A Marvel origin story dances in Jackie Chan territory
★★★ ½
Opening exclusively in theaters, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” really is enough to make Year 2 pandemic action fans mask up, wipe down and socially distance indoors for a couple of hours. If that’s in your personal risk zone, you’ll be rewarded with a sharp, full-bodied addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Director/co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton’s film accomplishes something akin to what “Black Panther” accomplished in better times. It broadens the scope of superhero representation and storytelling. It offers an adversary, and a father figure, of complicated rooting interests. Tony Leung plays him, which is excellent news.
“Shang-Chi” also boasts two high-velocity action sequences in its first half that basically seal the deal. The first, set in San Francisco, hurls “Speed” headlong into Jackie Chan territory, taking place on a careening city bus whose riders include several welltrained assassins out to get our hero, hotel valet Shaun, who is actually Shang-Chi of the title. He’s played by Simu Liu, who’s both engagingly boyish and the prototypical muscled-up MCU man-toy.
The second, maniacally kinetic martialarts melee, even more indebted to Jackie Chan’s wondrous legacy, goes all over construction scaffolding high above the streets of Macao. Though this latest Marvel Studios project features a halfton of digital effects work, it’s more elegant and less headache-y than the usual Marvel Cinematic Universe spit-ton.
Wenwu (Leung), is a warrior whose dominance is made possible, in part, by the titular 10-ring weaponry/accessory line. He falls for the matriarch of the magical Ta Lo kingdom (Fala Chen), and eases into family life with two children: Xialing (Menwhog’er Zhang) and Shang-Chi.
The lyric interlude does not last. Screenwriters Dave Callaham, Andrew Lanham and co-writer/ director Cretton send Shang-Chi into adolescent training as an assassin, followed by his escape from all that family drama and political hoo-ha. He scoots to America. Best friend and fellow hotel valet Katy doesn’t know his real story. The rest of “Shang-Chi” reveals that story. Awkwafina is a huge asset as Katy.
The cast also includes the grand Michelle Yeoh, and some welcome turns from folks interpolated into this movie because this movie has a contractual obligation to link back to the previous MCU movies. Benedict Wong: check. Ben Kingsley? Check?!? Ben Kingsley, whose provincial ham actor character, hired to play The Mandarin and
periodically bail out “Iron Man 3,” returns for this movie, and the notion works. Most everything in “Shang-Chi” works.
The Shang-Chi character was born in the early 1970s. In early iterations of ShangChi’s comic book adventures, he was the son of the early 20th century “yellow peril” scourge, Fu Manchu. That racially toxic stain is nowhere to be found in this film, and his replacement — portrayed by Leung with equal parts grace and cold steel — make “Shang-Chi’s” familial concerns mean something.
I fear for the sequel, as I do for all Marvel sequels, because so often they’re about delivering another round of the expected. But “Shang-Chi” may succeed there, too. It certainly succeeds here.
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for sequences of violence and action, and language) Running time: 2:14
How to watch: Now in theaters. Streaming premiere TBA.