'SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS' : Tuesday 12th October 2021

Finally, Greater Sydney has come out of three months+ of COVID-19 enforced lockdown on Monday 11th October, and with it movie theatres have reopened. As such, a whole slew of films released elsewhere in Australia and across the world are now available for the avid moviegoer to play catch-up on some of those more recent cinematic releases. The first film that I saw post-lockdown at my local multiplex earlier this week is 'SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS' - the 25th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as Directed and Co-Written for the screen by Destin Daniel Cretton, whose previous film making credits take in 'Short Term 12' with Brie Larson and Rami Malek in 2013, 'The Glass Castle' in 2017 with Brie Larson and Woody Harrelson and 'Just Mercy' in 2019 with Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx and Brie Larson. This film has so far grossed worldwide US$404M off the back of a circa US$180M production budget and has generated positive Critical acclaim. 

And so the film opens up setting the scene for how the ten rings came about. It seems that one thousand years ago (plus or minus a few years) Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung) discovers the mystical ten rings which grant the owner of said rings immortality and other worldly powers. He forms the Ten Rings organisation, over throwing kingdoms and toppling governments throughout history to accumulate wealth and power. Fast forward to 1996, and Wenwu searches for Ta Lo, a village that exists in a different dimension and reportedly harbours mythical creatures. He travels through a magical thick bamboo forest to the village entrance but is stopped by guardian Ying Li (Fala Chen). After an initial (sort of) fight between the pair, the two fall in love, and Wenwu foregoes the Ten Rings for a life of normalcy with his new wife and children Shang-Chi (Jayden Zhang) and Xialing (Elodie Fong). When Shang-Chi is seven years old, Li is murdered by Wenwu's enemies, the Iron Gang. Wenwu goes in search of the Iron Gang with the young Shang-Chi and massacres them all except for the leader who was not present at the time. Wenwu then resumes leadership of his organisation again. He makes Shang-Chi undergo brutal martial arts training, but does not allow Xialing to train so she teaches herself in secret, having observed Shang-Chi's training techniques and replicating them, only better! When Shang-Chi is fourteen (Arnold Sun), Wenwu sends him to assassinate the Iron Gang's leader. After fulfilling his mission, a disheartened Shang-Chi runs away to San Francisco and takes on the name of 'Shaun'.

And so we fast fast forward to the present day and Shaun (Simu Liu) is working as a hotel valet car parking attendant with his best friend Katy (Awkwafina), who knows nothing of his past life. Travelling on a bus together, the pair are attacked by members of the Ten Rings organisation, with Razor Fist (Florian Munteanu) who has a machete blade for his right hand, stealing a pendant that Li gave to Shang-Chi when he was a young boy that gives him access to Ta Lo. Wenwu anonymously provides Shang-Chi with the location of Xialing in Macau and, fearing that the Ten Rings will go after Xialing's matching pendant from Li, Shang-Chi decides to go in search of her. Katy, not wanting to be left out and having survived the vicious attack on the bus, imposes herself on Shang-Chi, who reveals his past to her on the flight over to Macau. They find Xialing (Meng'er Zhang) at an underground fight club in Macau, which she formed after escaping from Wenwu. The Ten Rings attack the fight club with Wenwu arriving to capture Shang-Chi, Xialing and Katy. Wenwu takes his daughters pendant.

The three are helicoptered into the Ten Rings compound, where Wenwu uses the pendants to reveal a magical water map leading to Ta Lo. Wenwu explains that he has heard his wife, Li, calling to him and believes she has been held captive in Ta Lo behind a vast sealed gate. He plans to destroy the village by burning it to the ground, unless they agree to release her. When Shang-Chi and Xialing object saying that he must accept that their mother and his wife is dead, he imprisons them with Katy. In an ante-room to the cell where they are locked up, the three meet former actor Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) who previously took on the guise of the Mandarin and was abducted by the Ten Rings for impersonating Wenwu, now becoming a 'court jester' or Shakespearean fool for Wenwu. They also meet his hundun (a legendary faceless furry animal the size of a wombat with wings from Ta Lo) that Slattery has named Morris, who offers to guide them back to his village.

The group escapes in Razor Fist's souped up 4WD and drive through the bamboo forest with the trees rapidly closing in behind them en route to Ta Lo. They drive through a portal hidden within a water fall which sees them exit in a separate dimension and into Ta Lo, with a myriad of Chinese mythological creatures all around them. There they meet Ying Nan (Michelle Yeoh), Li's sister, and aunt to Shnag-Chi and Xialing. Nan explains the history of Ta Lo, saying that thousands of years ago, the village was attacked by the soul-eating Dweller-in-Darkness and its guardians, but was saved by a Chinese dragon called the Great Protector who helped seal the Dark Gate to the Dweller's world. Nan further states that the Dweller-in-Darkness has been influencing Wenwu to believe Li is still alive so that he will open the Dark Gate. Shang-Chi, Xialing, and Katy join the villagers in training and preparing for Wenwu's imminent arrival, using weapons they have fashioned from dragon scales. 

Wenwu and the Ten Rings heavies arrive and attack the villagers. Wenwu overpowers Shang-Chi and forces him into the nearby lake where he slowly sinks to the bottom unconscious. Wenwu then attacks the Gate with the rings. This gives some of the Dweller's guardians the chance to escape, and through the onslaught the Ten Rings heavies, now abandoned by Wenwu, join forces with the villagers to fight them off. Shang-Chi is revived by the Great Protector, which flies out of the lake to battle the marauding guardians. Wenwu and Shang-Chi come head to head once again and Shang-Chi gains the upper hand, but chooses to spare Wenwu. The Dweller-in-Darkness bursts out of the weakened Gate and attacks Shang-Chi. Wenwu saves Shang-Chi, bequeathing him the rings before being killed by the Dweller-in-Darkness. Shang-Chi, the Great Protector, Xialing, and Katy battle and kill the Dweller-in-Darkness. Afterwards, Shang-Chi and Katy return to San Francisco where they are summoned by the sorcerer Wong (Benedict Wong) to the Sanctum Sanctorum, with more divulged in the mid-credits scene. 

With nods to 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' in some of the fight sequences, the return of Trevor Slattery apologising for the misstep of the racial stereotypes of his impersonation of The Mandarin in 'Iron Man 3', and the reference to the Sanctum Sanctorum in the final mid-credits scene, together with the well crafted action set pieces, the usual dose of MCU humour, emotion and a smattering of pathos all make for an enjoyable Asian-centric addition to the MCU canon. The performances by Leung especially as the antagonist with heart is the stand out role for me, with Liu, Zhang and Awkwafina all giving solid enough performances but still clearly finding their way, which will undoubtedly come in subsequent Shang-Chi instalments, and cross-over films within the ever expanding MCU. And in the Director's chair, Cretton here makes effective use of flashbacks to move the story arc forward in a way that most other Marvel films have not, while keeping this origin story grounded and relatable. The ending when it comes however, feels protracted and over the top with too heavy a reliance on CGI dragons, mythical creatures, and a battle in which not a drop of blood is shed and everyone who dies does so off screen. The film does not reach the dizzy heights that 'Black Panther' did in 2018, but nonetheless, as your first visit to the cinema post-lockdown you could do a lot worse. 

'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-