This story centers around Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) who ultimately must confront the past he thought he left behind when he is drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization by his estranged father Xu Wenwu (Tony Chiu Wai). The story starts off in narrating the origins of the Ten Rings and the fact they've been around for a 1,000 years. Then the year is 1996 whereas Xu Wenwu woos and marries Li (Fala Chen), another individual with powers as strong as Xu Wenwu's. The couple's children, Young Shang-Chi (Jayden Zhang) and young Xialing (Elodie Fong) subsequently learn the ways of their parents. Switch now to the present where Shang-Chi has moved to America and, to hide his past, has changed his name to Shaun where he is good friends with Katy (Awkwafina). He soon knows he needs to go back to China and confront his 'demons' where he finds his long lost sister Xialing (Meng'er Zhang). While he's back home, he goes to where he once lived to visit his mother's grave who died when he was young only to open up 'a can of worms' that brings him closer to the frenzy of the Ten Rings.
Others to round out the cast are Ben Kingsley as Trevor, Michelle Yeoh as Ying Nan, Shang-Chi's aunt, Yuen Wah as Master Guang Bo, Florian Munteanu as Razor Fist, Andy Le as Death Dealer, Paul He as Chancellor Hui, Arnold Sun as teen Shang-Chi, Stephanie Hsu as Soo, Kunal Dudheker as John and Tsai Chin as Waipo.
This was incredibly well delineated by director Destin Daniel Cretton ("Drakma: A Vassal's Journey (documentary) '06, "I Am Not a Hipster" '12, "Short Term 12" '13, "The Glass Castle" '17, "Just Mercy" '19) plus TV, shorts and a video documentary short. This filmmaker doesn't have an extensive body of work to his credit, but what he has to his credit is a strong resume which has obviously served him in the way that he was able to convey this story and characters that made its almost two and a quarter hours simply fly by. It was executed with amazing storytelling by writers David Callaham, Cretton and Andrew Lanham, based on a screen story by Cretton and Callaham, which is based on the Marvel comics by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin. Even though Callaham has the lion's share of the experience here, they all have an impressive resume, and this screenplay shows it. It covers the origin of the Ten Rings, Shang-Chi's family and his subsequent challenge to fulfill his destiny in a fairly lengthy running time that simply flies by quick. With the exception of a couple of very small places that weren't explained, but could be easily assumed, this script was tight, concise and cohesive down to the end credits; speaking of credits, you may want to wait until the end of them for a bit of a surprise. If you like Callaham's wtiting, his "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2" is in the middle of filming. And, as one would expect, both the visual effects by ILM (Industrial, Light & Magic), Weta Digital and Digital Domain and the stunts by Brad Allan were seamless and were as much as stars as the actors.
Certainly if you like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you'll love this. But unlike a lot of Marvel productions, this is actually well directed and written with the usual combination of stunts, explosives, and a ton of action--something for everyone. If you want to see it in a format like you're right there, it's also shown in IMAX. This is rollicking good fun!
Out of 4 Stars: 3.5 Rated: PG-13 132mins.
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