Rate and Review Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

[MessiahDecoy123]

Shang Chi currently has a 7.5 on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

[tanita_mors]

I really, really, enjoyed it. It's an 8.5/10 movie for me, maybe even a 9/10. The action and action choreography was amazing, it was everything I wanted Mortal Kombat to be, and everything I expect Avatar The Last Airbender to be. The movie was like a perfect mix of Mulan, Avatar The Last Airbender, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and a Marvel movie. The mystical world was beautiful.

As for the actors, I usually find Awkwafina annoying, but here her shtick really worked well, and if anything she elevated every scene with Shung Chi. I find him rather bland and not very charismatic, but him and Katy were really a great tandem - I hope they keep it up. And really liked the ambiguity of their relationship, it could turn into more or not and both would work for me.

Both the real and the fake Mandarin were great, and as someone who never finished Iron Man 3, I liked Ben Kinglsey here a lot. Honestly the entire cast was very good, the only weak link was the guy who played Razor Fist. I wish we saw more of Michelle Yeoh - I absolutely love her, and I was disappointed when one of those soul suckers

Spoiler

killed the Death Dealer - such a cool character design, I wanted more of him.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...ichelle_Yeoh&usg=AOvVaw0qkRjvK0z7_9hVWh5FJO0F
I also was baffled that they basically explained nothing about the Ten Rings and that was going to be a big problem for me, but then they saved it in one of the after credit scenes that the point was the we don't know anything about them.

 

[Filmfan93]

This was awesome.

One of the best solo entries in the MCU. The fights alone are worth the ticket price and they are the best in the MCU (only on par with TWS' fights).

Tony Leung and Ben Kingsley stole the show for me.

AMAZING mid-credit scene too.

My only critique is that the final act goes way too much into the fantastical elements after quite grounded first 2 acts.

8/10

 

[DyeLorean]

Solid, solid 7 from me. I liked it a lot, specially the first half. The fights were easily the highlight for me, I wished the film had more of that instead of the fantastical third act. But other than that, a promising start for what could be a future favorite character.

 

[InvisibleWoman]

I put this in the spoilers thread but it probably belongs here:

I really enjoyed this. I was pretty much sold from the scene

Spoiler

where Shang-Chi's father and mother meet and flirt whilst performing mystic ballet martial arts. It was such a visually stunning scene.

The only thing I wish they'd included is Shang Chi's mother fighting the bad guys and ultimately dying. I bet it was an epic fight.

It felt so different from other MCU movies but at the same time, completely believable as being part of that whole universe. I can't wait for more Shang-Chi (and Katy! and Xialing!)

I'd give it a solid 8/10. It was definitely one of the more innovative origin movies.

 

[Link]

It's a 7.5, but I gave it an eight. Amazing fight scenes and special effects. It introduces several cool new characters, in particular, Shang-Chi himself is going to make an exciting Avenger. Not an instant Marvel favorite, but I had a very good time nevertheless. My rating might improve with time and rewatches, quite like Doctor Strange did back in the day.

 

[Prison Mike]

Yeah I agree with a 7.5 rating. I had a great time but also felt the movie was over-hyped. I was expecting something…more. The special effects and action scenes were amazing. But the story was not as deep as I was hoping. Black Panther still takes the reign in that department.

 

[Primal Slayer]

Just got back from seeing it and an easy 8, REALLY loved it. I feel like it didn't really drag that much, the humor felt a lot more natural then some movies (GOTG), all the cameos were done well, tying up The Mandalorians storyline from IM3 was very fun.

They fit in A LOT of family, mythology into 1 movie and they did it fairly well. I think if I could change 1 major thing in the movie is not killing

Spoiler

the soul sucker at the end and just locking it backup instead or at least have that wall be a threat that still needs protecting.

 

[Tony Stark]

9/10, this might be my most favorite Marvel film. This has everything I love from all those Jackie Chan movies I always watched, along with all the things I loved from Marvel along with many Anime films.

