Admittedly I am not a connoisseur or even a fan of the Marvel films (though I have seen precious few), but I do try to go in with an open mind in order to give each film a chance to prove me wrong. This one did. It was a lot of fun for many different reasons. One was the cool martial arts style fight scenes. Fight scenes are akin to from coms there have been so many that we roll our eyes just at the thought of it. Yet, they keep happening. Why you ask? The answer being that many of us hold out hope we see something cool, original and that gets our adrenaline running. The second is the humour in the film. Humour largely supplied by Awkawfina. There are precious few comedic actresses working today who are as watchable.
At the heart of this story is simple age old one of a man discovering who he really is. Learning that you can no more run away from that reality than you can jump out of your own skin. Despite leaving his family as a teenager and moving to the United States, Shaun (Simu Liu – from television’s Kim’s Convenience) could never really deny who he truly was or, more precisely, is. Part of a family that has quite a varied tradition. A tradition which he believes he could walk away from and even hide from those closest to him, like his best friend, Katy (Awkwafina – Ocean’s 8, Crazy Rich Asians). But it soon catches up with him even from across the world.
His links to his estranged family reach out all the way from China forcing Shaun or Shang-Chi to deal with what he ran away from all those years ago. Involves an organization called the Ten Rings led by his father (Tony Chiu-Wai Leung – In the Mood for Love, Internal Affairs). Shaun is going to have to make up with his sister Xialing (Meng’er Zhang – first film) and his deceased mother’s (Fala Chen) family in order to stop his father from destroying the place and family he never knew.
Loads of fun! Decent script. Likable cast with good chemistry. Great to see some diversity in the Marvel film world. Advances or clears up some links to the Marvel universe. Should be all that really matters with a film of this sort, no? Go in with the right attitude and you surely won’t be disappointed.