As if the Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t big enough, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will attempt to corner a market niece where the Marvel behemoth still wasn’t the #1 film studio – the Asian market. And they only had to dig about five decades to find the Master of Kung-Fu, Shang-Chi, who first was introduced to the world in 1973 and has been one of the lesser-known heroes.
There is no doubt that social pressures motivated Disney to diversify its roster of white superheroes first came black superheroes in Black Panther and the upcoming G.I. Joe origin story, Snake Eyes, and now it’s time also for an Asian superhero. Shang-Chi stars is an unknown Canadian-Chinese actor, Simu Liu, but that doesn’t really make a difference because at the end of the day, let’s face it, the real star of all those superhero movies is Marvel.
In the center of the story are those ten rings dating back to ancient China. Those rings are the equivalent to those elusive rings of Lord of the Rings or what the lightsabers were to the Star Wars mythology.
The flick is smart to acknowledge China as a global superpower, continuing the courting of the studios after the Sino audiences it started when it added when it added China-set scenes to the release of Iron Man 3.
And if you are asking yourself how does Shang-Chi fit into the Marvel universe, then don’t forget to stick around until the very end of the credits for a cameo of some of the beloved Avengers for some interesting answers.
Now that the Avengers’ Infinity War saga has run its course, Marvel probably is weighing its options into who will dominate its money making machine for the next few years, meanwhile, I gotta admit, I enjoyed this movie a lot because after you peel off all the regular Marvel manusha, the story about accepting your past while forging ahead to who you would want to be in the future really resonated with me. I give it a THUMBS UP!