Score: 4.5 / 5
Shaun seems happy enough, working as a valet on the famous hills of San Francisco. He clearly takes care of himself physically, and he has cultivated a strong social life with his best friend and co-worker Katy. So when they are attacked on the bus by martial art henchmen, it feels as shocking and violent as it might in real life. An extended sequence follows, much longer than I expected, in which Shaun heroically fights back as if he's been trained as a ninja; the sequence has some of the most eye-popping and beautifully choreographed fighting in any MCU movie. It's also bubbling with humor, gliding past the nihilistic violence of other, similar movies in the genre. By the time it ends, we have a burgeoning hero casting off his urban alter-ego, his friend eager to join him on a globe-trotting adventure, and the threat of an emotionally complex big bad. All the makings of a proper installment in the franchise.
Simu Liu plays the newest hero in the MCU with panache and heart, proving himself an action star who can also navigate the conflicts of his inner life. A cursory summary of his character -- even the film itself -- reveals little of note, because it's about as standard an origin story as Iron Man. But Liu is no Stark, and his own daddy issues prove to be the beating heart here. His father Wenwu (Tony Leung) is a power-mad warlord who has toppled armies and kingdoms for a thousand years, with the help of ten magical "rings" he wears as bracelets. His own force, called the Ten Rings, we might remember from that first MCU movie as the terrorists who attack and abduct Stark in Afghanistan. He once fell in love with a mystical woman and raised a family with her, but after she is killed, a grieving Wenwu forces his children to become killers before the family breaks apart.
The film, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Just Mercy, Short Term 12, The Glass Castle), knowingly jumps across space and time to give us the story we need to get to know Shaun better from the inside. We are organically shown flashbacks that flesh out darker parts of their family history as we need them, avoiding pitfalls of chronological doldrums. And it helps that the excellent cast are able to economically utilize acting shorthand to jump right in and show us the history -- often non-verbally -- without lots of expository ado. This is the rare MCU flick that manages to wow us into silence from the action, and then let us sit in the silence for a while as the characters come to term with emotionally shattering revelations. Nowhere is this more clear than near the end, as Wenwu single-mindedly launches an attack on his late wife's homeland in a desperate attempt to get her back. As the news settles in, Shaun (now embracing his real name of Shang-Chi) sits by a lake with Katy and the two are comfortably, if sadly, silent.
And then the film shifts into high fantasy, not unlike the Thor movies but still fresh, particularly in style. Wenwu's goal is the dark side of Ta Lo, a magical land that holds a dark secret in its mountain; Wenwu thinks his late wife has been hidden there, but everyone else knows that a giant soul-sucking demon has been imprisoned there. As Wenwu and his army break it open, tentacled spawn emerge and turn the tide of battle. The intentionally excessive climax leads into even greater giddy energy when a dragon magically explodes from the lake to aid our heroes. While it's a little hard not to think of this water-dragon in terms of Raya and the Last Dragon, and it's certainly an unexpected move from the filmmakers, Cretton's direction and an emotionally gripping screenplay keep you rooting for more. It doesn't even entirely feel like an MCU movie at this point, and that's actually a good thing.
In what is otherwise a novel and delightful film, I find myself returning to one annoyingly sticky spot time and again. Shang-Chi's sister, Xialing, is a really interesting character who gets disappointingly little screen time. In flashbacks, we see her training herself to be as good -- no, better, I think is the word she uses -- a fighter as anyone else in the Ten Rings. Though Wenwu seems determined to destroy the world because he can't move on from his wife's death, his children seemed content enough to simply disappear into other worlds. Xialing's criminal enterprising has led her to a place of power and secrecy, and while she puts it on hold to help stop her father's death march, the movie leaves her in a shocking and fascinating place. If only we had more time to appreciate her growth and experiences before the film reminds us that a sequel will surely be on its way.
But, then, why deny the far more numerous pleasures of this movie? Michelle Yeoh plays Shang-Chi's aunt and a guardian of Ta Lo with her usual grace and beauty. Benedict Wong pops in a few times as what will hopefully become the new Agent Coulson-type comic relief in the franchise. Ben Kingsley utterly steals the movie from under everyone's feet as soon as we hear his first off-screen dialogue as Trevor Slattery, the intoxicated actor hired by the Ten Rings to act as the terrorist "the Mandarin," who is now clean and excited at the opportunity to not be Wenwu's court jester. And what review or discussion of this movie would be complete without a single mention of the awesome skyscraper melee on scaffolds above a Macao nightscape? As the MCU works to rebrand itself after Endgame, Shang-Chi offers refreshing new visions of a cinematic future. We can hope this helps to curtail the onslaught of shows and miniseries on a streaming service, but let's take things one punch at a time.
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