It's amazing to think that Simu Liu started out as an accountant for Deloit. This guy is just a natural charming guy. He has a great stage presence and a great sense of humor. While perhaps his super nice guy image made parts of the film dealing with the darker side of how he was raised by the Mandarin, ultimately he pulls it off. He has great chemistry with Akwafina, and I'm glad they didn't just use Akwafina as the prototypical love interest. This film is as much a "buddy cop" film as it is a high action marshal arts film or comic book movie. There's the obvious nods to films like Speed and some of Jackie Chan's Hong Kong films.

I felt like the film also did a decent job of not trying to retcon what happened in the Iron Man films, and in fact with including Kingsley they really connected those threads and incorporated the "All Hail the King" Marvel one-shot. At the same time they didn't spend a lot of time trying to over explain why the 10 rings in Iron Man 1 and 3 are different organizations. It's mentioned in passing. Marvel fans truly got to see a more comic book accurate Mandarin. But avoided the typical "Mongol villain" that plagued comic strips like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and others.

Even with the Delta variant surging in the US, there was a decent crowd at my theater and they ate it up. On a side note I think Disney may already be trying to settle the Johansson lawsuit, as clearly with this theatrical only release Disney new it screwed up with the streaming. Although it seems Disney is still hedging it's bets as Shang-Chi will be available for streaming on Disney Plus October 18th. That seems a little soon for me and probably for the theater chains as well.

This is a great addition to the MCU and I am very much looking forward to seeing Simu in other Marvel films going forward.

 

[Prison Mike]

9/10, this might be my most favorite Marvel film. This has everything I love from all those Jackie Chan movies I always watched, along with all the things I loved from Marvel along with many Anime films.

It's amazing to think that Simu Liu started out as an accountant for Deloit. This guy is just a natural charming guy. He has a great stage presence and a great sense of humor. While perhaps his super nice guy image made parts of the film dealing with the darker side of how he was raised by the Mandarin, ultimately he pulls it off. He has great chemistry with Akwafina, and I'm glad they didn't just use Akwafina as the prototypical love interest. This film is as much a "buddy cop" film as it is a high action marshal arts film or comic book movie. There's the obvious nods to films like Speed and some of Jackie Chan's Hong Kong films.

I felt like the film also did a decent job of not trying to retcon what happened in the Iron Man films, and in fact with including Kingsley they really connected those threads and incorporated the "All Hail the King" Marvel one-shot. At the same time they didn't spend a lot of time trying to over explain why the 10 rings in Iron Man 1 and 3 are different organizations. It's mentioned in passing. Marvel fans truly got to see a more comic book accurate Mandarin. But avoided the typical "Mongol villain" that plagued comic strips like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and others.

Even with the Delta variant surging in the US, there was a decent crowd at my theater and they ate it up. On a side note I think Disney may already be trying to settle the Johansson lawsuit, as clearly with this theatrical only release Disney new it screwed up with the streaming. Although it seems Disney is still hedging it's bets as Shang-Chi will be available for streaming on Disney Plus October 18th. That seems a little soon for me and probably for the theater chains as well.

This is a great addition to the MCU and I am very much looking forward to seeing Simu in other Marvel films going forward.

By the time Oct 18th comes around, NTTD and Venom 2 will be out. Shang-Chi will probably be making low single digits. I think 45 days is the right amount of time.

 

[Pink Ranger]

I just saw it, and I have to say, I didn't care for it. As an Asian person, I'm glad it's doing well, and it has a winning cast, good fight choreo and great FX and creature designs. But it's such a poorly structured and poorly written script, I can't give it a positive review.

 

[Mr. Peanut]

My only real complaint was that there was no true villain, I wouldn’t really call Shang-Chi’s father a bad guy per say

What's wrong with that, though? A person doesn't need to be completely bad in order to cause conflict in the lives of others. Personally I think borderline cases cause a lot more interesting drama.

Like, someone like Red Skull or Dreykov will never be anything other than monsters, they can be entertaining and fun to hate but they have no personal drama. Then you have characters like Thanos and Vulture, who are sympathetic but who are still obviously over the deep end. Then you've got characters like Loki and Wenwu, who still feel salvageable enough that you are right there with the hero in hoping that they will change their ways.

