Film review: Shang Chi: The Legend of The Ten Rings

 Genre: Action / Fantasy / Adventure

Cert: 12A

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Screenwriter: (screenplay by) Dave Callaham, Destin Daniel Cretton, (screenplay by) Andrew Lanham,(screen story by) Dave Callaham, Destin Daniel Cretton, (based on the Marvel comics by) Steve Englehart, Jim Starlin

Starring: Simu Liu, Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, Awkwafina, Meng'er Zhang, Fala Chen, Michelle Yeoh, Wah Yuen, Florian Munteanu, Andy Le, Paul W. He, Jayden Zhang, Elodie Fong, Arnold Sun, Stephanie Hsu, Kunal Dudheker, Tsai Chin,  Jodi Long, Dallas Liu, Ronny Chieng,  Daniel Liu, Stella Ye, Fernando Chien, Michael-Anthony Taylor, Zach Cherry, Raymond Ma, Thau Shen Lim, Lau Ka Yung,  Johnny Carr, Harmonie He,  Lydia Sarks, John Harding, Lynette Curran, Benjamin Wang, Benedict Wong, Jade Xu, Shelley Xu, Alistair Bates, Dee Bradley Baker, Ben Kingsley.

Running time: 2h 12min

Parents advised reading before viewing the film as some scenes may contain scenes unsuitable for younger viewers.

Sex & Nudity: No nudity or sexual content.

There is a mention of a vagina - meant to be humorous (context of giving birth)

Violence & Gore: Frequent and excessive moderate martial-arts style combat, involving hand-to-hand combat as well as the use of real-world weapons and magical fantasy weapons.

Explosions and destruction, lots of hand-to-hand combat fighting.

Some characters are killed.

Weapons include guns, Spears, bows, explosives, are used.

A man is stabbed.

There are a couple of injuries/death. Frequent peril and danger

People are pursued by monsters.

A Car gets crushed over by a bus and destroys many things in the process.

Deaths happen onscreen.

People are assassinated (from afar) by sniper fire, explosions, etc.

Profanity: From mild to moderate

Occasional strong language includes - "shit" "Bullshit" "hell" and "Damn".

Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking: Glimpse's of people drinking.

A grandma's cigarettes are discussed briefly

Frightening/Intense Scenes:.A young boy is repeatedly whipped by his father's bodyguard during training. This scene comes off as intense and emotional.

Story: Shang-Chi, the master of unarmed weaponry-based Kung Fu, is forced to confront his past after being drawn into the Ten Rings organization. Become a fight with heart and soul to stop an ancient evil from destroying the world.

Likes: I went into this film not really knowing much about this MCU movie other than knowing Fang fu is in the film from the trailer, but it surprised me in an origin story that explains everything about this film, what surprising which is fresh is it not hand fist in to make the audience feel dumb to the point that it has to tell you everything going on, it's as well respected and well-writen film which out of all the MCU films this is one film I actually enjoyed watching.

Got handing to the Hold casting which really brought this film to life, the martial arts stunt coordination was top-notch, through this film, we have a director that knows how to film fight scenes without that crappy shaky cam, here you see every kick and punch, along with great fight scene with wide-angle filming allow the audience to actually see the fights, that something I love because the camera work on this fight scene was nothing but Amazing camera work.

The film being an action fantasy I was not expecting the comedic moments to be this funny, the moments were perfect for the comedy tone, which made me laugh a few times, where other film using comedy sometimes doesn't hit the mark, but I'm glad to see these moments were funny and had good timing. Ben Kingsley cameo had a lot of comedic moments that were perfect timing, made a lot of the audience laughing including me, Awkwafina (welcome to the jungle 2) she was actually pretty funny as well with her well-timed comedic moments which shows that the writers did well with this film.

 Tony Chiu-Wai Leung done an amazing peformance of a man that lived for thousands of years struggle with the darkness inside him and having that conflict as well as trying to be a father to his son  ShangChi played amazingly by Simu Liu who fight chorograph on-screen shows how skilled he is in martial arts, making his fight scene look real on-screen, special from legendary martial artist Michelle Yeoh who appear in this film really added the fantasy style martial arts using mystical powers just made this better than just having normal martial arts in the film. 

The visual effect is impressive, the way the wind moves, trees, especial the main fight, that I didn't see coming gave this film one hell of an epic fantasy fight that gave this film something bigger than the conflict between father and son, I will say this it was an awesome scene, to which I can't give spoilers you just have to go watch it your self.

As an offbeat marvel film goes, it shows when you have good writers and a good director, MCU film can be better, with a darker edge. it's a film I can recommend watching. 

 

Dislikes: While the film was great it wasn't without its flaws, to which two scenes with the bus, you could tell with two scenes that it was a green screen with a scrolling background, which was blatantly obvious, which I think the editing team might have missed, it didn't really take me out the film but it was clear to the eye.

Overall: Well written, great fantasy style martial arts, great camera work, good storytelling 

Rating 5 out of 5 Entertainment / 9.5 out of 10 for an origin story.: