Well be interesting if the Chinese government continues to prevent movies from being shown, how will it affect all the recent Chinese investment in Hollywood movies.
If all but a handful of films are shut out of the Chinese market, it's going to have a such a big cascading impact on how films are financed. Production budgets got so big prior to the pandemic that they needed near billion dollar international box office takes to break even. Without China, that's out of reach in all but few franchises.
I'd like to think this results in smaller budget films getting more spotlight, but, that's probably naive.
From its early performance, it looks like it's a safe bet to hit $250 million domestic. $300 million is probably out of reach.
Thatll be an incredible haul, even if it wasn't a pandemic, and quite honestly, I'm not sure what else is coming out this year that may top it. The best bet is probably Spiderman, but, that's being released over a busy Christmas period. Shang Chi is going to have the rest of the month with no other big releases.
From its early performance, it looks like it's a safe bet to hit $250 million domestic. $300 million is probably out of reach.
Thatll be an incredible haul, even if it wasn't a pandemic, and quite honestly, I'm not sure what else is coming out this year that may top it. The best bet is probably Spiderman, but, that's being released over a busy Christmas period. Shang Chi is going to have the rest of the month with no other big releases.
I quite liked it. I wouldn't say I have it in say, my top 5 favorite Marvel movies but upper half for sure.
Pros:
The martial arts choreography in particular was superb. I had a big smile on my face for a bulk of the first half of the film.
This movie had one of the better villains Marvel has put out.
The pacing was mostly good
Even the more Marvel-y elements were executed pretty well
Ta Lo was gorgeous to look at
Awkwafina's character really could have been quite annoying but wasn't. There were times I'd actually ask myself, "why didn't that line annoy me?" Credit to her that she struck a solid balance between comedy and serious acting.
I thought the family elements were executed really well. The backstory of the mother in particular served as a really good emotional anchor for the story.
Overall, even though there's a bit of a Marvel inundation going on where it really feels like they want to hold people's interest after Endgame, this was a really fun time at the movies.
Cons are kinda spoilery for the most part:
As much as I thought the action shift from pure martial arts to marvel cgi magic was still entertaining to watch, it's still a bit of a bummer to have seen such incredible hand to hand fight choreography slip away. It was justified well enough by the plot but still a bit of a bummer.
Shang-chi's sister wasn't given enough. I can't put my finger on it but it feels like there was supposed to be an emotional pay off with her but outside of being a badass warrior, narratively she did become a bit of a passenger.
I also didn't feel like Shang-Chi's character growth was all that earned. Sparing his father is a big moment for him as a character and there's something to be said for his realizing that his father was purely motivated by love, driven by the pain of the loss of his wife and the desperation to get her back. But it felt like from "well I'm gonna kill him" to him sparing his father, it just felt like there was something missing to get him there. I just feel like other Marvel heroes have had more compelling development arcs.
I really don't like that the ten rings are basically the precursor to Hydra but also operated at the same time as them. Like, how many secret societies pulling the strings from the shadows can you have in one historical timeline, and how did all of them pull the strings so that society and the power balance of the world more or less mimicks ours? It's even worse when you consider the line that the Mandarin had "nothing left to conquer," like what, he had dominion over the whole world until he fell in love and the balance of world power just reverted to normal in his absence? I really wish they hadn't made drawn up the organization the way they did, it creates a narrative mess for the MCU.
It also did kinda bother me that Shang Chi got the Obidiah Stane immediate mastery. Like his mother presumably trained since childhood to learn the fighting style that let her overpower the Mandarin 1 on 1 while fighting with the Rings. Like okay fine, she taught him some of that too but it's not like she taught him to control the rings themselves. Shang gets one training session with his aunt and acheives perfect mastery with the rings in one go. I get that he's got the heart of the dragon or whatever and awakened in the water, but it still feels like it came too easily for him.
