So Marvel Studios have just put out another film in 2021 with Shang Chi And The Legend
Of The Ten Rings, and unlike Black Widow, this film is a theatrical only release.
After watching it early in the UK, there is much to break down surrounding Marvel's latest kung-fu
blockbuster. I'm going to be explaining the plot, the ending, and the post credit scenes for Shang
Chi, giving you a rundown of what happened. This analysis will also contain spoilers, so if you do
happen to be someone who hasn't seen the film yet, then I would recommend watching this video after
you've seen it. But if you want to keep up to date on any of my future content on Marvel's latest
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But without further a do, lets dive into my recap of Shang Chi.
So Marvel's latest film begins by showing us Wenwu’s past conquering of civilizations
throughout the years. Wenwu, also known as the Mandarin,
is the legendary and nearly mythical leader of the criminal/terrorist organization the Ten Rings,
which has lurked in the shadows since the very beginning. He is also the father of Shang-Chi and
Xialing, giving us good potential for an emotional central conflict
later on. And it’s constantly mentioned that Wenwu has lived for a thousand years due to the power of
the rings. But as the movie's intro progresses, he learns of The Great Protector and goes to a
village where he meets his future wife, where they fall in love and Wenwu leaves the Ten Rings behind
to start a family. We see that young Shang-Chi and Xialing are given a necklace by his mother and we
also tragically learn that his wife dies, leading to him taking up the Ten Rings once again.
The character Shang-Chi begins his film nowhere near said rings though, thanks
to his father controlling them. At the outset, Shang-Chi, or as he's known by his American name
Shaun, rejects his powerful origins, so much so that we get to know him as a mild-mannered
car valet who does not sneak out at night to fight crime. It's at this job in modern-day San
Francisco that he pals around with party-loving Katy, played by Awkwafina, who catches flak from
her family for falling short of high expectations. They spend some time getting you used to the
characters and their motivations, especially with Katy, and a lot of it is focused on parental
struggles. This is a good thing to stress on, because of the movie's later focus on the
fallout between Shang Chi and Wenwu. But we soon get into the action, when Shaun and Katy take a
bus to work and a man approaches Shaun telling him to give up the necklace that his mother gave him
as a child. Shaun refuses and a hectic fight begins, in which he defeats multiple men and
Razorfist comes out to battle. During it, Razorfist destroys the breaks on the bus and
splits it in half, but Shaun and Katy eventually escape. It's also funny to note that during this
scene a guy on the bus is vlogging the fight and this same person is the one who told Spider-Man
to "do a flip" in Spider-Man Homecoming. There's a lot of easter eggs like this and references to
certain characters in other MCU movies, which is cool to see in terms of continuity and it doesn't
really affect the events occurring. But coming back to the events, Shaun realizes during the
fight that Razorfist has taken the necklace and that his father had sent him. They go back to
Shaun's apartment where he reveals that his sister had also recently sent him a postcard of where
he thinks she lives and Katy decides that she will go with him to find her. And on the plane,
Shaun tells Katy about his origin and that his real name is actually Shang-Chi,
alongside that he ran away at 14 years old when his dad gave him his first mission. And the city
Shang and Katy are flying to is Macau, not Madripoor as was previously rumored.
But after catching up with what Shang Chi has been up to and where he and Katy are going,
we now begin to get into his grown-up sister when they reach their destination.
Xialing we learn runs an underground fight club in which we get another easter egg, with this one
being in reference to Iron Man 3, with an Extremis soldier fighting in one of the small rings.
This leads into the fight that fans have been anticipating since the trailers, with Wong and
Abomination having a brawl in a cage. Wong calls Abomination Emil and it seems they actually know
each other, and after Wong wins the fight thanks to the help of one of his portals,
they leave through the location using one. It Seems they are working together for some reason
that isn't explained but I'm sure that in future movies this will become something that is explored
further. Shang is told during the fight that he himself has to battle in the ring and if he
does he will be told about his sister. We also learn that he has become somewhat famous after a
video from the bus fight leaked via that same Homecoming guy we mentioned before.
