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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 314125" data-attributes="member: 23">Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings (2021) <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fe8mu8mqy8al31.jpg&f=1&nofb=1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 393px" /> And the award for Longest Title In The Marvel Cinematic Universe Award goes to…Circumstances meant I had some time to spare to watch a 2+ hour film last night, so - with some flexibility about how and when I watch What If…? - I bumped Shang-Chi up a little. Shang-Chi is one of the Marvel characters with whom I’m pretty unfamiliar. I may have read a couple of his crossover appearances in other titles, but I wasn’t particularly interested. The martial arts craze didn’t particularly appeal to me* and Bruce Lee - while much talked about by classmates at school - mostly went under my radar. Characters like Shang-Chi and - to a lesser extent - Iron Fist felt to me like a different genre from my usual comics and I suppose I drew a line in the sand there. This film could have gone either way for me, then. Since I know next to nothing about the character, there are no expectations and it’s a blank slate. The first thing to say is that I applaud the film for using fluent Chinese-speaking actors, and for presenting us with lengthy sequences which are in Chinese. It works really well. As the first ten minutes went on, however, I did fear the film was going to be an ersatz Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. With the meeting and initial face-off between Xu Wenwu and Ying Li it looked as though it was heading in that direction. As it was, the balance was good, and one aspect of this film to impress me - most of the time - was the wonderful choreography of the fight sequences. I loved the grace and speed. I’m not sure if any of these were “sweetened” with CGI (other than some floating grass, different backdrops and removing harnesses and wires from view), but if they were it’s well done. Shang-Chi had perhaps the most visually interesting action sequences because it came from a place of physical reality. The sequence on the scaffolding outside the high rise was exhilarating for its speed (its energy reminded me very much of Spider-Man, in the best possible way). It’s a great example of a scene that has a lot going on without crossing the line into meaningless visual noise in the way some of the Avengers fight scenes did. The only action sequence I didn’t care for was the final one with its CGI beasts and glowing rings, though by now it’s certainly to be expected in the last act of an MCU film where the most obvious way to raise the stakes is to throw everything into the mix. Even this had its moments, since it stopped to get back to character and story with the conversation between Shang-Chi and his father.The settings were gorgeous, and when the pimped-up vehicle arrived in a pastoral land filled with mythical creatures I couldn’t help thinking of those first dinosaur scenes in Jurassic Park. The writing was decent and I appreciated the layers seen in some earlier MCU films where viewer loyalties and expectations shift as the story progresses. This was particularly true of Xu Wenwu, who felt very layered with his motives unclear and his status as an antagonist dependent on where in the story we were. This was appreciated, especially since other antagonists were of the dull “henchman” variety. Razor Fist felt very much like IM2’s Whiplash, which is not a good thing. I’d describe most other performances as serviceable. All were watchable, with some nice touching and funny moments (the latter mostly from Katy, the obligatory smart-mouthed sidekick). As individual characters very few of the key players - including lead actor Simu Liu - grabbed me as exciting or unique characters. In some ways it feels like it’s all been seen before. But they all played their respective parts well in carrying the story so it felt like a true ensemble, and I’m sure some will feel more essential to the MCU as things go along. continued… * My exception to my almost martial art-less childhood was the Monkey TV series, which I knew at the time was terrible but I was drawn in by the funky theme song and the general weirdness of the whole thing, right down to some hilarious (and possibly offensive) dubbing.</blockquote>

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