Yo. Decided I felt like pumping out one more review this week, so, hold onto the edge of your butt cheeks and prepare to go on a wild ride full of slipping some LSD into your prison pockets and watching fantasy films, baby. Today, I'm going to be reviewing and talking about the latest marvel movie to come out, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I'll be super up front and say, I'm not one of those people who really ever gets excited over Marvel movies. I've been feeling quite a bit of burn out/fatigue with the super hero genre of movies. I'll say I've enjoyed a lot of them that I have watched (Though, there's also a fair amount of them that are pretty shit), but, I just can't get hyped over them, personally. I mean, fuck, can any of you at this point though? It seems like Marvel/Disney just keep pissing out superhero movies and shows every other week at this rate.
So, TLDR, I'm just pretty overloaded on the Marvel stuff anymore and decided not to really bother looking into this movie much. I went into it without knowing anything about the character or story or anything about it, really. My only expectation going in was that hopefully the film would be decent and entertaining. And, thankfully, it surpassed my expectations and didn't suck like Joe Rogans wife does on his udder-nipples.
The movie overall was super enjoyable and entertaining. The first half of it is entirely different from the rest of the MCU, with almost all of the action being martial art focused. The martial arts in the movie is done pretty well, I can definitely say it's at least competent and works much better than any I've seen elsewhere in the MCU. So, if you get a bit of a wet spot in your shorts for martial arts flicks like I do, you'll definitely enjoy the first half of the movie. I say the first half specifically, because once you cross that point it goes back into your typical superhero style battles and what not. And, that's all fine, it looks good and is fun to watch still. But, I personally would have loved if they could have just tried to keep the focus more on the martial arts based parts over the magical abilities and weapons and all that. But, I get it.
Beyond the action of the movie, I would say one of the absolute best parts of it is the villain. Minor spoilers ahead, pussy. Turn back now if you're a bitch, I guess. Pft. Anyways, the big bad of this flick happens to be The Mandarin, played by Tony Leung, who absolutely steals the show as far as I'm concerned. The character itself is done very well, with his acting being great with the role. I'm super glad that we're finally at the point where we aren't getting goofy, cartoonishly evil villains where they're twisting their mustaches and throwing people onto train tracks. Instead with this movie, we got a guy with a tragic backstory that's relatable and more grounded involving coping with grief and loss. They've been doing great with some villains before this, but, it's just a nice trend to see.
Beyond the villain killing it, the rest of the characters do a pretty good job as well. Shang-Chi is a fairly likeable character that does lots of cool action shit throughout the movie, which is basically all you need for a martial arts character. I'll say his character didn't have the most depth ever, but, he did good with what he had for the character, and it's a likeable character. There's a character called Katy that is played by Awkwafina that is used for comedic relief, she's just a side character but pretty much all of the comedy in the movie comes from specifically this character. I think she did a good job with it and honestly most of the comedy that was used was pretty decent. It never got over the top or super annoying/cringe, so I thought that was pretty good. The only character I think didn't have the best job done with them was Shang-Chi's sister, where it felt like they forgot about her for pretty much most of the movie. She was super underutilized, which was a bit of a floppy penis.
The cinematography in the movie is very well done as well, especially with the martial arts parts. There's a lot of beautiful looking wide angle shots that just hold there so you get to suck up every bit of the action going on. Everything looks and feels very swift and intense, it's just fucking great. All of the people doing stunt work know what they're doing as well, so everything just looks so cleanly done and believable. The CGI used later on looks good as you'd expect from a Marvel flick, and there's a lot of fantasy stuff brought in that looks really nice and there's lots of stuff in the movie that feels like they were pulling from things like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, or even Dragon Ball. Technically, everything is just solid with this movie.
Overall, I think this is one of the better Marvel movies that has been made. The only downside I have to say about this movie is that there are some parts where it drags on a bit too much for my liking. Otherwise, it's fucking awesome. It feels like those mystical 70's/80's kung fu flicks with a modern twist and the MCU mixed in there, so if that sounds like something you'd enjoy then I'd highly recommend this movie. It has great action sequences, some of the best ever done in a Marvel flick, and lots of entertainment to enjoy throughout. I know this is a bit of a shorter review, but, I don't wanna get too deep into it where I have to talk about spoilers a lot. Just go watch it, you virgins.
I'm going back to being a moldy sloth now. Until next time, I guess.
Later!