Early in this movie, Shang-Chi tells a story in which a kid calls him gangham style and he says, “I’m not even Korean,” stabbing the character in the back who launched him into stardom in the first place. I feel conflicted about this, but if I do, I can only imagine how Simu feels. Actually, I don’t have to imagine, he’s talked a lot about his experiences on the show since it ended its sixth and final season recently and some of his comments indicate there were some rifts developing about plotlines that he didn’t agree with, which I think is interesting. Simu clearly thinks about this film as doing some heavy lifting for Asian American actors in the same way that Crazy Rich Asians felt like a notable moment just a few years ago (I think technically CRA is the second movie my emotional terrorist ever saw, by the way).
There are moments in the frame narrative when the comedy of Awkwafina and Simu Liu shines through what is otherwise a passable reboot of the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise. In fact, I am not entirely certain that this isn’t Avatar the Last Airbender. There are a lot of moments when you will laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of the ostensible Big Bad, the algebra of 1 dragon soul vs 20 human souls, the fact that Chinese Wakanda is populated almost exclusively by Pokémon and Aslans or the fact that Chinese Wakanda has its own form of vibranium. There are some potentially cool moments that were not investigated all that well, like the evil nature of the rings themselves, which reminded me a little bit of the principle enemy in the VE Schwab Magic trilogy, what with the whispers promising your heart’s desire and the wall of unspeakable evil.
I know that The Mandarin’s appearance in this movie is supposed to be corrective and that there’s some sort of mea culpa happening here about whitewashing a villain from ten years ago, but I sort of wish that Ben Kingsley were in less of this movie than he is and the fact that he was coupled with a patently obvious winged Tribble for the purposes of merchandising made me more furious than I think I probably should’ve been for my first real movie outting since I spawned a child.
There are some subtly subversive moments in Shang Chi, like the discussion of American names between a newly revealed immigrant and a second generation American. These commentaries on race and the experience of immigrants is as interesting as anything in Falcon and Winter Soldier, but it’s happening on the silver screen and not behind the paywall of Disney Plus, which safely ensconces any potentially offensive meditations on the Black experience or “reflective patriotism” behind the veil of a paid subscription service and lets the movies be a place where we turn off our brains and stop complaining about how America tested serums on black folks and then covered it up by putting those same folks in jail. Holy shit, that’s dark. When was that supposed to happen in the Avengers movie? Before or after Hulk smashes his bicycle into a cart full of gelato?
Some of the best action sequences are back in San Francisco, fight scenes on the bus. Awkwafina’s character gets some odd moments to shine like when she’s in charge of driving the runaway bus, or when she’s in charge of driving the car through the crazy forest, or when she’s training montaged into a capable warrior. I supposed it’s better than sitting on the sidelines like Thor’s physicist girlfriend, but it also feels weird to spend so much time with the whole team inside an SUV while they enter a magical portal into a parallel plane of reality. There are a few missed opportunities. Shang-Chi’s sister Xialing, played by the fabulous Meng’er Zheng, is set up as Shang-Chi’s equal, learning from the sidelines in a subversin of the the quintessential girl watching boys do stuff plot (as Claire Vaye Watkins puts it). When we meet her, she’s accomplished no small feat by establishing a vast underground empire, and she can fight as ferociously as Shang-Chi if not more so since she has a chip on her shoulder. When the Big Fight breaks out in Chinese Wakanda, she’s almost immediately paired off with a minor Big Bad. There are some glimmerings of an indication that she realizes that her brother has been defeated by their father and that she is the sole family member with the wits and strength to stop him, which is why we see her boarding the Good Water Dragon to duel the Cthulhu Dragon, but at that very moment, Shang-Chi has just discovered his ability to master the Ten Rings, and she’s weirdly pushed again to the sidelines, which should really piss her off. The Rings are shareable magic. We know because we’ve literally watched Shang-Chi’s father share them with their mother and Shang-Chi in multiple instances. If he wanted to, they could morph into the Wonder Twins and use their shared skills to team up on the Bad Dragon instead of him hoarding it all for himself–you know, classic LotR stuff.
Anyway, the end set piece does appear to address some of this selfishness and lopsidedness on the part of Shang-Chi, and maybe there’s some Intellectual Property reasons for why having a relative who’s a crime girlboss villain is more attractive than the first–no–second sibling super duo (sorry Wanda) in Marvel. In terms of origin story movies, I am sure there are going to be a lot of reflections on how this stacks up with Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, but in the moment, it feels a little stunted, limited in scope, and cluttered. The nature of the rings themselves, the breakneck change of heart for Xialing, and the way that the Big Bad’s plane might open up more stories are interesting, but they don’t seem like they’re driving the bus in the way that some of the Phase 2 standalones did. Maybe in time this discrepancy will be smoothed over, but for now, Shang-Chi leaves me wanting a lot more without very much indication that we’re going to see him step up to the top tier of superheroes and that’s frustrating.
Honestly On The Sly 