It's kind of an odd reflection of what happened with the Spider-man: No Way Home trailer recently
and I must say I did find it pretty hilarious thinking about that situation when this came
on screen. But when Shang gets in the ring, he soon finds out that his opponent
is actually his sister. We see that she is a fantastic fighter who does indeed win this fight,
but regardless of her winning, the pair still go for a discussion in her office afterwards.
We learn that she is upset about Shang leaving when they were kids and he asks why she sent
a postcard with her revealing that she actually didn't. Conveniently the ten ring soldiers arrive
and invade the building, with his sister fleeing and Shang and Katy escaping
through the window onto some scaffolding. It's here that Shang fights death dealer
with Xialing saving Katy in the nick of time. In the comics, Death Dealer is an MI6 agent named Li
Ching-Lin — though he is actually a double agent, who works for Fu Manchu, and during that time,
Shang-Chi and Death Dealer face off against each other on multiple occasions,
during which Death Dealer uses everything available to him, including
grenades to defeat him. He eventually returned to Fu (who was using the alias Wang Yu-Seng)
and he anointed Lin as the "Death-Dealer", giving him the classic mask and costume.
But during the sequence in the movie, Death Dealer steals Xialings necklace and it leads to
Shang eventually fighting him inside. He does get the upper hand and is about to kill him,
but in a moment of surprise, Wenwu comes out and stabilizes the situation. Wenwu tells Shang,
Xialing, and Katy that they need to go home, and takes them back to his compound.
When they arrive, Wenwu brings them to a shrine-like area where he shows them why he
needed the pendants and he puts the two pendants onto a sculpture of a dragon to form its two eyes.
Water surrounds them and the floor illuminates showing a maze that contains a special glow of
a certain path. Wenwu explains that this is a clue on how to get their mother back
and he explains how she is trapped inside of a cave within her village, and how the only way
to get to the village is to use this path. So we finally get some emotional context that connects
back to the opening sequence in an important way and it's honestly something that I was
really happy about. In Black Widow we didn't get enough fleshing out of certain emotional beats
but Shang Chi did that a lot better. Shang is of course in shock at this moment following
his father's comments, saying how it's impossible because she's dead, but Wenwu says that he hears
her voice telling him to go save her. Shang asks what they will do once they get to the village,
and Wenwu says he will burn the whole city down. So it's a villain that is on one side
understandable but on the other quite relentless. This obviously makes them angry at Wenwu and they
respond by saying that they won't help him, so he puts them (including Katy) in prison. When they
are down there, they hear a strange noise and once they look towards the back of the prison,
they see “the Mandarin” aka Trevor Slattery, who previously appeared in Iron Man 3. So the previous
appearance of an Extremis soldier has come full circle and now the fake villain from that film has
finally returned. He is practicing a monologue and it's later revealed that the 10 rings organization
took him out of federal prison and that they were going to kill him until the men took a liking to
his performances. He was effectively a jester to Wenwu. The character also introduces them to
Morris, a furry creature and friend of Trevor, who is from Ta Lo, also known as the mom's village.
Ta Lo is in another dimension and the cities that were destroyed were within that dimension. Trevor
translates what Morris says, with us finding out that there is a faster way to get to the village,
and that he can help them get there because he wants to go home. While they are talking,
Xieling digs through to the tunnel system, which is how she originally escaped the compound,
and they go through the tunnel to the garage and steal Razorfist's car. They
get in a high-speed chase, but eventually make it out of the compound in the car and
they drive to the magical bamboo forest, with Morris telling them to wait for the perfect
moment. The bamboo opens and they have to stay within the confines of the opening
which is rapidly moving and through the help of Katy, they do make it to the waterfall that
eventually takes them to Ta Lo. The people of Ta Lo are waiting for them and do not accept them
until Shang's aunt comes out and welcomes them to the village. They are told about an ancient
evil called the Dweller In The Darkness, that eats souls and took many cities,
and it was only defeated with the help of a dragon. Shang Chi and Xialing in turn,
are given dragon scale armor, a gift from their mother. Katy trains with a bow and arrow,
while Shang trains with his aunt to learn the dragon magic fighting style.