 

[Hunter Rider]

Good movie, I liked the use of the flashbacks even though they went out of sequence, and I liked everything in San Francisco and Macau, getting to know Shang-Chi, Katy and Xialing. The bus chase/fight sequence was probably my favourite in the movie, and the sequence on the side of the skyscraper with Shang-Chi and Xialing vs the Ten Rings Ninjas, culminating in the awesome one on one between Shang-Chi and the Death Dealer was awesome.

Now when they travel to the Mandarin's compound things take a turn, i love me some Asian mysticism and I thought Tony Leung was brilliant here, conveying the mix of arrogance, madness and sadness of Wenwu, whilst not sacrificing his menace.....then we have Trevor Slattery, he was used in a funny way and I admit I laughed a few times, bit of an odd fit tonally though. The water map reveal was stunning.

When we reach Ta Lo I enjoyed the elegance of Michelle Yeoh 's performance as Nan as she teaches Shang-Chi to find his mothers influence on his fighting style. The village of Ta Lo was nice enough but not comparable to Wakanda as the reviews suggested imo, and all the CGI creatures and the Dragon stuff had a couple of cool moments but not really my kind of thing.

To sum up I think it's a good origin movie that does a good job of showcasing Shang-Chi's mythology, Simu Liu is likable and charming and does a credible job in the fight scenes but doesn't quite get the meat that Chadwick and Tom Holland got when debuting Black Panther and Spider-Man. Tony Leung gives the standout performance and it's a shame they killed him off. Overall it's an entertaining journey with a fun, easy to root for duo, two great action sequences, a clever adaption of the ten rings and a great villain, it just didn't quite stick the landing for me with the final act, but it's a good start for the franchise.

 

[Shuri]

Marvel went full on fantasy and I loved every minute of it. This movie is kind of a weird one, it's sometimes a Marvel movie, sometimes an action film and then a wuxia film. But somehow whatever it was trying to be it all worked out. Apart from Guardians of the galaxy which is an ensemble movie, Shangchi is the best origin film in the MCU. It finally dethroned Ironman for me.

The characters were likeable, especially, wenwu and xialing. Shangchi was good but these two stole the movie from him. Loved Michelle Yeoh's character, Kate was okay, but that character was not necessary, they should have given her parts to Xialing. Trevor was hilarious and Morris was the cutest, he's coming for Baby Groot's throne.

None of the acts dragged (I see some of you didn't like the crazy third act, but I loved it, I love fantasy and Mythological creatures so it didn't bother me), the family drama was great, the jokes were fine and the action was great. The bus sequence is the best action sequence I've seen in a while .The fight choreography is the best in the MCU and its not even close. For the longest time I thought nothing would surpass cap and Bucky's fight in TWS, but Shangchi and death dealer's fight managed to do it.

Rating it 9.3, it almost cracked my top five MCU ranking. I can't wait to see it again.

Speaking of seeing it again, the movie has great replay value which bodes well for it's box office run, I think will have legs. I hope it makes all the money so that Eternals keeps it's date.

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Just got back. Starts out really strongly. Might have the best first act in the Marvel canon. Then it starts to meander around a bit and I found myself spending some of the second act thinking, okay, okay, I get it, can we move on now. Then the third act becomes a completely different movie. Now, it’s a type of movie I like but it sort of sidelines the main character in his own film for a large chunk of the action, which is an odd choice. In the end I enjoyed it but maybe all the reviews and high cinema/RT scores had my expectations a little high. 7/10.

 

[DoomRulz]

Shang-Chi is an entertaining film and is fun on the big screen. I wasn't bored, which is the most important thing; 7/10.

That said, Awkafina is perhaps the most irritating actress ever featured in a Marvel movie. When the bamboo on the building broke, I was hoping it would kill her. And...well, let's go over a few things. Martial arts, Asian mysticism, karaoke sequences, traditional depictions of Asian families.

This is the film that is supposed to fly in the face of Asian stereotypes?

 

[Another_Fool]

Spoiler

Tony Leung gives the standout performance and it's a shame they killed him off.

