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

I heard Hotel California featured in the movie, and now I’m boycotting it.

 

Spoiler

1) Bus was at least partially real mounted on a rig. Simu posted wire work footage on Instagram a few days ago.

and

3) Yup, Extermis guy versus Red Room Black Widow Helen (played by wushu champion Jade Xu)

 

I've been the Marvel grumpy old guy of late with the movies. But I really enjoyed this one. The final third was an exaggerated version of Marvel final thirds, but that wasn't enough to take away from my overall experience.

 

How is it even possible to exaggerate the final third of a Marvel film, when those things are already famously over the top?

What sort of sky beam/explosion featuring an Equal Opposite Powers Bad Guy could possibly be in store?

 

i found myself late in the movie trying to imagine Iron Man vs. Xu Wenwu

 

I wouldn't have thought it possible until I watched this movie

 

Spoiler

The MCU is quickly filling up with secret organizations that have toppled governments throughout history. Hydra, the Black Widow program and now The Ten Rings.

 

and everything seemed so normal in Iron Man 1

 

It's almost as if the MCU is designed to validate the segment of the population that legitimately believes every inane conspiracy theory people can come up with, a kind of warped mirror image of the real world where every stupid thing people believe about government intent is true. It's kind of a validation of gun culture too - superpowers are a pretty straightforward analogy of gun ownership in the mind of gun owners. Guns turn us into supercitizens with special powers of extrajudicial law enforcement (at least in the minds of second amendment nuts). The MCU is about living the dream of what gun ownership is supposed to be like for the people who buy into the second amendment fantasy.

 

I wonder if COINTELPRO existed in the MCU

 

Well that was good.

Spoiler

I liked the early fight scenes more than I thought I would, very Jackie Chan and very rapid fire.

My only gripe with the final hyper cgi end fight was that it was hard to follow in places.

The signal in the end credits, I guess Galactus or the Celestials are the easy options. Everyone seems to think it is an Eternals connection.

So Wong is pulling some sort of scam with Abomination?

TREVOR!

I hope the karaoke gimmick becomes a regular thing. "OR..." and then the Eternals are singing Journey tunes.

 

Spoiler

Wong mentioned Abomination pulling his punches like they trained.

 

Very good movie. Really welcome after the mediocrity that was Black Widow.

Spoiler

I was not disappointed by the martial arts fights despite my initial fears. Sure, none was particularly memorable, but the director seemed to intend to portray a "buffet" of what martial arts flicks have to offer, with most of the fights being patterned after a particular style: you get ethereal wushu choreography in the first Wenvu fight, Jackie Chan's combination of comedy and acrobatics in the bus fight, some very 1990s Hong Kong shots in the Macau fight...

And you know what? Completely fair.

The cast was good all across the board. Simu Liu is great as the main character, charismatic and vulnerable and thank God able to actually portray a martial master believably (looking at you, Iron Fist.) Awkwafina had great chemistry with him and seemed to reel back her more, let's say, controversial traits, so she was great as a loyal sidekick. As I expected, Tony Leung steals the whole movie as Wenvu, the antivillain of the movie, joining Killmonger in the very small pantheon of nuanced MCU antagonists. The rest of the cast? Xialing was a great original character (although maybe a sly reference to Fu Manchu's daughter?) and the actress portraying her gave her great physicality. Ben Kingsley was great, of course, although his Trevor didn't seem as manic as he was in both IM3 and AHTK and that's always a shame. And of course Michelle Yeoh is always a treat: that short tai chi duel against Shang Chi had me smiling the whole time.

As soon as we move to the world of fantasy, I feared we were going to get another MCU third act borefest, but no, we get something closer to John Woo's Red Cliff, CGI excesses included. To my surprise, the movie's denouement was relatively short and brief, to the point that I feel like the after-credits stingers detracted from it. I didn't care much about the first one (although I'm glad it ended in that hilarious callback) but the second one was very, very intriguing. At this point, I don't know if I care about Avenger5, but I do care about a potential Shang-Chi sequel.

And from a nerdy point-of-view, I was not expecting the Dweller-In-Darkness to be the bad guy. What the hell. No one tell my 10-year-old self.

 

Yeah, one of the things I really appreciated was...

Spoiler

Them grounding the martial arts in the "real world" and then the wire-fu was from the fantasy-land, so we got a bunch of different Hong Kong martial arts film styles, all of it blended relatively naturally...

 

I really enjoyed this movie loads of fun and I loved the Eagles jokes I love the eagles anyone who doesn't like The Eagles try this album out!. why does everyone make fun of The Eagles but no one brings up Poco? Poco had members who were in the Eagles I love Poco Jim Messina was in Poco, Messina of Loggins and Messina! also Jackson Brown wrote some Eagles songs I love Jackson Brown!


There Is two mid credits scenes both are funny the second is funny and it is integral to the story and there is a post credits scene that is integral to the story and eludes to a sequel I highly recommend watching the entire credits and waiting for the post credits scene! I am a credits watcher anyway movies are to expensive to waste the credits there a part of the movie and I like listening to the Score and music reading the credits and seeing who made it and where It was made. Location is last in the credits! I love seeing ILM Skywalker Ranch logo and address most films have the ILM Skywalker Ranch thing in the credits even non Disney non Lucasfilm movies! I am taking my nephew to see this in a week that's how much I loved this!

I would be remised if I didn't bring up

Spoiler

Ben Kingsley he was hilarious in this! His story about Planet Of The Apes was hilarious

I cracked up laughing!

 

Oh yah

Spoiler

I forgot how good Trevor's whole Planet of the Apes bit was ahaha

 

I didn't spoiler tag that because It didn't spoil the plot of the movie. If I am wrong please moderators spoiler tag it for me otherwise I will do it tomorrow if you want me too I am going to bed may be Listen to Eagles Desperado while I drift off to sleep!

 

Thanks mods for the spoiler tags I appreciate it! Didn't know if it was necessary because spoilers are for plot points that spoil the film and let people know what the film is about. I felt what I wrote really wasn't a spoiler but oh well I agree that's why I wrote what I did under my post. My bad I'm sorry and again thank you so much I appreciate it!

 

I totally understand I didn't even think of that sorry my bad.

 

So...

Spoiler

are the Ten Rings we see in Iron Man connected to the real Ten Rings or the Aldrich Killian-"branch?" I'm thinking the latter.