Shang-Chi Review

The release of Shang-Chi brings many milestones for Marvel, the first Asian superhero movie of course, but what Shang-Chi opened the door for was so much more than a statistic. Shang-Chi had one of the biggest box office openings of any Superhero origin story as well as setting up even more opportunities for phase 4.

Now very few perfect films exist and as much as I hate to say it none of the perfect movies that exist are Marvel movies, Shang-Chi is no different but let's start with the good;

The cinematography and practical effects were vibrant and brilliant, the use of color palettes and contrast between one world and the other was very well done and perfectly depicted the best parts of each world. It was clear which world we were supposed to find beauty and comfort in and which world was colder and more draining. I also think the idea of dragon’s scale weapons opens up a lot of possibilities. The fight scene on the train was beautifully directed, sometimes in confined fight scenes the actual fight gets lost and it can feel claustrophobic but the train scene in Shang-Chi was very well executed. The movie was perfectly paced, one element led perfectly to the next without dragging on or jumping ahead. Sometimes in stories that have elements of magic an extra element of exposition in order for the audience to follow along, however I think the film did a great job of sprinkling information so the audience could follow easily without getting information dumped.

Xialing was my favorite character, she has a handle on her life, she’s super badass and I love that badass women who are taking no shit seem to be taking over the MCU.

The relationship between him and his best friend was relatable and enjoyable which will only be ruined if she turns into his love interest. The love is clearly there but the chemistry is not and therefore was not believable as a romantic kind of attraction. Their buddies and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Now for the not so good;

The obvious bad decision for this aggressive feminist was that the writers made the active choice to fridge Shang-Chi’s mom. She was the driving character motivation for both Sean and Xu and they only introduced her enough for us to sympathize when she was murdered, textbook fridging. To that point, I also didn’t love that her character was essentially the embodiment of what I call the lion tamer trope; this trope generally consists of a toxic or violent man who can only be tamed by 1 woman, and his goodness and humanity is entirely tied to her existence. Xu was a violent criminal until Li beats him and they get married and build a life together, when she dies he turns back into a violent criminal who turns his kids to violence instead of say, teaching them to remember their mother through kindness, peace and trying to embody her gentle spirit. It may not sound as entertaining but I can think of approximately 15 other story avenues that could have used what I just laid out with similar outcomes as far as development and fight scenes. Long story short, there was no reason that she needed to be fridged.

Next; though I enjoyed the development of Shang-Chi’s character, especially in and leading up to the fight scene with his father it was literally Guardians of the Galaxy 2...a son who has monster for a father, seeks the approval of his father but then realized that the abhorrent actions of his father is what caused his mother's death. He then must reconcile with the fact that he has both his mother and his father in him and work through the overwhelming urge to kill his mother’s killer and work for the greater good in the universe and in himself. It's the literal plot to Guardians 2 guys, that just says lazy writing to me.

Overall ranking on the Marvel Scale for origin movies: 3 out of 9

All Marvel movies: 8 out of 25