 Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is the newest Marvel film. Is it any good? How many times will I butcher that name? Are there any spoilers in this review? All those questions and more will be answered. Especially the spoiler one. No, there's not gonna be spoilers. Let's get started. If you're new to this channel, you should be like Thor and hammer that subscribe button because I put out a lot of content almost daily at this point. But enough about me. Let's talk about Sean, played by Simu Lu. Gonna be butchering names on this video. I apologize. Sean, aka Shang-Chi, is on the run from his past life. He's in hiding, he's tried to start over from events that have taken place that were mainly out of his control. He and his best friend, Katie, played by Aquafina are valets. Nothing against the profession, but it's safe to say these two aren't living up to their full potential. A big red flag for me right out of the gates was Aquafina being in this film. The last thing I heard her in was Raya and the Last Dragon. She was the voice of said dragon and I couldn't stand it, couldn't stand her performance there. I was a little troubled going in, a little worried. Thankfully, she was quite a joy here. Her relationship with Sean is one of the highlights of the picture. There are a couple of goofballs that don't take things too seriously in life. I know it's kind of a playbook marvel thing. Most of their characters are a little screwy, but you know what, they're lively. They're fun to listen to. They crack jokes. They fight well. They learn things very quickly. And yeah, it's formulaic. But as the expression goes, if it ain't broke, keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over again until eventually people will get sick of it. So far, I'm not quite there yet. I enjoyed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings quite a bit. This is once again an origin story for a new character in the MCU. We've seen a dozen or so of those. It follows the playbook, although the way it tells the story is a little out of sorts. We do a lot of jumping back and forth as the movie progresses, learning new little bits of information that make the hero more likable, more respected, a little bit more layered, more nuanced as the story unfolds. But ultimately, we have our beginning, middle and end storytelling structure and things play out exactly how you expect them to. I can only speak for myself here, but I grew up with Jackie Chan films, Grumble in the Bronx, Third Strike, Operation Condor, the more mainstream ones as well, such as Rush Hour or Shang-Hai Noon. The sequel, Shang-Hai Knights, wasn't very good. I can understand why they didn't make a third. Although I always feel like it's missing something when you don't complete the trilogy. You know, I'm still waiting for Gremlins 3. As I was saying, Shang-Chi has a ton of awesome action. It's got more action in it than any of the other MCU movies. I think that that's, I can say that comfortably. And they do a really good job of juggling between plot progression and then more ass kicking. Plot progression, punching someone in the face. And it's good action. We got a lot of choreographed hand to hand, foot to face, CG rings to stomach action at play. One of the earliest fights features Sean and Katie on a bus as it's traveling out of control because the brakes were shot. This fight goes on for like seven to 10 minutes. I am a sucker for a good fight on an out of control vehicle. It's so good. The movie does a great job marrying a lot of different types of combat. You have the old school, like I said, Jackie Chan style plus crouching tiger hidden dragon thrown in for good measure. And then of course the updated effects with CG characters jumping all around the place. Some of it of course gets very loony tunes at times. You wonder, I get he's got magical rings on but should he be able to like fall off of a building onto the ground and not break his legs? Why is his sister just as good at it? Marvel, Marvel logic. Visually speaking, it's a Marvel movie. There isn't much style to it. It's more on the side though of Ant-Man 2 and occasionally drifts into a Black Panther situation more than say Endgame or Civil War or any of the Russo brother films. Ton of effects work going on, tons of CG. Most of it, it's Marvel again. It's passable. There's some rough spots especially. There was a point which looked really bad where Sean gets punched and he like flops through the water. The water effects are awful. But then you got cool shit later which I won't spoil but it looks beautiful. So yeah, it goes back and forth a little messy. One thing I notice and this I can't say for certain is the film's fault or if it was the theater I saw that. But it feels like it's about 15% more zoomed in than it should be. Especially during combat scenes. I know they choreographed a lot of this, they had to but there's moments where I feel like it's just really tight. It needed to pull back. Now it is possible it was to project your settings or something because as words were coming up on the screen some of the words were getting cut off below. If you're a parent wondering if it's suitable for your child who's maybe seen some of these other ones in the past. Yeah, I think so. There's a bit more swearing than I was expecting. I mean it's still PG-13 or PG, I don't even know what these movies are anymore. G at this point. There was some more swearing, there's some shits thrown into the mix. I don't think there was any F-bombs dropped. I know they can get away with that once in a while. You can get away with one or two I think in a PG-13. They don't do that. But yeah, just a few more of the S words for you. Violence wise, like I said, there's a ton of action. I don't think there's any blood at all. Just a lot of punches and kicks and ring stuff going on. The ring shit is awesome though. If I was a wee one watching this film today, oh man, I'd be a kid in the candy store. I'd be going home having fake fights with my brother using those power rings. King, king, king, king, king, king. Poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof. And then jumping up the rings. Poof, poof, poof, poof, poof. He's using him like a double jump in a video game. Poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof. Some really cool slow motion combat where people throw punches and it's like. Poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof, poof. I'm just eating that up, I'm just eating that up. Here's a troubling one, the music, the score. I noticed at the end in the final battle, it was pretty epic, it was pretty cool. Not sure it was memorable, because I don't remember it. There was music throughout. It seemed to work with the film, but I would almost have to see it or hear it again to know for sure. I don't really wanna see this again. I could watch it for sure, it's easily watchable and I will when it gets to Disney Plus or whatever it's gonna be on. I just don't have a desire to go back. It's very much like all the other Marvel movies outside of the big ones. It's solid, but I get it, I'm good. I think it's probably obvious that I didn't know this character going into this film. Am I a fan? Absolutely, do I wanna see more of him? Of course. Every time now one of these new characters is introduced, I always think, oh man, it would have been cool if he was in Endgame. Or maybe we'll get another Endgame type scenario of 10 films down the road with the new cast and maybe we can bring back some of the old ones and then I would be super happy. Let's get all these people in it somehow. Dustoff old Robert Downey, Dustoff Tony Stark, tie some strings on him, Mary Annette into life. Do whatever you have to do, get him back into Disney. So was it worth it to see in theaters? For me and the kids, yeah it was. It's the first time they've been to a movie in like two years. You know, as long as it's a safe situation in your area, I'd say check it out. If you're a fan of going to the theater, if not, yeah, go ahead and wait on streaming. It's not like you're gonna lose out on anything for waiting four or five more months down the road. Those are my thoughts on Shang-Chi. If you saw it, leave a comment below, let me know. Like the video if you had a good time and remember hit that subscribe button. I'd like to have you around here as much as possible. All right, take care. Awkwafina surprised me, she really did. Oh, you're still here. Hey, since you stuck around, maybe think about supporting me on Patreon or right here on YouTube via the join button. You can find me at patreon.com slash adamdosmovies, there's links in the description. Otherwise, like I said, just become a member here, show your support, say Adam I love what you're doing, I'd like to help you out, keep the channel alive and well and I'd appreciate it a lot.