirely be able to escape it-projects like the OVP and just general osmosis were going to keep me coming back even if I decided to skip some installments, but I wasn't thrilled about what a post-Thanos world would look like for the organization.  Something happened, though, during the pandemic when I couldn't see any major blockbusters-I developed a hunger for them.  In retrospect, for me the MCU became a place of nostalgia that it couldn't have been in its ubiquity.  Most of the product since Avengers: Endgame, though, has been lacking.  Spider-Man and Black Widow were too dry, Falcon & Winter Soldier and Loki were a snooze, and What If has yet to live up to the fun of its potential.  Only WandaVision, a complete departure from the MCU's traditional formatting, has shown itself to be truly worthy.  That is, until Shang-Chi, currently lighting up the box office & totally defying convention, potentially changing some of the "evolution to streaming" conversations (supposedly Shang-Chi has convinced Disney that they should release Eternals exclusively in theaters as well).  Shang-Chi is doing this not just through exclusivity-it's also one of the best films in the MCU, showing that even if it's sticking to the formula, it can find ways to drive a fun action-adventure that doesn't need a name-brand to keep it afloat.

(Spoilers Ahead) Taking place in the years after Avengers: Endgame (though weirdly it's never explained which characters were blipped or not), the movie is about Sean (Liu), a valet driver who speaks multiple languages but doesn't aspire to much more in his life other than hanging with his friend Katy (Awkwafina).  Things change, though, when a man on a bus tries to steal Sean's necklace, and rather than giving it up, Sean fights the man in a blistering whirl of martial arts, to Katy's shock.  It turns out that Sean is actually Shang-Chi, the son of a ruthless crime boss named Xu Wenwu (Leung) master of the mystical "ten rings," who is attempting to steal these magical necklaces from both Shang-Chi and his sister Xu Xialing (Zhang) in order to take on the home village of their mother, whom he believes is trying to keep her captive, despite them understanding that she was killed when they were children.  They initially are captured by their father, then escape and go to the village, lead by their aunt Ying Nan (Yeoh).  Nan leads them in battle against their father, who in turn awakens the Dweller-in-Darkness, whom Shang-Chi and Katy ultimately kill.  The film ends on something of a cliffhanger, with Shang-Chi and Katy joining up with Captain Marvel, the Hulk, and Wong, presumably joining the Avengers in the process.

Shang-Chi suffers in some regard from some of the problems you get from the Marvel franchises.  The third act is a bit sloppy (they really are not great with ending their films), throwing too much CGI into the battle with the dragons (it made it a bit blurry & washed out, which is the case for a lot of the Marvel films where they simply have too much CGI to make it look realistic), and I will admit that there is maybe not enough information in the pre-Shang-Chi period of our main character's life (I would've liked at least one scene of him as "Sean" without Katy there so we could understand what he was like while he was alone).

But these are small complaints, as Shang-Chi is the best MCU film since Black Panther.  Casting Simu Liu in the lead turned out to be a stroke of genius, as he is totally prepared to play the slacker qualities of this figure, while also believably rising to his destiny as the film continues (also, it must be said, Liu is the hottest addition to Marvel's universe since Thor took off his shirt).  Awkwafina's character might need a bit more explaining in a future film (like, does she have a superpower other than being good at shooting arrows...and isn't that Hawkeye's thing?), but she proves to be one of the most reliable comic reliefs currently in movies, totally nailing the the "comic" part of this and giving us a playfulness that has been lacking in a lot of recent Marvel product.  The remainder of the cast is superb, particularly Leung & Yeoh, both icons of Asian cinema for decades, proving their movie star chops in a big-screen American product.  About the only thing I wanted out was Ben Kingsley's unnecessary connection to the larger Marvel universe (was anyone really clamoring for him reviving his work as "the Mandarin?").  Combined with some terrific stunt work & fight scenes (the fight on the bus is epic, as is the sequence where we first meet Xialing), Shang-Chi is a spry shot-in-the-arm for the MCU films headed into a consequential fall, where both Eternals and Spider-Man: No Way Home come with sky high expectations...it's proof that Marvel can believably achieve such levels still.