Review: Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
or actually is Danielle gonna ramble about identity more? yeah probably
Hello, it’s your resident “that one person who talks about Asian American history/culture/experiences/etc.” in your feed, doing the expected thing and writing out my thoughts on Shang Chi. I sincerely hope I’m not the Only One on your feed- in some circles I might be, but it’s a big world out there and Asians/the Asian diaspora are not a monolith. That’s actually my takeaway from Shang Chi: we contain multitudes. Going for the representation take feels very surface level, but much like the movie, there’s layers.
This is such a landmark movie, but for who? It’s another predominantly Asian cast (I think Razorfist is the only named non-Asian character with speaking lines), but also predominantly east Asian, and specifically Chinese/Chinese diaspora. Like Crazy Rich Asians, this is a movie aimed for me/my adjacent community, but I’m not going to pretend it captures everything for everyone. Nor should it- specificity makes projects interesting. We shouldn’t have rep sweats hoping A Singular Film will capture EVERYTHING, and that’s an unfair burden to put on the shoulders of any one project.
Identity is fraught. Who are we, and on whose work do we stand? This is the heart of Shang Chi- his father, a millennia-old warlord trained him to be an assassin, but his mother comes from people more in tune with the world, using tai-chi based martial arts to flow, protecting with the power of the dragon. Shang Chi leaves the world he grew up with and tries to live his own life in SF, mirroring those of 1.5 gens who have memories of the motherland but are so changed by their experience that it’s not the same when they go back. That’s not something I’m familiar with, I’m afraid, so I won’t speak much to that. I did resonate with the core of this, though: we exist because of what our parents built, but what do we do with that (and how to reconcile the difficult parts?)
Of all the characters, Awkwafina’s Katy is the one I identify with most. She’s a multigenerational ABC, an American Born Chinese (minor quibble: if that’s the case and she lives in the San Francisco Chinatown, why does po-po speak Mandarin instead of Cantonese? also she definitely said baiju not whiskey…) and doesn’t speak Chinese though she can understand some. When Ronny Chieng’s Jon Jon reassures her “Don’t worry, I speak ABC” I choke-laughed. In other reviews I’ve read, speakers note that Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh (from Hong Kong and Malaysia respectively) have accented Mandarin- it’s because they would’ve grown up speaking Cantonese. That’s not something I think most of the American audience would catch including myself. Should it be? It really wouldn’t, given my tongue would be Toisanese had assimilation not stolen it away, but the fact that this even comes to mind while thinking about a blockbuster superhero film is a little wild. (while I’m going on about dialects- Macau also should feature Cantonese but maybe we need Mandarin for the eventual PRC audience).
What a film, though. When I watch an MCU film, I always wonder if this would make sense if I showed it to someone who doesn’t follow anything (like my mom). Shang Chi easily passes that test. There are references, but I don’t need a syllabus to figure out the plot. The third act does have a big CGI battle like others, but once again: this one is different. It’s not big army vs big army, no giant group of SUVs going somewhere.
The soundtrack is like Black Panther’s, including songs both in and inspired by the movie. This was produced by 88Rising, a production company that focuses on Asian American/Asian artists and it slaps y’all (I may even forgive their misguided yellow square). In brand synergy, ESPN’s selected “Run It” to be the 2021 college football anthem and unlike Fall Out Boy’s “Centuries”, I’m not going to tire of this. Did I yell it at DJ Uiagalelei at my television tonight a couple times? Sure.
Is this worth going to a theater in the midst of a raging pandemic? That depends on your local guidelines and rates of cases/deaths- use your judgement. This is certainly worth a watch, though, and easily goes in my top 5 MCU films. There are two postcredit scenes, which point us to the future in intriguing ways.
also for postscripty thoughts- Wenwu reminds me of Castlevania’s Dracula in some ways, and I’d be curious to hear the thoughts of friends who’ve read Mistborn after you see this. Ok that’s all see you~