Well, we only have a year until Marvel releases Avengers: Doomsday. As they haven’t exactly been hitting it out of the park after Avengers: Endgame, I’ve kind of been slacking off on Marvel Cinematic Universe content. I will go watch the odd Marvel movie or television series here and there. But it’s not like before when it was an event and it was my duty as a geek to go watch each and every entry. Although Avengers: Doomsday is still a year off, I’ve decided to play a little catch up and do a Marvel Catch-Up-A-Thon sporadically until its release. I’m doing this just in case Avengers: Doomsday pulls out the “I understood that reference” meme for something I haven’t watched yet.

Thankfully, it’s much easier now as I do have a Disney+ subscription. I mean, it’s mostly all in there, right? While I won’t be logging into Disney+ and watching a Marvel movie and/or television show each and every week, I will be doing so sporadically until then. I am going in chronological order from what I haven’t seen yet. That would make it Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings. I’ve just finished it so here’s my very late look at it!

As Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was released way back in 2021, there are going to be some SPOILERS here. There may be a few minor things I will mention but nothing really big. So, yeah. SPOILERS incoming!

Shang-Chi takes place a few months after the events of Avengers: Endgame and the world is pretty much recovered from “the blip.” A slacker named Shaun and his friend Katy are attacked while getting to work. Despite Katy knowing that Shaun is a wimp as they grew up together, he manages to fight them off. After the battle, Shaun reveals to Katy that his real name is Shang-Chi and, as a teen, he ran away from his father who is the leader of the Ten Rings, a criminal organization. Fearing that his sister may be targeted by his father, the duo go on a quest to try to get to her before the Ten Rings does. Okay, that’s kind of a shaky summary but, even though this is a SPOILER filled review, I still don’t want to reveal too much information.

I’ve noticed how Marvel usually blends other film genres with their superhero movies. For Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, they mixed in Chinese martial arts movies, from the more fantastical Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon combat to more down-to-earth Jackie Chan stunt fighting. The early part of the film leans more towards the latter while the action scenes near the end follow the former. As someone who grew up watching Jackie Chan movies and as someone who loves more practical choreographs fight scenes, I can say I do think the early action scenes hold up much better than the later ones. I understand why the direction of going to the more grand and spectacle filled fights near the end as things are much more serious. But there’s just something about seeing a non-CGI guy actually pulling off flips and kicks in a bus that just looks better to me.

The acting, well, I can’t really say it was bad. Rather, it did fit the tone of what was required for the scene. The first part of the film had more of a lighthearted tone to it. So, when lead actors Simu Liu and Awkwafina were behaving like goofball slackers during this portion of the movie, their acting was fine. But when we get to the latter half of the movie and things get a little darker and more serious, they also both hold their own as they to become more serious. I was definitely surprised by Akwafina as I’m pretty sure she was hired to be more of the comedic relief throughout. But, amazingly, they did write her character with some restraint as she didn’t break the mood. However, this does lead to a problem with their characters as well as they feel inconsistent. Their transition from goofy to serious comes off as very abrupt and unearned.

This does make it seem like the rest of the supporting cast come off a little better as they never really break the tone of their character. Unfortunately, it does feel like most of them are “acting” instead of acting. Meng’er Zhang, who plays Shang-Chi’s sister is okay but doesn’t really convey being broken inside in a satisfying way. Florian Munteanu, who plays Razor Fist, the bad guy’s main henchman, only has the same stoic delivery of his lines, which is in line with the character, I guess. But this does lead to a very uninspired and forgettable character. The only real character who gets any depth and, as such, gets to show some acting range is Tony Leung as Wenwu, Shang-Chi’s father and the leader of the Ten Rings organization. But even with this, I do feel his character is underdeveloped and his main purpose here comes off as very silly, in my opinion.

With some really inconsistent writing when it comes to the characterization of the main players of the story, you can bet the story itself feels very inconsistent as well. The writers had a bad habit of revving up the deux ex machina whenever they needed to solve a problem. And there’s a lot of times when they had that deux ex machina humming throughout the story! Do we need Shang-Chi a way to get to his mother’s mystical village ahead of his father? Well, it just so happens that Trevor Slattery from Iron Man 3 and All Hail the King has been imprisoned in the Ten Rings compound and befriended a magical creature who can lead them there! Need to escape the Ten Rings compound itself? Well, the sister escaped the place when she was a kid using these tunnels she found years ago! It all so convienient!

Despite the weak writing and, honestly, a very uninspired latter half, I did enjoy Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings quite a bit. It does feel like more of a “turn off your brain” kind of action movie for me. The action scenes are mostly good and the acting is never really terrible. It’s a fun popcorn flick overall but nothing really great.

Have you seen Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Ring? What’s your opinion on it? Let me know in the comments section below!