Movie Review: Shang-Chi

This one was a real missed opportunity.

Shang-Chi is basically an inferior version of Black Panther and Aquaman. It’s the same basic trope — the son trained since birth to inherit a powerful father’s dynasty — but it’s just not as interesting. I’ll give credit where due though; the fight scenes in the first half of the movie are pretty entertaining. They had good choreography and didn’t lean too heavily on digital effects or camera tricks like so much MCU dreck these days. They were quite well shot though they did have that rather safe, bloodless quality common to Disney PG-13 films. Awkwafina as the female lead was tolerable, even funny at times though I think having her relationship with Shang-Chi be platonic was a missed opportunity. Some romance would have added stronger personal stakes and character growth. Tony Leung also had a good turn as the movie’s villain. He is a multidimensional character we can sympathize with and understand until the film’s hackneyed third act.

It was super lame to have it turn out that he was just being mind-controlled by some faceless evil entity. The final battle should have been a stripped down intimate fight between father and son and their competing visions for their empire’s future, similar to the familial showdowns in the better movies mentioned above. Instead the producers decided to just regurgitate another disposable CGI monster army for the good guys to zap with lasers while slinging one-liners. I could barely keep awake. It’s a shame. The elements were there to do something far better. What we ended up with is watchable but underwhelming across the board.

Grade: C