Shang-Chi

[GraspingVileTerror]

Poor tentacle dragon.

[Glacier Peak]

Spoilers! 

[Hyperstrike]

Okay story.
Decent action.
Devolves into a CGI crapfest in the end.

Awkwafina?

[krj12]

Decent movie, but nothing spectacular about it.  Just your typical action/martial arts type movie, with just a splash of magic thrown in.

 

[DougGraves]

On 9/6/2021 at 6:13 PM, krj12 said:

Just your typical action/martial arts type movie, with just a splash of magic thrown in.

 

 

The ads just made it look like a typical fantasy martial arts movie, not an MCU movie.  Does it have a superhero feel or is it really a martial arts movie?

[GraspingVileTerror]

I'd say they straddle the line effectively.  Moments of martial arts.  Moments of MCU.  A good mix of both.

It doesn't recapture that energy of the first Iron Man movie, but that might only be because we're a more jaded audience now, not through any fault of Shang-Chi itself.

[DougGraves]

1 minute ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

It doesn't recapture that energy of the first Iron Man movie, but that might only be because we're a more jaded audience now, not through any fault of Shang-Chi itself.

 

I was very disappointed in the first Iron Man movie.  What is there is great, but it lacks a good ending with a supervillain.  Iron Monger just feels tacked on and it really feels like an origin story without a superhero story.

 

Iron Man 2 is my favorite of the Iron Man series. 

[UltraAlt]

On 9/6/2021 at 7:12 PM, Glacier Peak said:

Spoilers! 

 

Apparently, Retconned and no longer the son of Fu Manchu!

Travesty!

 

In related comic book farces, Tony Stark is now the adopted son of Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne; Sue Storm is married to Namor; Doctor Doom is shacked up with Scarlet Witch after she saved his mother from whatever ethereal spiritual prison she was trapped in; Baby Thor has a mystical baby binky that always returns to his crib when the throws it; and Conan and Red Sonja live happily together in downtown Manhattan in the year 2350. (Finally, flying cars for everyone!)

 

I hate Retcons ... obviously.

 

"Shang-Chi [Marvel's The Hands of Shang-Chi : Master of Kung Fu  - not to be confused with the magazine-sized Marvel Deadly Hands of Kung Fu] was spun off from novelist Sax Rohmer's licensed property as the unknown son of fictional villain Fu Manchu. In later editions, his connection to Fu Manchu was underplayed after Marvel lost the comic book rights to the latter's character; to get around this problem, the publisher eventually started calling Shang-Chi's father Zheng Zu." - wikipedia

 

Well, at least it wasn't a Comics Code Authority debacle like zuvembies. "In the 1970s Marvel Comics used the term in place of "zombie", which had been banned by the Comics Code Authority." - wikipedia

[Triumphant]

I want to know more about this Conan and Red Sonja Cyberpunk sitcom, dang it!  😁

[Chance Jackson]

Few things I would have changed, but I did enjoy it.

[merrypessimist]

On 9/8/2021 at 1:25 PM, Triumphant said:

I want to know more about this Conan and Red Sonja Cyberpunk sitcom, dang it!  😁

 

You're not the only one.  

[wjrasmussen]

I just saw Shang-Chi and loved it.  Beautiful, funny, good action.  I give it 4 Thor's Hammers.

[Coyotedancer]

It had lion-dogs.

I'd have a hard time disliking a movie that has lion-dogs.  

[ZacKing]

Watched it this weekend with the kids on Disney+.  We all really liked it!  Something different for the MCU to be sure.  Great chemistry between Simu Liu and Awkwafina.  can never go wrong with Michelle Yeoh either.

[Bionic_Flea]

I liked it.  It was a very good kung fu/martial arts movie.  But a mediocre Marvel movie. 

 

And a lot of the Marvel history was retconned: Fu Manchu, the Mandarin, his Ten Rings, etc. 

 

I really enjoyed Wong's cameo.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

On 11/15/2021 at 6:09 PM, Coyotedancer said:

It had lion-dogs.

I'd have a hard time disliking a movie that has lion-dogs.  

 

And Morris the Hundun. I'd never heard of a hundun before and their various descriptions (beings of primordial chaos; unintelligible; chaotic; messy; mentally dense; innocent as a child) remind me a lot of my cats.

[Techwright]

On 11/15/2021 at 1:09 PM, Coyotedancer said:

It had lion-dogs.

I'd have a hard time disliking a movie that has lion-dogs.  

QFT.  I'd watch an hour of lion-dogs playing field goal kickers.

 

The movie had a lot of tropes and a lot of homages, but I enjoyed it.  Tony Leung was wonderful.  I was truly surprised that I wasn't repulsed by the character of Katy the Comic Relief.

