Another Take: ReelBob: ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ ★★½

This latest Marvel release is flawed by an identity crisis: vacillating between wanting to be a Chinese blockbuster or follow the tropes of its MCU predecessors.

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is a mixture of Asian martial arts, mayhem and magic. And though it does not succeed all the time, it remains a noteworthy addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The film’s main problem is its tone: it vacillates between wanting to be a Chinese blockbuster and what is expected of a Marvel superhero movie.

Plus, a MCU hero should exhibit some dynamism or, at least, personality. Simu Liu who portrays Shang-Chi is mostly mopey and passive.

Perhaps, that is because his father, the 4,000-year-old Wenwu (Tony Leung), the wearer of the Ten Rings, is the most charismatic character in the film.

For thousands of years Wenwu and his organization, the Ten Rings, carried out various criminal activities, including assassinations and the overthrow of governments.

But when Wenwu went to seek the magical village of Ta Lo to gain more power, he was stopped by a beautiful woman with whom he fell in love and later married. The couple had two children, Shang-Chi and Xialing.

The goodness of his wife reformed Wenwu, who had put away the rings. But after his wife’s death, he was bitter and grief-stricken, returning to his old ways.

That is when he started training a very young Shang-Chi to a killer. The regimen was brutal, yet the boy endured it for years to retain his father’s love.

Sent on his first mission, the teenage Shang-Chi abandoned his father, changed his name to Shaun, and began a new life in San Francisco.

Some Marvel characters have embraced their heroic status: Tony Stark’s Iron Man, Steve Rogers’ Captain America, Thor and T’Challa’s Black Panther are prime examples.

Shang-Chi fits into the category of reluctant protagonist.
Having run away from his father — and abandoning his younger sister, Xialing (Meng’er Zhang) as well — Shang-Chi is, years later, snared by the minions of Wenwu’s Ten Rings.

Once more wearing the rings, Wenwu believes that his wife is not dead, but is being held in Ta Lo as punishment for marrying him. And he is willing to do anything to rescue her.

Much has to be taken on face value without explanation. This, of course, is common in the mythologies surrounding the majority of superhero movies.

In “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” it is more of a detriment. Little is told about the power of the rings; it seems they can do whatever the wearer bids them — or as a plot contrivance.

Nothing is made clear about the village of Ta Lo, except its people seem to be the guardians of a gate behind which some sort of evil presence — a soul eater — is imprisoned.

The movie, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (“Short Term 12,” “Just Mercy”), with a script by Cretton, Dave Callahan and Andrew Lanham, is vague on many plot points.

However, the martial arts action, choreographed by the late Brad Allan, compensates for some of the movie’s shortcomings.

Also helping is the performance of Awkwafina as Katy, Shang-Chi’s childhood friend (who knows nothing of his troubled past) and Michelle Yeoh as Shang-Chi’s aunt, one of the Ta Lo village leaders.

The chemistry between Liu and Awkwafina is also one of the film’s bright spots.

The movie, though, belongs to Leung. He is the nominal villain, but a sympathetic one. The grief of losing his wife so overwhelms him that Wenwu is willing to destroy the world if necessary to get her back.

The finale is a CGI extravaganza that is more distracting than impressive, involving two battling dragons — after all, the movie is mostly set in China — who swoop and soar with computerized abandon.

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” paves the way for more movies featuring a few of the main characters, as well as revisiting the Ten Rings.

I hope they add some flavor to Liu’s bland Shang-Chi so his character can take center stage in all future endeavors.

I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. I review movies, 4K UHD, Blu-rays and DVDs for ReelBob (ReelBob.com), The Film Yap and other print and online publications. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com. You also can follow me on Twitter @ReelBobBloom and on Facebook at ReelBob.com or the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My movie reviews also can be found at Rotten Tomatoes: www.rottentomatoes.com.

SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS     
2½ stars out of 4
(PG-13), sequences of violence and action, language