Spoiler

Once they announced they cast Tony Leung for the role, I strongly suspected Mandarin was going to get killed off because there was little chance you get an HK actor of that caliber in Leung on a multi picture deal for a Hollywood film. Still a mighty bummer and kind of wish they figured a way to not kill him off that would've worked for the narrative. I suppose it's a testament to him and the character though that we're bummed he dies.

Martial arts, Asian mysticism, karaoke sequences, traditional depictions of Asian families.

This is the film that is supposed to fly in the face of Asian stereotypes?

Mind if I ask if you're Asian or Asian-American?

 

[Zyraquis]

Many like the bus scene but for me it’s more the forest scene, it showcased superbly how to win by “以柔制剛” and it’s beautifully done.

A solid 8/10 film.

 

[Detective Conan]

I liked the movie well enough, but I do think it really needed a stronger dramatic backbone and more meat to the story. My chief complaint is with the humor, like with most Marvel movies; it was a bit excessive and undercut the tension of the film at points. Katy was fun at first but got pretty grating after awhile. Marvel should really have more faith in its dramatic moments with punctuating them with jokes. Leung is a brilliant actor…but I feel this script wasn’t worthy of his enormous talent. I appreciate the filmmakers attempt at giving pathos to what was a racist caricature but I must admit I found Wenwu’s motivations rather thinly sketched. It’s just another generic sob story, and not a particularly compelling one. Leung elevates a pretty weak script that’s not worthy of him.

Shang-Chi is likable enough as a character but I do feel his dark past wasn’t explored well enough as it could’ve. I personally think the idea of a runaway trained assassin is a fascinating concept for a Marvel film, but the film doesn’t want to explore the deeper trauma. However with that said, the action was really on point for the most part and the bus scene was indeed pretty fantastic. And while I found the third act rather messy I was still mesmerized but the visuals and wow those VFX was quite good.

Overall, it’s a decent film.

7/10.

 

[Batmannerism]

Whenever a film is massively hyped by the media I am always skeptical about how good it really is.
So what about this film, which has received gushing love from a lot of media outlets, and more than a few fans ?


Hmmm....... not bad. But is it a top 5 or even top 10 MCU film for me? Nope. If my top 5 are Cap TWS, Cap CW, GOTG vol 1, Ragnarok and Iron Man... and 6-10 are Dr Strange, GOTG vol 2, Infinity War, Endgame and Avengers....well maybe it might make 13- 14th spot overall, behind Ant Man and Spider Man Homecoming.

On the positive side:

A great performance from Tony Leung.

Likeable main character ( although overshadowed by supporting cast) and a decent performance from Simu Liu.

An interesting interpretation of the Mandarin and his rings - if this guy had been the villain of Iron Man 3, wow that would have been a great film. Part of his origin doesn't make sense ( I mean if he had beaten up the Romans and every other civilization, it would have been tough to remain anonymous ). However, he's a multifaceted character and presented in a way that we take him seriously.

Some world building, not sure if I liked the magic Chinese Wakanda but at least it was something new and took some creativity.

On the negative side:

The story, felt like a lot of going to see the guy/girl to get the thing to be able to go see the next guy/girl......

The main character....really came close to being overshadowed by the supporting cast, particularly his sister. He felt a bit like Tchalla, who almost turned into a side character in his own films, with his sister, girlfriend and bodyguard showing him up a lot. Something Iron Man, Captain America, Dr Strange and Thor get right is that they let the hero of the story be the hero of the story. There is a trend in MCU films of this becoming less so, not a trend that I like.

Awkwafina, I guess you either like her style of comedy or you don't, I found her about as much fun as severing your olfactory nerve with a table ( thanks Black Widow)

Trevor ****ing Slattery, I mean did we really need to see him again? I suppose they had to redeem the Mandarin as a brand, but...

CGI, there were plenty of scenes, mostly towards the end that were not particularly convincing, even for a magic Chinese fairyland.

Fight scenes,
IMHO The thing that makes fight scenes entertaining and engaging is when they have weight and stakes, like the punches and kicks actually mean something - there's tension and drama because someone might get hurt or killed.