 

There's one thought that upon seeing the movie, I immediately gravitated to.  Curiously, I've so far no found anyone else commenting on it:

Spoiler

Wenwu and the Ten Rings organization seems a complete rip-off of Ra's al Ghul and the League of Assassins.    Wenwu even has his own mysterious life-lengthening power source, and its far more portable than a Lazarus pit.  Both organization have the ability to conquer globally yet settle for smaller territories and subsisting in shadows.

 

 

 

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

Loved Tony Leung - as I've mentioned (a lot) on other threads, Marvel have trouble writing good villains. Wenwu was a great, charismatic and fully relatable villain, and is up there with Keaton's Adrian Toomes. (The only other villain I'd consider worthy is Hela, because of the fabulous Cate Blanchett, but in a more Disney campy evil queen way.) The dance-fight with Fala Chen was one of the most romantic ass-kickings I've ever seen, and quite beautiful in a very Crouching Tiger way.

 

There's a lot of other borrowings - including unsubtle hints that the Rings have a mind of their own and are addictive to the owner, much as with another preciousss ring I could mention. Yeah, yeah, very Artifact Of Doom.

 

That's redeemed a bit in the mid-credits sequence, which - as well as a Wong song - kicked off a new and tantalising mystery. The Rings aren't magic, alien tech or anything the smartest minds on (or off) Earth can make sense of... but they *are* phoning home. That's nice writing: never explain until you have to, and leave them wanting more.

Edited November 18, 2021 by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[Techwright]

1 minute ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

That's redeemed a bit in the mid-credits sequence, which - as well as a Wong song - kicked off a new and tantalising mystery. The Rings aren't magic, alien tech or anything the smartest minds on (or off) Earth can make sense of... but they *are* phoning home. That's nice writing: never explain until you have to, and leave them wanting more.

 

Actually that's a surprise to me. 

 

A bit of spoilery talk:

Spoiler

I saw the scene in question and thought that the MCU was tying the bracelet-rings to the comics alien tech origin.  I want to say that years back I read a comic where Fin Fang Foom's people actually came to investigate/retrieve the rings.  It therefore made sense to me that "phoning home" meant calling the dragon-people.  The in-story rumors of how Wenwu claimed the rings fits the comic story as well:  a crater might have been where a ship crashed, a tomb might have been referencing the ship as either a tomb for the unlucky occupants or an untrained description of cryogenic sleep which so many sci-fi stories use for space travel.

 

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

If you're a serious comics fan you might know that (it's quite a deep cut for the casual nerd).

But in-universe in the MCU, that's not known yet - and might turn out to be something or someone else entirely depending on the whims of the writers.

 

That's one thing I like with the MCU: they're fully allowed to play with this stuff and create something that uses the source material - overtly or subtly - but isn't hidebound to it, and works for the medium you're watching.

[DoctorDitko]

Quote

Agatha Heterodyne (Robots/Devices)

Oooh! Nice one!

 

As far as Shang-Chi, I have to give it:

 

• 1 star for Jackie Chan tropes (Bus & Building fights)
• 1 star for Wong cameos (2 Wongs make a right!)
• 1 star for Trevor Slattery
• 1 star for writing and sfx

and

• -.5 stars for overly CGI ending

 

So, 3.5 out of 4 stars

 

Frankly, any time I see one of these Marvel movies bringing a comic to life, I am reminded of this hilarious scene from the classic Doctor Strange #55, by Roger Stern and Michael Golden (Oh! How we laughed at the very idea!):

 

 

 

Imagine anyone crazy enough to make two Doc Strange movies!

 

[WanderingAries]

On 9/6/2021 at 9:06 PM, Hyperstrike said:

Okay story.
Decent action.
Devolves into a CGI crapfest in the end.

Awkwafina?

 

Yeah, I'm not sure I could say much else as it half tries to be a comedy as well. I couldn't tell if it was being overly Asian Stereotyped or if that's more true than I know (not being asian).

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

5 hours ago, DoctorDitko said:

Oooh! Nice one!

 

Thanks! (The drones are Barry, Bill and Gil so far. Would love if they were customisable so I could get some nice fashionable brass on there)

[DoctorDitko]

9 hours ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

Would love if they were customisable so I could get some nice fashionable brass on there)

 

Fingers crossed! 

Just custom colors would be tremendous!

 

[EyeLuvBooks]

Given that Shang Chi spent most of his time NOT fighting the same tired Marvel villians, I was kind of hoping that the opener would be more martial arts and less magic. There's always room for that later. I shouldn't be surprised though that a Marvel film was going to turn into an FX-fest.