{"id":2937,"date":"2022-02-15T15:00:58","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T22:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=2937"},"modified":"2021-12-30T20:24:10","modified_gmt":"2021-12-31T03:24:10","slug":"movie-shang-chi-and-the-legend-of-the-ten-rings-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2022\/02\/15\/movie-shang-chi-and-the-legend-of-the-ten-rings-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shang-ChiShang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings<\/u><\/strong>
\nYear: 2021
\nRating: PG-13
\nLength: 132 minutes \/ 2.20 hours<\/p>\n

With the end of the Infinity Saga<\/em> in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there is a lot of room for new franchises to fill in the gaps left by the likes of Iron Man<\/em> and Captain America<\/em>. However, this means lesser-known properties like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings<\/em> (2021) get their chance to shine. And while lesser-known franchises like Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> are now household names, I think it remains to be seen if Shang-Chi<\/em> can truly develop its own integrated identity within the MCU.<\/p>\n

Having somewhat botched the introduction of the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) in Iron Man 3<\/em> (2013), Shang-Chi<\/em> attempts to ret-con this by insisting that the Ten Rings organization is a genuine threat to world peace. However, Marvel wants to have its cake and eat it too by including the “Mandarin” in this film. There are a few other loose connections to the larger MCU in this film, but they are more cameo call-outs than anything significant. Overall, Shang-Chi<\/em> is its own story.<\/p>\n

The fact that a good portion of this film’s climax takes place in a mythical hidden kingdom made it feel disconnected from the MCU as a whole. Sure, other franchises within the MCU have their origin stories. Still, I felt they made it clear how they contributed to the “whole” of the larger arc by either introducing characters or concepts in prior MCU movies. Shang-Chi<\/em> excels in its action and choreography but feels generic in the grand scheme of things as a standalone film. I’d almost wager that its sequel will be much more interesting and that those not already committed to the MCU can probably give this one a pass.<\/p>\n

A standalone ret-con of previous MCU mistakes, I give Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings<\/em> 3.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings Year: 2021 Rating: PG-13 Length: 132 minutes \/ 2.20 hours With the end of the Infinity Saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there is a lot of room for new franchises to fill in the gaps left by the likes of Iron Man and Captain America. However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,2],"tags":[2715,1888,84,779,780,13,8,2952,2953,39],"class_list":["post-2937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-movie","tag-2715","tag-comic-book","tag-marvel","tag-marvel-cinematic-universe","tag-mcu","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-shang-chi","tag-shang-chi-and-the-legend-of-the-ten-rings","tag-superhero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2937"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2939,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937\/revisions\/2939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}