I thought that was great.

The most interesting thing to me and the thing I noticed most was how much of the movie was subtitled. Like a SHOCKING amount for an American film. I thought it was brave and cool to do that, and I like that Marvel Studios has the clout that they can do that with no studio heads objecting.

As far as the Mandarin goes, I previously thought this character totally sucked. But can you blame me? My biggest exposure to him had been Iron Man: The Animated Series (voiced by Ed Gilbert of all people), and Iron Man: Armored Adventures, which weirdly imagines him as a troubled teenager. Mea culpa: The character can work under the right circumstances. I was wrong.

Speaking of which, I was tickled by the presence of Trevor giving us good Iron Man 3 continuity. Tony Stark may be dead, but the Mandarin very much had part of his origin in Tony's. Trevor is such a departure for Ben Kingsley too, not a dude known for comedic roles, that makes me love how dumb and silly he is.

His stuff with Morris was beyond cute, especially the bit where he's playing dead. All that nonsense filled me with joy.

Trevor also suggests that while Feige is clearly washing his hands of the awful Jeph Loeb Marvel Television stuff ("It's all connected" my butt) the One-Shots are clearly MCU canon and they always were.

More Marvel stuff (including taggy goodness) includes seeing the Abomination from The Incredible Hulk, Wong (clearly leading into the next Doctor Strange Multiverse movie) and cameos at the end from Captain Marvel and Bruce Banner. Banner interests me and bums me out a little because he's clearly not merged with Hulk all the time anymore, which suggests he's not in an emotionally healthy place. Also his arm in the cast suggests that the huge wound Hulk took for it by wearing the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers: Endgame isn't healing anytime soon.

What else? I liked Shang-Chi and Katy's San Francisco life because they both strike me as a couple of dopes. I liked them returning at the end to their slacker friends while relating their adventures because it suggests not even Fing Fang Foom can keep a pair of lameoids like this from Hotel California at Karaoke night with Wong.

Speaking of which, I liked Katy trying that as a battle tactic after all. It didn't work, but bless her for being dumb enough to believe it might.

Like Black Panther and Black Widow, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings is notable for being unlike every single Marvel film before it. I like the MCU exploring different genres and premises and not always being 100% a superhero franchise. Kung Fu movies have their place here too. And it makes the Universe and continuity feel more well-rounded for existing too. Plus, as noted, the movie was also pretty great so there is no part of that that wasn't firing on all cylinders. ****1/2.

Release Date: September 3rd, 2021

Studio: Walt Disney Pictures, Marvel Studios

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Screenwriters: Destin Daniel Cretton with Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham

Starring: Simu Liu as Xu Shang-Chi / Shaun: Awkwafina as Katy: Meng'er Zhang as Xu Xialing: Fala Chen as Ying Li: Florian Munteanu as Razor Fist: Benedict Wong as Wong: Michelle Yeoh as Ying Nan: Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery: Tony Leung as Xu Wenwu

Also appearing in the film are Ronny Chieng as Jon Jon, Xialing's right-hand man and announcer at her underground fighting club; Yuen Wah as Guang Bo, one of the leaders of Ta Lo; Jodi Long as Mrs. Chen, Katy's mother; Dallas Liu as Ruihua, Katy's brother; Paul He as Chancellor Hui; Tsai Chin as Katy's grandmother; Andy Le as Death Dealer, one of Wenwu's assassins who trained Shang-Chi in his youth; Stephanie Hsu and Kunal Dudheker as Soo and John, married friends of Shang-Chi and Katy; Zach Cherry as Klev, a bus rider who livestreams one of Shang-Chi's fights (after portraying a street vendor in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming); and Dee Baker as the voice of Morris, a hundun who befriends Slattery. Jade Xu reprises her role as a Black Widow named Helen from Black Widow (2021), while Tim Roth provides uncredited vocals for his The Incredible Hulk (2008) character Emil Blonsky / Abomination. Mark Ruffalo and Brie Larson appear uncredited in the mid-credits scene as Bruce Banner and Carol Danvers, respectively, reprising their MCU roles

Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Superhero

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action and some language.

Budget: $150-200 million

Box Office: $431.9 million

Official Websites:

https://www.marvel.com/movies/shang-chi-and-the-legend-of-the-ten-rings

Official Movie Posters:

https://i.imgur.com/hcpPRe6.jpg

Official Trailers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YjFbMbfXaQ

Official Synopsis: Marvel Studios' "Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings" stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, who must confront the past he thought he left behind when he is drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization. The film also stars Tony Leung as Wenwu, Awkwafina as Shang-Chi's friend Katy and Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan, as well as Fala Chen, Meng'er Zhang, Florian Munteanu and Ronny Chieng.