Why “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” Is More Than a “Superhero Movie” – The HuffPost

CINEMA – This September 1, the latest film from Marvel productions is released in theaters: “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”. After viewing, The HuffPost could find several reasons that could (re) motivate fans of Marvel, and Asian action movies, to hit theaters.

• Finally freshness in the Marvel universe

Shang-Chi is a relatively unknown hero to the general public. It was born on paper in the 70s, when Marvel wanted to take advantage of the craze of the time for kung fu films: the first Shang-Chi comic was released in December 1973, the same year the last one came out. Bruce Lee film, “Enter The Dragon”. The series “Shang-Chi – Master of Kung Fu” then lasted ten years, until its discontinuation in 1983.

Since then, only fans of American comics had been able to meet Shang-Chi in certain boxes alongside Spider-Man, the X-Men or the Avengers in the 2000s, as IGN reminds us.

In 2008, the projects of the great film fresco Marvel reinitiated around the Avengers seemed to be planning a movie on “Shang-Chi”. It never came to fruition… until it was reactivated at the end of 2018 after the phenomenal success of “Black Panther”, as explained the specialized site Deadspin.

Marvel then contacted screenwriter David Callaham, a Californian of Chinese origin who worked both for superhero films (AntMan, Wonder Woman 1984) and action (The Expendables, Zombieland 2 …). He was given the task of writing a film about a new Marvel superhero, and in doing so, inscribing the Chinese cultural universe in the saga of the MCU – so far absent.

“Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is therefore an “origin story”, a presentation film, in which we discover a character that most will never have seen before. We immerse ourselves in the history, the family, the friends and the enemies of a young man a priori shy, but gifted for the fight, in new fantastic worlds, in the depths of a magical kingdom of the Chinese countryside.

The originality of the whole is not excessive. But after 23 Marvel films released since 2008 featuring endless Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and company, as much to say that it feels good. Better still: people who have never watched Marvel will still be able to enjoy a solid fantasy action film, whose storyline holds onto itself and is not entirely dependent on the narrative arcs of other Marvel films or series. We breathe.

Fans, on the other hand, will appreciate the few connections to the MCU, including revelations related to “Iron Man” and “Iron Man 3 ″ (about the origins of the Mandarin and the Ten Rings organization), or appearances of a few. key figures.

• Magnificent choreographies

It’s quite simple: we have rarely seen such beautiful scenes of hand-to-hand combat in a recent superhero movie. The action moments of “Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” are often spectacular, but also leave plenty of room for unarmed confrontations of great visual clarity, as we can already see in the excerpts published on Youtube:

In doing so, the film pays tribute both to the specificity of Shang-Chi in the Marvel universe (the hero has no powers and can only be built with the strength of his fists), but also to the films of martial arts in general. As BuzzFeed rated it, the references to Jackie Chan’s films are particularly notable, and this is normal: the film crew did indeed include former members of the “Jackie Chan Stunt Team”, a team of stuntmen who followed the actor in movies like “Rush Hour”.

In an interview to the Fandango site, the Hawaiian director, Destin Daniel Cretton, explained for his part to have drawn his inspiration from “all the Jackie Chan films ever shot” but also to have sought to integrate “in the long tradition of martial arts films”, citing “Tiger and Dragon” or “Tai Chi Master” in his influences.

Result: if the sets, special effects and atmospheres of “Shang-Chi” are often neat, but ultimately consistent with what can usually come out Marvel studios, we especially remember the impressive fights in their grace and their interpretations.

• Because he tackles anti-Asian racism

“Shang-Chi” is a manifesto to highlight a Chinese culture that is under-represented in Hollywood. He succeeds by being above all a good film, nervous and captivating: far from being a spare tire for Marvel, we come out with the idea that this Chinese superhero could indeed find his place alongside future ones. Avengers.

However, the question of the integration of the Chinese diaspora in Western countries is also a central subject of the film. Director Destin Daniel Cretton explains in the production notes sent to the press that he wanted to “consider each character as a multidimensional human being to avoid the stereotypes that have long hung over Asian and American-Asian characters”.

