There is a sequence in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings set on a bamboo scaffolding above a Macau building exterior that announces, within its first few minutes, that Destin Daniel Cretton is doing something different. The choreography is fluid and inventive, the geography is clear, and the whole thing has a lightness and a physical wit that the MCU's action sequences rarely achieve. Cretton's film draws on wuxia tradition and Hong Kong cinema with genuine affection rather than superficial borrowing, and finds its emotional core not in its hero but in the complicated figure of his father.
At a Glance
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Runtime: 132 minutes
Starring: Simu Liu, Tony Leung, Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh, Meng'er Zhang, Fala Chen
Release: 2021
Critics Rating: ★★★★ (4/5 stars, a kinetic and emotionally grounded origin story with a villain who outshines the hero)
Audience Rating: ★★★★ (4/5 stars, fresh, funny, and visually inventive)
Plot
Shaun, a San Francisco valet living a deliberately unremarkable life, is drawn back into a world he has been hiding from when agents sent by his father arrive. Xu Wenwu, the immortal warlord who has wielded the ten rings for a thousand years, is convinced by a malevolent force that his dead wife is calling to him from behind a sealed gate, and the screenplay is smart enough to make his motivation comprehensible and even sympathetic. The plot moves from street-level action in San Francisco and Macau to the mythological grandeur of Ta Lo with more confidence than most MCU films manage. The third act tips into large-scale spectacle, and some of the creature work is less visually distinctive than the earlier sequences, but the emotional stakes give the climax a weight that carries it through.
Characters
Simu Liu is a capable and charismatic lead whose greatest challenge is sharing the screen with Tony Leung and not being eclipsed. He largely succeeds, bringing warmth and physical ease to Shaun, even if the character's internal conflict is less developed than the screenplay believes. Leung's Wenwu is the film's defining achievement, a performance of remarkable control that gives the film its dramatic weight. The scene in which Wenwu describes meeting Ying Li is among the MCU's most genuinely moving sequences, and Leung plays it with a restraint that makes his subsequent actions feel tragic rather than villainous. Awkwafina's Katy is better integrated than most MCU comic relief, and her friendship with Shaun grounds the more fantastical elements. Michelle Yeoh brings authority to Ying Nan, and Meng'er Zhang is a strong presence as Xialing, a character whose arc the film sets up more thoroughly than it resolves.
Meaning / Themes
The film is most interesting as a study of inheritance: the burdens passed from parent to child and whether those burdens can be refused or transformed. Shaun's reluctance to claim his father's legacy is a genuine moral position, a refusal to become what his father made him. Wenwu complicates this further, a man whose love for his family was real and whose grief has been weaponised against him. The treatment of diaspora identity, of characters who belong fully to neither of their cultures, is handled with a lightness that does not diminish its significance.
Direction
Cretton pitches the film as an adventure with genuine emotional stakes, and the balance holds for most of the runtime. The wuxia-inflected action sequences have a grace and physicality that distinguishes them from the franchise's more effects-dependent set-pieces, and the film is funnier than the MCU's recent norm without losing the seriousness of its central father-son conflict. Joel P. West's score draws on Chinese musical traditions with a specificity that gives the film a sonic identity to match its visual one.
Cretton's most significant achievement is the action choreography, led by supervising stunt coordinator Brad Allan and fight coordinator Andy Cheng, producing sequences of physical clarity and inventiveness the MCU had not previously attempted at this scale. The bamboo scaffolding fight, the bus sequence, and the Ta Lo training sequences demonstrate a command of space and movement that gives the film a kinetic identity entirely its own. The visual palette shifts deliberately between the greys of San Francisco, the neon density of Macau, and the luminous greens of Ta Lo. The third act's CGI creature work is the weakest visual passage, and the Dweller-in-Darkness is a less distinctive creation than the human antagonist it displaces.
Shang-Chi received strong reviews and performed well above expectations for a pandemic-era theatrical release, demonstrating that MCU audiences would embrace a film built around a predominantly Asian cast drawing on Asian cinematic traditions. Critics praised Leung's performance and the action choreography while noting the conventional third act. It is regarded as one of the stronger MCU origin stories, and Leung's Wenwu is consistently cited among the franchise's most compelling antagonists.
Final Verdict: A confident and emotionally grounded origin story that earns its place among the MCU's better entries. Leung's Wenwu is the franchise's most fully realised antagonist in this period, and Cretton's command of physical action gives the film a kinetic identity that sets it apart. The third act is a step down, but the film around it is assured work from a director who understood exactly what this story needed.