Shang-Chi coming to a theater near you 5 5

[▫️]

On 11/13/2021 at 7:05 PM, Bosco685 said:

If you are going arm rings, go full arm rings!

Does not get any better than Kung Fu Hustle. I can’t believe how many times I’ve watched this.

[▫️]

How do they screw up the token Marvel humor in this when they had Ronnie Chieng in the cast? They shouldn’t have given him such a small role. I don’t know who the Aquafina girl is but I liked her despite her terrible lines. I also liked her in another movie she was in. Breaking News in Yuba County. She had better lines in that one.

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by ▫️

[s-man]

Saw it yesterday, gave it 7/10

I found it overall enjoyable to watch, but nothing really blew me away.  My eyes rolled when I saw Ben Kingsley (wasn't a fan of IM3), but he wasn't bad in this.  The fight scenes were cool and the ending one was just meh.  I liked the main actors so I hope they do a more developed 2nd movie.

[Buzzetta]

Watched it this afternoon.  I liked it.

I have questions though... 

If Shang Chi get's some of his powers from his mother are did he learn the magic that she understood how to access (which would explain Wong) or were they passed down to him thus making him a mutant? 

So what IS the deal with Wong training Emil ? 

Obviously takes place after Endgame but does this take place before or after She Hulk given the state of Bruce Banner ?  I am thinking after since it might be that blood transfusion that drains Hulk and reverts him to Bruce. 

Overall, I liked all of the principal cast.  I thought it was an excellent take on the Ten Rings and explains them influencing the events that take place in the first Iron Man.

 

[musicmeta]

Saw this today.  I liked it ok.  Didn't start so good but the last hour was really good.  I do hope they make another one.  

[Joshua33]

I thought this movie was the 2nd straight failure by Marvel. Saw Jungle Cruise the same day on Disney+ (also not very good). Jungle Cruise was better. That's sad.

[speedcake]

I worry for eventual FF4 and X-Men entries in the MCU.  Shang-Chi gets generally favorable reviews and lowest common denominator fanbase types ate it up and will fight you if you say a bad word about it. It also didn't flop at the box office. the lesson Disney/Marvel should be taking from it are not going to be taken. It's not well written, not well executed, is a CGI mess and could have been fantastic given the cast and the source material.  I'm guessing Black Widow would have done similarly if it had been a normal cinematic release in the before times, but it did struggle with the split release. 

I know the MCU films before are anything but even, there were clunkers and classics. So I'm still hopeful, I just worry.

[Crimebuster]

Just saw it. I thought it was pretty good, not great. It was at least 20 minutes too long, and the end battle was relatively boring and messy once the family conflict was over. 

Curious where the post-credits scenes are going. Also curious how this ties in with She-Hulk. They're doing something, but I'll be darned if I can figure it out. 

Between Wong appearing and the descriptions of the bad guy, with all the tentacles, I thought the monster at the end was going to have kind of direct link to Shuma-Gorath. It seemed to be going in that direction like so many things right now with Marvel, so the reveal was a bit anti-climactic for me. 

[Randall Dowling]

I agree with several other posts.  My overall feeling was underwhelmed.  It seemed like it didn't have the right tone from the comics.  I think casting may have been off for the lead and the -script was painfully formulaic- introduce character, explain origin, introduce threat to the entire universe, epic battle in which the hero becomes a legend.

I'm really getting tired of that particular model of story.  Still, it was mildly entertaining.  

[Joshua33]

On 11/14/2021 at 8:59 PM, Crimebuster said:

Just saw it. I thought it was pretty good, not great. It was at least 20 minutes too long, and the end battle was relatively boring and messy once the family conflict was over. 

Curious where the post-credits scenes are going. Also curious how this ties in with She-Hulk. They're doing something, but I'll be darned if I can figure it out. 

Between Wong appearing and the descriptions of the bad guy, with all the tentacles, I thought the monster at the end was going to have kind of direct link to Shuma-Gorath. It seemed to be going in that direction like so many things right now with Marvel, so the reveal was a bit anti-climactic for me. 

Not to mention the final 2 dragons looked like direct ripoffs of Falcor from the Never Ending Story and a Kaiju from Pacific Rim.

[Microchip]

On 11/15/2021 at 4:28 PM, Randall Dowling said:

I agree with several other posts.  My overall feeling was underwhelmed.  It seemed like it didn't have the right tone from the comics.  I think casting may have been off for the lead and the --script was painfully formulaic- introduce character, explain origin, introduce threat to the entire universe, epic battle in which the hero becomes a legend.

I'm really getting tired of that particular model of story.  Still, it was mildly entertaining.  

Agreed, they had a great premise to start with.   I would of been happy with a few more Bruce Lee-esque references.   But it went. down the family-lite mode, of moderate risk to the hero, and a climatic battle the dived into the ridiculous from the get-go.    

