Amph Marvel's Shang-Chi (Legend of the Ten Rings)

Slight derailment but I’m super pissed off(and I only just found out 3 days ago) that HBO did away with the cards and now requires a credit card. All cards in stores now show up “item not found”. Ugh!

 

I really need to watch this, but I just found a very entertaining Twitter thread written by a San Francisco city bus driver who commented on the bus fight.

I am getting a @Sarge - vibe from his thread.



If that doesn’t work,

https://twitter.com/that_mc?ref_src...el/news/shang-chi-bus-fight-review-hilarious/

 

watched it last night , the first half is good especially the fight on the scaffolding , after that its all dragons and too much CGI.
does Awkwafina always play the same role ?

 

@The2ndQuest that story with the chicken. I am laughing and shivering, that woman knows how to hold ‘em and fold ‘em.

I saw Simu’s response but still haven’t watched the movie yet.

 

Starting to watch this…enjoying it so far. I just hope I can concentrate on it and finish before rereading Moon Knight 5 again.

I absolutely love the wuxia moments (So Zhang Yimou and Shaw Brothers-like )

 

I loved parts of it and liked it overall.

Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh were the MVPs. I liked Meng’er a lot as Xialing (She gave me Chen Hui Min triad boss vibes and I mean that as a compliment) and Simu was solid as Shang-Chi. Sir Ben and Morris were adorable (I would love to see more of them.

Spoiler

The play dead moment was

Loved seeing Tai Chi (for the mother) and Wing Chun for Michelle’s Auntie Nan (I could have watched both women perform their gorgeous forms in that environment for hours.) Yuen Wah was a delight and I enjoyed most of the fights, save for the final fight (I’m used to my martial arts movies end fights as being epic, intense, crazy, thrilling and so good you want to watch it again immediately. Not this one.)

My other criticism is many of the beautiful Tao Lo creatures looked unbelievably fake (and not in a low budget Shaw Brothers way that charms and induces giggles.) Those creatures and some of the c.g.i. in the final fight took me out of the wuxia environment. Only Morris and his kin (whom I ) looked believable.

So I enjoyed the story and most of the characters, but the bad c.g.i. was enough to kick me right out of film and that’s a bummer. I was thinking this was Marvel’s ode to my beloved Shaw Brothers and that third act unfortunately killed that notion…but still, I’ll be happy to see the sequel (and would be delighted if Tony, Michelle, Sir Ben and Morris return.)

 

New HISHE released on YouTube.

Spoiler

The clip about the end-credits scene in particular is EXACTLY the first thing I was thinking about as I watched it.

 

Having a franchise that plays well in China is the white whale for movie studios. In 2018 Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians scored bigger than anyone thought possible. I think this gave Marvel the idea of breaking into the Chinese market. If they could make a franchise that appeals to an Asian audience, particularly China, they could be sitting on a gold mine.

Shang-Chi looks like an earnest effort to play to a Chinese audience. First they brought in the heavy hitters Tony Leung & Michelle Yeoh, veterans of Hong Kong films for the past 40 years. Simu Liu continues their tradition of making their own star by casting a fresh face, keep him on his rookie contract and hopefully he becomes as big as his fellow super heroes. Awkwafina is the audience surrogate for those unfamiliar with Chinese films. The CGI creatures are all actual Chinese mythological animals.

Unlike the typical East vs West scenario that would seem like a natural storyline, Shang-Chi focuses on family. Tony Leung isn't evil for evil's sake, he has a misguided purpose where the ultimate goal is to unify his family. Shang-Chi is a part of Katy's family and along with Xia-Ling they are all accepted into Ta Lo. Even Morris wants to go back home.

I'm not sure how much studios know about Chinese audiences but they can be quite picky and fickle. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was not received as well there as it was throughout the west. The main reason for this was the accents of the main actors. Only Zhang ZiYi spoke with a mainland accent and quite often the film is dubbed so that everyone has a mainland accent. Crazy Rich Asians was disliked by many Chinese because the leads were not "famous". In fact that film did better in Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines than in China. This is all without mentioning the role the government plays in what films get shown.

