Shang-Chi and the Leg­end of the Ten Rings

“Mov­ing on is an Amer­i­can idea.” Dis­cussing the pass­ing of her grand­pa, Katy’s (Awk­wa­fi­na) Chi­nese immi­grant fam­i­ly is ban­ter­ing with her about her West­ern­ised per­spec­tive on life and death. Amid its audio­vi­su­al bom­bard­ments, cul­tur­al mish­mash­es and genre hodge­podges, Marvel’s first Asian super­hero film, Shang-Chi and the Leg­end of the Ten Rings, is anchored by this inci­sive, all-encom­pass­ing line about lega­cy, grief and identity.

Chan­nelling quin­tes­sen­tial Chi­nese philoso­phies of geneal­o­gy and equi­lib­ri­um, the film simul­ta­ne­ous­ly show­cas­es Marvel’s cre­ativ­i­ty and the diver­si­ty of the Chi­nese dias­po­ra. It is a major step for­ward for on-screen rep­re­sen­ta­tion of America’s racial mosaic.

Near­ly 50 years after its title char­ac­ter made his Mar­vel Comics debut among mar­tial-arts fetishi­sa­tions, Shang-Chi’s time­ly release launch­es a high-pro­file coun­ter­at­tack against the ram­pant surges of Sino­pho­bia and anti-Asian vio­lence over the past year. From the out­set, lead actor Simu Liu’s effort­less relata­bil­i­ty and unwa­ver­ing screen pres­ence serves to reas­sure Asian audiences.

Oppo­site Hong Kong cin­e­ma icon Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Wen-Wu, Shang-Chi’s immor­tal war­lord father, Liu holds his own as the grass­roots super­hero on a self-redemp­tive mis­sion to stop Wen-Wu from abus­ing the pow­er of the Ten Rings, an ancient weapon that has con­quered worlds for centuries.

Cor­rect­ing Marvel’s racist past, direc­tor Des­tin Daniel Cret­ton and his team rewrite the comics’ ​‘Yel­low Per­il’ char­ac­ter Man­darin into Wen-Wu. The renam­ing of this char­ac­ter is sym­bol­i­cal­ly sub­ver­sive, as ​“Wen” (文) means ​“intel­lec­tu­al depth” while ​“Wu” (武) means ​“mar­tial prowess”. Strik­ing an enig­mat­ic bal­ance between ​“Wen” and ​“Wu”, Leung com­mands the screen at his will as the film’s brood­ing antag­o­nist, fix­at­ed on desire and vengeance.

Like father, like son. Shang-Chi and Wen-Wu mir­ror each oth­er in their tur­bu­lent, trau­mat­ic rela­tion­ship haunt­ed by a mutu­al loss. This rela­tion­ship brings to the sur­face the core Chi­nese val­ue of fam­i­ly: the ones who came before us live inside our­selves, and we do not fight for pow­er but for the ones we love.

The film’s female char­ac­ters are equal­ly well-writ­ten, explor­ing the inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty of Chi­nese fem­i­nism: Awk­wa­fi­na once again shows her elec­tric star qual­i­ty as Katy; Zhang Meng’er’s Xial­ing daz­zles with her sassi­ness and mar­tial arts skills; Fala Chen and Michelle Yeoh’s sis­ter-duo Li and Nan embody the tran­scen­den­tal com­po­sure of Tai-Chi. They are Shang-Chi’s fam­i­ly, friends, men­tors, fel­low war­riors – and all hero­ines on their own, ris­ing up against patri­ar­chal entrap­ment and persecution.

The lat­est indie dar­ling recruit­ed by Mar­vel, Cret­ton lets the cul­tur­al speci­fici­ty and emo­tion­al inti­ma­cy of Shang-Chi shine through. Pay­ing trib­utes to var­i­ous wux­ia and Kung-Fu clas­sics, he infus­es this high-stakes fan­ta­sy epic with cyber­punk styl­i­sa­tion and thrilling action set-pieces. The result is not only a fan ser­vice joyride that comes full cir­cle, but a self-reflex­ive com­men­tary on the spot­light that Asian film­mak­ers and actors have always deserved in Hollywood.