Just does feel like you have to turn off your brain a bit for this one. Enjoyable movie but it's certainly not the best written MCU flick
I quite liked it. I wouldn't say I have it in say, my top 5 favorite Marvel movies but upper half for sure.
Pros:
The martial arts choreography in particular was superb. I had a big smile on my face for a bulk of the first half of the film.
This movie had one of the better villains Marvel has put out.
The pacing was mostly good
Even the more Marvel-y elements were executed pretty well
Ta Lo was gorgeous to look at
Awkwafina's character really could have been quite annoying but wasn't. There were times I'd actually ask myself, "why didn't that line annoy me?" Credit to her that she struck a solid balance between comedy and serious acting.
I thought the family elements were executed really well. The backstory of the mother in particular served as a really good emotional anchor for the story.
Overall, even though there's a bit of a Marvel inundation going on where it really feels like they want to hold people's interest after Endgame, this was a really fun time at the movies.
Cons are kinda spoilery for the most part:
As much as I thought the action shift from pure martial arts to marvel cgi magic was still entertaining to watch, it's still a bit of a bummer to have seen such incredible hand to hand fight choreography slip away. It was justified well enough by the plot but still a bit of a bummer.
Shang-chi's sister wasn't given enough. I can't put my finger on it but it feels like there was supposed to be an emotional pay off with her but outside of being a badass warrior, narratively she did become a bit of a passenger.
I also didn't feel like Shang-Chi's character growth was all that earned. Sparing his father is a big moment for him as a character and there's something to be said for his realizing that his father was purely motivated by love, driven by the pain of the loss of his wife and the desperation to get her back. But it felt like from "well I'm gonna kill him" to him sparing his father, it just felt like there was something missing to get him there. I just feel like other Marvel heroes have had more compelling development arcs.
I really don't like that the ten rings are basically the precursor to Hydra but also operated at the same time as them. Like, how many secret societies pulling the strings from the shadows can you have in one historical timeline, and how did all of them pull the strings so that society and the power balance of the world more or less mimicks ours? It's even worse when you consider the line that the Mandarin had "nothing left to conquer," like what, he had dominion over the whole world until he fell in love and the balance of world power just reverted to normal in his absence? I really wish they hadn't made drawn up the organization the way they did, it creates a narrative mess for the MCU.
It also did kinda bother me that Shang Chi got the Obidiah Stane immediate mastery. Like his mother presumably trained since childhood to learn the fighting style that let her overpower the Mandarin 1 on 1 while fighting with the Rings. Like okay fine, she taught him some of that too but it's not like she taught him to control the rings themselves. Shang gets one training session with his aunt and acheives perfect mastery with the rings in one go. I get that he's got the heart of the dragon or whatever and awakened in the water, but it still feels like it came too easily for him.
Just does feel like you have to turn off your brain a bit for this one. Enjoyable movie but it's certainly not the best written MCU flick
He isn't the Mandarin, unless I am not remembering the line well, he even says he has had many names over the years and that he hates this new Mandarin one and laughs at it saying that Slattery's made up Madearin was named after a food dish.
Of you don't like the idea of secret society's in the MCU better stop watching now...there are tons of them and more to come with the introduction of Valentine and Leviathan nd I personally just put it down to heroes doing their best to keep them in check over the decades and centuries and fighting between themselves stopping one of them to ever get the complete control or the world they always seem to aspire to.
Some of Marvel's (mostly evil) secret societies/groups
Hydra
Laviathan
The Ten Rings
A.I.M
The Hand (seen in Netflix series)
Weapon X (creators of Logan, Deadpool, Weapon H, Leech and even Wolverine's biggest nemesis Sabertooth)
Hellfire Club
SWORD
The Maggia
The Illuminati
He isn't the Mandarin, unless I am not remembering the line well, he even says he has had many names over the years and that he hates this new Mandarin one and laughs at it saying that Slattery's made up Madearin was named after a food dish.
