Marvel’s newest origin tale, centered on the martial arts hero Shang-Chi, had three elements going for it ahead of debuting:
- It was based on killer source material, the best adventure comic books of the 70’s; made to take advantage of the then exploding Kung-Fu craze. If you’ve never read these stories, anchored by Doug Moench’s pulpy sensibilities and Paul Gulacy’s grindhouse style action, you’re in for a treat. Think Enter the Dragon martial arts meets spycraft as an ongoing comic, and you’d basically get the idea.
- The film boasts Marvel’s first fully East Asian leading cast, made up almost chiefly of cast members of Chinese nationality or descent. A huge step forward for this franchise, and one that echoes that immense strides made by the cast and crew of Black Panther.
- Tony Leung. I could let that stand on its own, but Leung is one of the finest actors in the entire world, and is basically Hong Kong’s Marlon Brando. When his casting was announced as the villainous Mandarin a few years ago, it was quite a coup for the studio. And he immediately moves towards the top of the upper echelon of thespians that regularly comprise Marvel’s rogues gallery. Incredibly, Leung has also never been in an English-language production before.
But yet, with all this promise, they still managed to squander things. To be completely honest, I don’t know that I have terribly high expectations for Marvel’s output at this point anyway, and what tends to separate a good MCU outing from a bad one is usually a game of inches. But with the huge build-up of Thanos and his infinity stones now out of the way and just a thing people keep talking about in these, it just seems like Marvel has instead entered a stage of rudderlessness. “More Marvel! More Characters!” seems to be the ongoing credo now. But with the thrill of the early days now long past us, that doesn’t suffice anymore. And with storytelling this tired, and honestly, recycled, they’re not making much of an argument for themselves to continue being a going concern.
Big screen newcomer Simu Liu plays the title role in this incarnation, the son of Leung’s Wenwu aka The Mandarin, who dispatched his off-spring to the US on a mission and he just never came back. Shang-Chi is a highly-skilled martial artist now living in San Francisco, making ends meet as a valet attendant. He spends his days shooting the breeze with his best friend Katy (Awkwafina), and they both live a pretty aimless existence. That is until Shang-Chi’s sister Xialing sends him a letter beckoning him, which prompts both he and his ever-insistent pal to hop on a flight to Hong Kong to connect with her. Little do they know that his father, who has command of an entire army of assassins and ten big ass magical arm rings, has other plans.
It sounds pretty okay, right? Basic in its construction, but you can barely lose with this kind of “prodigal son returns” set-up. But much like the above-mentioned three boons, there are three deep flaws within this latest superhero romp:
- When you think of a martial arts film, you have pretty specific qualifications, namely that the action is rooted in hand to hand fighting, fairly clear, frequent, and executed with skill. On the latter front, there’s no doubt that occurred, as a few vets from Jackie Chan’s stunt-team (including the late Brad Allan) choreographed much of the fights. And while they’re all front-loaded in the first half, there is at least an exhilaration when they do come, particularly in the opening action sequence on a moving bus. But Marvel’s editing refuses to get out of its own way. Rather than allowing its audience to follow along with longer takes of the clearly intricately staged sequences, it’s all “cut cut cut cut cut cut”, to the point where once again Marvel’s go-to “shoot from coverage” ethos that plagued other fight-heavy vehicles like The Winter Soldier and Black Widow completely undermines the appeal of the entire enterprise.
- And that of course leads us to another elephant in the room in Destin Daniel Cretton, the next in the long line of indie directors that Marvel has enlisted to shoot within their house style. Cretton, whose work before this has been steeply within the realm of quiet dramas, is in no way a fit for the quip-heavy action spectacles of the Marvel norm. And nowhere does this feel more the case than when the usual laugh-lines come and land with a thud. These movies are often lauded in large part due to their levity, but comedy is all about timing, and when the groan-worthy one-liners just keep piling up, one has to question how the performances themselves were honed. It would be malfeasance if I didn’t mention what an absolute cliff this movie falls off into by its third act. The last half hour of a Marvel movie is always its weakest, but somehow Shang-Chi finds a new low, with all kinds of ridiculous and visually inscrutable mishegosh. If Cretton wasn’t up to the task of trying to dive into the stylings of Jackie Chan, he absolutely was not ready to parlay the kind of Wuxia-style action fantasy that the movie eventually becomes. Just altogether brain-numbing stuff.
- Lastly, and this is may be the area in which even I was surprised to see the film falter: Liu is not a good leading man. His comedic chops are okay, if a little forced, and he’s absolutely game for the fights that the studio seemingly doesn’t want you to be able to see. But he simply cannot present Shang-Chi’s internal struggle regarding his parentage and the obligations thrust upon him. This issue is especially brought into stark relief when Liu is working with Leung. While many actors would struggle to keep up with an actor of that caliber, the elder actor has to carry the load of each scene because Liu basically portrays Shang-Chi with all the dynamics of a blank cypher. It’s a surprising misfire, as one of the great strengths of Kevin Feige and his team have been their casting of their lead performers. But somehow they managed to carve up one of the worst leading performances in a superhero picture this time around. And with so many other flaws to the approach, this one is fatal.
In all, Marvel needs to step up Phase 4 and soon. Black Widow was a dull affair, and the Disney+ shows have been more miss than hit. With Shang-Chi, we have on our hands perhaps the least essential MCU affair since Mickey Rourke was throwing laser whips around Robert Downey Jr’s head. At least Leung comes out of this a winner, producing one of the few emotionally complex bad guys that this mega-franchise has seen. Not even Marvel at its most off-putting can keep a legend down.
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