The kung fu choreography in this film is very pretty, and balletic. No question that Simu Liu is a talented and technically superb performer and If that's what you're looking for, great. I'm not a fan of wire-fu in general, although in a good enough film it can work ( e.g the Matrix, Crouching Tiger etc).

However, that's all I can say about it.
Something Bruce Lee, Jet Li Jackie Chan and Scott Adkins generally do is generate tension by having their fight scenes carry a bit of weight. People are comparing the fight scenes in this film to The Winter Soldier - strange comparison, because they're very different beasts. The Winter Soldier fights actually feel like people trying to kill or really hurt each other- not as pretty but you feel something watching them. In his final fight with Bucky Cap gets stabbed, 3 gunshot wounds and breaks Bucky's arm. It feels like an intense and epic fight because of the emotions of the combatants rather than the prettiness of the choreography.

What perfectly sums up the difference is in TWS we see Cap fight GSP. In that fight GSP feels like someone who can kick ass, and yes he uses some very showy moves but he still looks like his punches and kicks do some damage.

Something the MCU did really well in Daredevil, The Defenders and The Punisher ( and even Iron Fist) was fight scenes, which showed technique but also the brutal effects of fighting - in this movie, the weightless and graceful moves are nice to look at but don't feel like they have any tension.


Conclusion:

Hey, it was entertaining enough to keep my attention, mostly, for 2 hours. Not a bad film, but this one is nowhere near the "Triumph" that its been labeled. 6 to a 7/10.

I would be interested in hearing what people from the Asian American, and or Asian International communities think about this film. I'm not Asian so I don't know if its culturally sensitive or not, or if it makes people feel represented ( which is what some media folks have made a very big deal about ).

As just an action film it's okay, but probably only a little bit better than Mortal Kombat overall ( and without the hilarious Kano character or gore).

 

[Prison Mike]

Yeah I do think this movie was very over-hyped. That’s the downside of early reactions and reviews. I still enjoyed myself like with all MCU films, so in that respect it didn’t disappoint.

 

[Kane52630]

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

At the Movies with Kane and BN
3.5/5

 

[samsnee]

Shang-Chi is an entertaining film and is fun on the big screen. I wasn't bored, which is the most important thing; 7/10.

That said, Awkafina is perhaps the most irritating actress ever featured in a Marvel movie. When the bamboo on the building broke, I was hoping it would kill her. And...well, let's go over a few things. Martial arts, Asian mysticism, karaoke sequences, traditional depictions of Asian families.

This is the film that is supposed to fly in the face of Asian stereotypes?

A stereotype would have been making all Asian characters speak with an accent and treating them as caricatures. What you listed is facets of the Asian American culture growing up in America with first generation parents.

 

[metaphysician]

In comparison to other solo origin movies (Iron Man, First Avenger, Thor, Ant-Man, Doc Strange, Black Panther), where does it fall?

I would say somewhere in the "Black Panther" ballpark. It was *really* good.

 

[metaphysician]

People really need to start using metacritic instead of Rotten Tomatoes. The metascore is currently sitting at at 71 with the user score at 75

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

To the contrary, I would argue more people need to use RT. Metacritic *pretends* to have a more accurate score, but its just that, pretending. Its claiming an accuracy it doesn't actually have, because the "tools" it uses to measure it aren't that accurate in the first place. There is a huge amount of variation in what a given review score means to a given reviewer, a huge amount of variation in how strongly a given reviewer will like a movie even from day to day, and that is before you introduce the conversion factors needed to turn every single type of review measurement into a common percentile system. 2 stars out of 4 is converted into a 50%, and yet almost certainly wasn't used to mean the same thing as 50%, etc.

Whereas Rotten Tomatoes asks a simple, straightforward question: "Do you recommend this movie, yes or no?" Simple enough that it is highly unlikely the reviewers answer would ever change, and objective enough that a RT rating of 75% *really does* represent 75% of the critics recommending the movie. Does this tell you anything direct about other things than "How many critics will give it a thumbs up"? No, but nothing else is going to tell you that with any real precision either, its just going to falsely *claim* to do so.