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 11/12/2021 at 12:11 PM, Artboy99 said:

pretty much where I am at on the film. It was entertaining I just wish they had treated it more seriously. Marvel seems to think their humor is what is selling these movies and often I find it is ill-timed or just not that funny. I didn't laugh at all in Shang-Chi.

I think that I lol'd once. The humor was 'meh'.

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 11/14/2021 at 2:06 PM, speedcake said:

Thing is, this WAS funny. It was set up decently well and would have been a pretty great moment of levity if the campy comedy hadn't been so heavy handed from the first moments of the movie.

I didn't like the film much. It had some cool moments, and while I'm not an Awkwafina fan I did think there was surprisingly decent chemistry between the leads.  But the levels of camp and just sheer goofiness were off the charts and it was totally unnecessary. It was hard to take anything seriously at all, and it culminated in a finale where as usual no one of import ever felt like they were really in danger.

It's just a bad movie, unfortunately. It could and should have been a kickass martial arts film, I mean how do you get THIS film from the source material?  

The plot is weak, the finale forgettable, the end credits were cool though.

She was not a complete disaster in every scene she appeared in. That's about as nice as I can be regarding her character.

[Bosco685]

On 11/15/2021 at 7:00 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

I think that I lol'd once. The humor was 'meh'.

[godzilla43]

I saw this now from Disney+. Disney/Marvel should start micromanaging these films more like they probably did earlier. This and Black Widow are both unpolished and filled with weird choices.  Awkwafinas character was weird comic relif and why Katy and Shaun were just friends? They are like 20-30 years old and everybody around them are serious but these buddies just want to party?!? Its like someone in the studio wanted pre-teens to play those parts but then decided that they should be adults. 
Why Ben Kingsley was in this? Like that fake Mandarin was hundred years ago...
How about the real Mandarin sometimes he was funny but again he was a crime boss who trained assassins..
Then why he waited 10 years to enter that secret valley?!?
Meng'er Zhang seemed to be a bad actress or maybe she just had horrible lines?!?
Florian Munteanu showed what a incredible talent Dave Bautista is

Endings dragon battle was pretty cool and it is fun to see something similar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.

Better than Black Widow 3/5. That IMDB score is just crazy.

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 11/15/2021 at 11:14 AM, godzilla43 said:

Why Ben Kingsley was in this? Like that fake Mandarin was hundred years ago...

Then why he waited 10 years to enter that secret valley?!?

Fan service. Marvel knows that no one was happy with their 'subverting expectations' regarding The Mandarin in Iron Man 3.

The, "this entrance only opens once a year" trope was awful, for sure. Was an automobile always necessary to enter? The forest changed at millisecond paces.

[godzilla43]

Oh yeah that car scene  but now I know that if I need to cross a magical forest I must have BMW iX3 for a car.

[@therealsilvermane]

On 11/14/2021 at 2:06 PM, speedcake said:

Thing is, this WAS funny. It was set up decently well and would have been a pretty great moment of levity if the campy comedy hadn't been so heavy handed from the first moments of the movie.

I didn't like the film much. It had some cool moments, and while I'm not an Awkwafina fan I did think there was surprisingly decent chemistry between the leads.  But the levels of camp and just sheer goofiness were off the charts and it was totally unnecessary. It was hard to take anything seriously at all, and it culminated in a finale where as usual no one of import ever felt like they were really in danger.

It's just a bad movie, unfortunately. It could and should have been a kickass martial arts film, I mean how do you get THIS film from the source material?  

The plot is weak, the finale forgettable, the end credits were cool though.

A majority of MCU fans worldwide love Shang-Chi. Marvel can't please everybody obviously.

About the original comics source material, Marvel Studios could only take so much from the Shang-Chi comics. Essentially, those older stories were Chinese and Chinese-American culture filtered through the eyes of non-Chinese writers and artists who were getting their inspiration from Bruce Lee movies and dated western literature about the "Orient", i.e. Fu Manchu. For Shang-Chi to be a modern movie that accurately represented today's world, the movie really needed to be its own thing and separate itself from those outdated elements from the comics. In this global world we live in and as China became more global over the  past twenty years, it's understandable that Disney and other movie studios practice cultural sensitivity as it moves into these markets.

Unfortunately, China seems to be in a reverse global trend right now and is canceling anything and everything that doesn't appeal to the new hardline nationalist policy of the current Chinese government. It couldn't come at a worse time for Disney since they just made two films in particular, Mulan and Shang-Chi, that it hoped would find a large audience in China, but only resulted in China banning both of those movies. It seems only China is allowed to make movies about China now.

 

[Bosco685]

On 11/15/2021 at 12:10 PM, @therealsilvermane said:

A majority of MCU fans worldwide love Shang-Chi. Marvel can't please everybody obviously.

'Universally' has now transitioned to 'Majority'. That is a shift to be recognized.

[speedcake]

a majority of fans "loving" a movie doesn't make it a good movie.  Shang-Chi is a mediocre film that could have been so much better, cultural issues and considerations aside.