'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' Looks Like Marvel's Kung-Fu Masterpiece
Something you might've forgotten in the past few months of Marvel history—where we've seen the likes of WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+—is that the studio makes movies too. We'll see Black Widow on July 9, followed by none other than Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which just got a new full-length trailer.
In the two-minute-long preview, we get another look at Marvel's first movie featuring an Asian protagonist. It looks like we'll follow Shang-Chi (played by Simu Liu) growing up with his family, who were kind enough to spend a decade training him as an assassin. When he hits his twenties, Shang-Chi leaves his family for a life where he doesn't have to beat people up—and gets to spend all of his time hanging with Awkwafina. Of course, the terrorist organization that goes by the 10 Rings—which is led by none other than Shang-Chi's father, Wenwu, a.k.a. The Mandarin—eventually comes calling. The trailer is as action-packed as you'd hope, teasing what just might be Marvel's kung-fu masterpiece.
In the comics, Shang-Chi is a master of kung-fu, similarly growing up as the heir to the 10 Rings. (As a kid, he doesn't know his family biz is evil, by the way.) His father, Fu Manchu, is regarded as a problematic portrayal of xenophobic tropes, so the MCU is adjusting Shang-Chi's origins so that the longtime Iron Man villain, the Mandarin, is his father instead. Even though he often works alone, Shang-Chi goes on to fight alongside Captain America, Daredevil, and the X-Men. As far as the movie goes, though? The new trailer ends with a post-credits-scene-esque moment. We see Shang-Chi watching some sort of Fight Club moment, where the Abomination (like, the villain who showed up 13 years ago in The Incredible Hulk) is fighting Wong (originally introduced in Doctor Strange, keep up with us here), apparently? Phew. Looks like we're in for a hell of a ride.
"The most exciting thing about stepping into this character was that his backstory has never been told before," Liu told Entertainment Weekly. "We know so many different versions of Batman's origin story, how his parents were murdered when he was very young. We know Peter Parker, who was bitten by a radioactive spider, and he loses his uncle. Shang-Chi's story is very much unknown to most of the world, so we had a lot of freedom and creative liberty to make it the way that we wanted to."
TBD how, exactly, Shang-Chi's adventures will fit into the next phase of the MCU. The 10 Rings organization was referenced as early as 2008's Iron Man. Plus, Iron Man 3 teased the introduction of the Mandarin, only to reveal he was an imposter. Now, with the Abomination (and maybe Wong!) showing up in the new look, there's a chance that Shang-Chi will connect to Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and/or She-Hulk. You can bet we'll have some answers when Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings hits theaters on September 3, 2021.
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