While the dialogues navigate indifferently between English and Chinese, part of the film tells how Shang-Chi left his family universe to live, for ten years, in San Francisco. We see him at the bar with his friends of Asian origin sharing various anecdotes about their integration in the country, and we learn there that he was the victim of racism, by being called Gangnam Style by a customer the first time. that he worked.

A memory he shares with his best friend Katy, a central and endearing supporting role in the film, played by the actress and rapper Awkwafina (notably seen in “Crazy Rich Asians”).

The choice of Simu Liu as the main actor, both to embody Shang-Chi and to pronounce such dialogues, is far from trivial. Unicef ​​Ambassador, born in China before having emigrated in his youth to Canada, he signed on March 11 a virulent platform against Western indifference to anti-Asian racism and its violent manifestations since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

On August 16, Liu Simu got angry again but this time against the boss of Disney directly, Bob Chapeck, who had spoken of an “experiment” about the broadcast of “Shang-Chi” (it will be visible on Disney + 45 days after its theatrical release in early September). “We are not an experiment. We are outsiders, underestimated. But we’re going to break the glass ceiling. (…) We are the surprise. I am p…. hot to make history, ”he posted on Twitter, creating the start of a fire with Disney – but above all reaffirming his way of considering Shang-Chi as a way of finally putting his community in the foreground.

A commitment in line with the “Shang-Chi” project. In an interview to the Inverse site, the screenwriter David Callaham said for his part to have fixed “a list of stereotypes to explode” in the film against the representation of Asians in cinema and in the media. “The problem wasn’t just that we were invisible for a long time. It goes further than that. We are the targets of jokes and stereotypes that hurt us, ”said the screenwriter:“ we knew we wanted to change all that ”.

The challenge seems to have been met: in California, online fundraising campaigns have even been launched so that children of Asian origins can go and see a film with “finally an Asian Marvel hero”, CNN reports.

However, the teams of “Shang-Chi” left with a major challenge: to try to forget, in this adaptation, the first origins of the superhero. When he appeared at Marvel in 1973, it was indeed as the hidden son of Dr. Fu Manchu: a stereotypical figure of Machiavellian “Chinese super villain” invented at the beginning of the 20th century by the British writer Sax Rohmeer, now widely criticized for having propagated the racist image of the Chinese “yellow peril” in Western popular culture.

In the movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, Dr. Fu Manchu is completely absent. Shang-Chi’s father is now called Xu Wenwu, and if he continues to be a super villain with the head of mercenaries, having raised his son in conditions that are at the very least questionable, he also presents certain emotions and psychological flaws. that do not prevent some form of redemption. The whole is interpreted with accuracy by the actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai, whom one knew more until now for his work with Wong Kar-Wai (for example in main role of “In the Mood for Love”, which him won the award for best actor at Cannes in 2000).

To forget Dr. Fu Manchu was essential on the side of Marvel and Disney. First, to continue to assert itself at the forefront of progressive themes concerning modern representations of superheroes (as in the recent series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” on Disney +, which explores why it was urgent that Captain America be black).

But it was also necessary… so that the film could be released in China, which is still not certain at the moment according to the American media, while “Avengers Endgame” had realized a record audience in the country.

On August 20, the specialized site Screenrant listed the possible criticisms that the Chinese censors may have against the film: for example, the fact that Shang-Chi was despite everything the son of Fu Manchu at its creation, which Beijing does not forget. But also the screen presence of Tony Leung, one of the most famous movie stars … from Hong-Kong ; and Simu Liu, who now has Canadian nationality and who has already been able to publicly thank his parents for having built a new life for him outside of Communist China.

At the point where Marvel had to actively launch a campaign in the country: on August 18, Variety reports, producer Kevin Feige himself was interviewing renowned Chinese film critic Raymond Zhou to reassure him that Dr. Fu Manchu will not appear on screen. But the question remains, at the present time, whether the Chinese will one day be able to judge directly in their country the adventures of the first Chinese superhero in the Marvel films.

See also on The HuffPost: Check out the official trailer for “Spider-Man: No Way Home”