Of you don't like the idea of secret society's in the MCU better stop watching now...there are tons of them and more to come with the introduction of Valentine and Leviathan nd I personally just put it down to heroes doing their best to keep them in check over the decades and centuries and fighting between themselves stopping one of them to ever get the complete control or the world they always seem to aspire to.
Some of Marvel's (mostly evil) secret societies/groups
Hydra
Laviathan
The Ten Rings
A.I.M
The Hand (seen in Netflix series)
Weapon X (creators of Logan, Deadpool, Weapon H, Leech and even Wolverine's biggest nemesis Sabertooth)
Hellfire Club
SWORD
The Maggia
The Illuminati
“He didn’t know my actual name. He invented a new one,” Wenwu says, the “he” being another character — Dr. Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) from Iron Man 3. “He gave me the name of a chicken dish. It worked. America was afraid of an orange.”\
Edit: I should maybe have said that is not his name but it he is the leader of the Ten Rings just never used the name Mandarin.
This is what I got out of it as well. He is the leader of the Ten Rings, and they appropriated his organization/legend but didn't know who he was so they just made up an identity, "The Mandarin", since they needed a big bad to take the attention away from Killian.
“He didn’t know my actual name. He invented a new one,” Wenwu says, the “he” being another character — Dr. Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) from Iron Man 3. “He gave me the name of a chicken dish. It worked. America was afraid of an orange.”\
Edit: I should maybe have said that is not his name but it he is the leader of the Ten Rings just never used the name Mandarin.
I think the name of a dish/orange was a joke to highlight how racist the depiction of the Mandarin was. There's a dish called Mandarin Chicken, and there are also mandarin oranges, so it's almost like they are highlighting the fact that they just needed something that sounded somewhat Chinese and their inspiration may have just come from a Chinese dish/fruit.
He isn't the Mandarin, unless I am not remembering the line well, he even says he has had many names over the years and that he hates this new Mandarin one and laughs at it saying that Slattery's made up Madearin was named after a food dish.
Of you don't like the idea of secret society's in the MCU better stop watching now...there are tons of them and more to come with the introduction of Valentine and Leviathan nd I personally just put it down to heroes doing their best to keep them in check over the decades and centuries and fighting between themselves stopping one of them to ever get the complete control or the world they always seem to aspire to.
Some of Marvel's (mostly evil) secret societies/groups
Hydra
Laviathan
The Ten Rings
A.I.M
The Hand (seen in Netflix series)
Weapon X (creators of Logan, Deadpool, Weapon H, Leech and even Wolverine's biggest nemesis Sabertooth)
Hellfire Club
SWORD
The Maggia
The Illuminati
I'm not really complaining about it and I know there's all sorts of secret societies/groups in Marvel but in this specific case the whole 'I conquered the world and ruled from the shadows for 1000 years'. Because what you see of the 'Ten Rings' organization in the movie looks like a budget League of Assassins.
That's fine but like we're saying they did lay the back story on a bit thick, and could/should have kept it limited to the secret power broker in China/East Asia.
Very good movie. Walked in with no expectations and was very amused. It reminded me of the feeling I had after I saw GotG.
Since Endgame the movies have all been good: Far from Home, Black Widow and Shang-Chi. Lets hope the Eternals keeps up because the way it's looking Spiderman: No Way Home is going to be amazing
It looks like an overreaction to me. Instead of trying to understand what the person meant, twist it to make it sound bad and not what the person meant in order to score PC points.
I do wonder how Disney will react, though, since they fired Gunn for his old social media posts and Carano for her own politically incorrect comparison.
Seems this is not getting traction because it seems the writer wildly misunderstood what Simu Liu was even commenting on. It's beginning to look like a smear attempt.
Saw the movie for the second time and still enjoyed. I like how they were able to tie in Iron Man 3 and the martial arts scenes were one of the better fight scenes done in the MCU.
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