My Shang-Chi Bias
and not in the positive way.
With Shang-Chi hitting $140mil+ and growing for global box office on an opening weekend, it appears that it will soon meet its $150mil budget. With what seems to be positive praise from fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and film critics, I couldn’t help but recognize my bias when I watched it on opening night. Shang-Chi (starring Simu Liu of Kim’s Convenience) had a great performance, but the whole time I was thinking, “Don’t fuck this up.” Coming off a year where Asians around the world have faced anti-Asian sentiments, the fear of this movie flopping was in the back of my mind. It’s weird for me to even think like that.
For those unfamiliar, the character Shang-Chi was created by Marvel as a response to the popularity of “gung-fu” and martial arts movies of the 70’s, most notably legend Bruce Lee. In the comics, Shang-Chi’s father is a villain named “Fu-Manchu”, the name comes from a White British author and the name took a life of its own, pushing Chinese stereotypes for decades. Marvel tried to amend that by combining Fu Manchu and the Mandarin (villain of IM3 and was poked fun at in Shang-Chi) into Wu Wenwu (played by HK legend, Tony Leung). Shang-Chi, for the first time, headlined an Asian superhero in the MCU, with a majority Asian cast, and Japanese director Destin Daniel Cretton from Hawaii.
Part of the “don’t fuck this up” bias was the idea of how after 13 years since the first Iron Man film, the MCU has grown into this huge powerhouse. Through that time, we got side characters like FBI agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park), Peter Parker’s best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), the scattered Marvel shows with Chole Bennet (Agents of Shield) and Jessica Henwick (Iron Fist), and of course Sir Ben Kingsley playing “The Mandarin”, which was the plot twist because those familiar with the character, was expecting an Asian actor. Even a quarter of the cast being from “Crazy Rich Asians”, thinking, don’t they know other Asian actors?
When the film began in Mandarin, I was honestly surprised, thinking it was going to be a few sentences, but turned to be the whole intro of the film. Then being used throughout the film, and not just the ‘Rush Hour’ throw away “Ni Haos” and “Xie Xies”; it was actually being used to move the plot along. Yet the whole time I was thinking how Jessie and others in the theater felt having to read captions for a handful of the film. Then it clicked how this was better than the fake Chinese stereotypic chinglish and “ching chong” verbiage from other martial art films.
I honestly found myself in an out of body experience with having grown up with many of the Chinese traditions that were being shown. I had to keep reminding myself it was a Marvel film part of the MCU, and not just a side project like Venom or Wolverine origins. It felt so great to see the characters from the MCU appear with Simu and Awkwafina, as well as showing martial art forms like Wushu, Tai Chi, and Baguazhang. Growing up with films like Jet Li’s Hero, Fearless, Once Upon a Time in China and Donnie Yen’s Ip Man, as well as Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle — I didn’t realize this was going to be the first time a wide audience would be introduced to the culture I’ve grown up around. Like I said, out of body.
As a filmmaker, it’s a great film. Story was classic to many other Chinese martial art folktale films I’d watch with my mom; the dialogue & acting were all straight forward but weaved together well. Pacing was great, though lulled a little towards the middle. So many action scenes that were different from the guns and photon blasts from Iron Man, and the physic breaking shield from Cap. This focused on close-combat cinematography that really highlighted the fighting choreography. Many of the stuntmen are from Jackie Chan’s stunt team (their story is amazing too). There was much laughter, much excitement, and many moments of stepping back and going “wow”.
In the end, Marvel has honored the culture behind Shang-Chi, even withdrawing from stereotypic storylines from the 1970’s comic version. It’s been amazing to have different friends reach out unprompted and say they’ve seen it and enjoyed the movie. Though I have absolutely nothing to do with the film, as a Chinese-American and a filmmaker, it’s still a bit hard to believe that this film has been made and done well. Though I held onto my own negative bias, watching the film has definitely helped relieve all the fears. Excited to see how the characters will be used next.