Shang-Chi didn't get shown in China and I think the reason is that they knew it would be a hit. It rehashes familiar wuxia territory but its not out of place in the superhero genre. The fight scenes are edited better here than in most other Marvel films and the camera moves particularly well without interrupting the flow of the fights. Its a well done film that probably would have done well if given the chance in Chinese theaters. However don't think that Chinese people didn't see the film, Chinese bootlegs are second to none and I'm sure it was seen by a ton of people there. Just the money paid didn't go to Disney.

 

Well, kindly make an Adventures of Morris & Trevor and Xialing-centric Ten Rings series D+ and I will be very happy.

 

Easy, dude

 

He said it on SNL. It's in reference to a story he was telling. Are you Trevor IRL ?

 

Yeah, but...

 

It would be better if it was The Legend of the Eleven Rings....

Because Shang-Chi could be like, "See? Now they go up to 11!"

 

Six of them could be made of any type of metal or material, but there has to be...

 

"Look, sir, droids!"

 

I was kind of disappointed walking out of theater after seeing Shang Chi. The two major reasons were in the main character, Shang Chi and the final act of the film. I don't feel there was much character growth from when the audience first meets Shang Chi to where we see him at the end of the film. I mean, we learn that Shang Chi is trying to stay hidden from his father and perhaps he just wants be an average guy that really enjoys late night karaoke, but no real motivation for anything else. And by the end of the film, he's pretty much still the same guy (in terms of lifestyle and motivation). I felt this movie deconstructed Shang Chi, rather than built him up, much like the way Man of Steel deconstructed Superman.

Not too far removed from seeing Amazon's Invincible animated series, and of course obviously being a Star Wars fan with the original trilogy burned into my mind, final act of this film was a let down. The resolution being between the conflict between the father and son ended up being a biproduct to defeating the typical universal threat that just emerged. So much of the movie it built around the Sins of the Father, but it's all pretty much wasted in flashes of light. I felt like Wenwu was absolved from his misguidance, but not redeemed in turning Shang Chi into a murderer (the reason Shang Chi ran away), so, I didn't find the resolution between them all that satisfying.

On another note, I thought everyone in Ta Lo would have the same type of power as Shang Chi's mother. She was such a bad ass. I mean, see beat down Shang Chi's dad without breaking a sweat and treated the 10 rings like they were cute playthings. Almost as if she had very good knowledge about the 10 rings.


That scene between Shang Chi's mom and father at the beginning of the film gave me the impression that Ta Lo always had a guard posted at the gate that would lead into Ta Lo; moreover, Ta Lo would be defended on that side of the gate if any invaders came their way; especially invaders that were tipped off to. And on another note, the people of Ta Lo appear to have been spending every day of their lives training and preparing to fend off invaders and the possible return of the soul sucking monster, but all that time and training didn't really pay off as they looked really bad at doing their jobs.

Overall, I found Shang Chi to be okay; excellent martial arts scenes, a wonderfully realized antagonist in Wenwu but the titular character is lacking in growth and motivation and the final act doesn't live up to the rest of the film; especially when the movie shifts away from Wenwu as he takes all the emotional weight with him.

 

Character growth/ development is a tyranny over mainstream films. Films don’t need character growth to have value. They can be more slice of life too, depicting the issues someone experiences at a certain time of their lives. This insistent on growth/ change/ development, even if it means abrupt change during the course of a limited runtime, in my view can ruin lots if movies that might otherwise have been better. It’s sometimes much more believable to watch a person that is the way they are, react to different events through that prism. Without the need for significant (or even, any) change.

 

This is a huge part of what makes the movies (and series) so much fun - and the efforts of its closest rival pale in comparison. Only in the MCU is there really a sustained interest over many films to follow a character's story. In the DCEU films there seems to be very little following of the same individuals over many movies - mostly they just forget and start like new again. Green Lantern totally disappeared without a trace and was never heard of again.