But we do also get a well-needed flashback to the death of Shang-Chi's mother. We learn that she
hides her children before dying at the hands of the “Iron Gang” who says she has to pay for
her husband's sins. Wenwu retaliates and uses the rings to kill them and we find out that
Shang-Chi’s mission, where he ran away, was to kill the last person responsible for his mother's
death. Shang seems to insinuate he did actually kill the person he was sent to kill before running
away showing to us that he lied previously. But after some resolutions, Shang says to Katy
that he’s going to kill his father and it's at this moment where the ten rings
attack the village and the final battle begins. Shang-Chi fights Wenwu and his father opens
the cave where the evil bat resides alongside little bats who come out and start eating souls.
Death Dealer is the first to get his soul sucked and that's when Razorfist
decides to turn and fight together with the villagers against the soul suckers.
The 10 rings and the villagers team up and the 10 rings soldiers realize their weapons cannot
defeat them. But as all hope is lost, the dragon awakens Shang meaning that can use his magic,
which plays as kind of an emotional awakening, leading to Shang getting out of the water and
fighting Wenwu to gain control of all 10 rings. He is about to kill his father but then stops because
he doesn’t want to be an assassin. The giant evil bat soul breaks loose and takes Wenwu along with
it, who also gets the rings back in the process, but while his soul is being eaten away, he decides
symbolically to pass them back to Shang. Shang and Xialing in turn ride the dragon, defeat baby bats,
and almost defeat the dweller in the darkness, but it has already eaten too many souls and
begins to become even bigger. It tries to eat the dragon's soul and Xialing almost gets taken by it
but Shang says he will not let her go again in another moment of emotional resonance. However,
in the nick of time, Katy shoots the bat in the neck, stoping it and Shang chi puts the 10 rings
into the creature's stomach. He continues by falling through the air and executing his dragon
magic fighting style, eventually triggering the rings from within the Dweller in the
Darkness to explode. In the end, the town remembers the fallen, and the dragon
eventually leaves with characters like Trevor, Morris and Razorfist also surviving the battle.
Some time passes and we reach our conclusion, where Shang and Katy are at dinner with a high
school friend that they went to dinner with at the beginning of the film. They tell her
the story of the battle and she thinks they are all crazy until Wong shows up
via a Sling-ring. He asks Shang and Katy if they have the rings and advises them to
come with him, in which they all go to the Sanctum.
But even though the movie ends there, the post-credit scenes continue this somewhat,
with some famous characters also making surprising appearances. The first post-credit
scene is Wong with Shang-Chi and Katy in the Sanctum following the ending of the movie.
They are talking with BRUCE BANNER, who is in human form, not as professor hulk,
and also CAPTAIN MARVEL, who has longer hair now, and they talk about the Ten Rings as a power
and how there are other things in the universe they must not know about. Bruce and
Carol are there using the same kind of hologram tech Natasha uses to talk with them in Avengers:
Endgame and they also mention that there’s something in the Ten Rings
acting as a beacon sending a signal. They say the rings are not in any of the Sanctums archives,
they can't identify the energy and it's way older than the 1,000 years that Wenwu had it. When Katy
and Shang ask where it’s sending to, Captain Marvel gets a message and she and Bruce leave.
Bruce is also still wearing a sling and Wong basically says to them “welcome to the team”. But
after the credits, we get another cutscene, where the sister is in her old room, and someone says,
"they're here", leading to her walking out. She's taken over to her father's palace,
the 10 rings banner is now red and her army is around her while she sits on the throne.
We zoom out and people are training as we watch the new leader. This leads to a title
card saying that "THE TEN RINGS WILL RETURN”, so it looks like we will getting deeper into
the world of Shang Chi in later films. We'll have to see what they do with
the storyline in a potential sequel and it will be interesting to see how they
answer some of the questions. What are Wong and Abomination up to? Where is signal being sent?
And what will happen under the new leader's rulership? These are on a list of many things
to resolve but this first film did a good job of establishing the world
and telling an emotion-routed story, that they can hopefully build on with the momentum.
But that was my video explaining the plot and ending for Shang-Chi. I hope this did help some
of you guys understand the events a bit better and I'm looking forward to hearing what else you
picked out in the film, so don't forget to let me know down below in the comments section. I will
be doing a video essay for Shang Chi later this week too, so keep a lookout for whenever I post.
For more breakdown videos on all upcoming films and shows in the MCU,
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