Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings [Marvel]

pixelburp · 19-04-2021 2:48pm #1

A bit of a mouthful for a title, but a trailer finally popped up of the first MCU martial-arts film. I hope if nothing else, this is one of those rare Western martial arts films that remembers to just let the camera hold on the action - and not edit it to bits. Which, IMO, has been a distinct problem with MCU films (especially the Russo helmed ones)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giWIr7U1deA

Mr Crispy · 19-04-2021 3:31pm

This is the first Marvel headlining character I hadn't heard of before the film iteration. I just hope the fight scenes are better than those in Iron Fist!

Midnight_EG · 19-04-2021 3:34pm

Looks good as a stand-alone action movie but I don't know anything about Shang-Chi or his place in the comics and wider MCU

speedboatchase · 19-04-2021 3:53pm

This looks like an interesting way to decide if MCU fans will watch any old ****e. Remove the MCU branding and this looks like a Mortal Kombat spin-off, with nothing we haven't seen before and zero stars. But it's 'Phase Four' so... $800m worldwide.

pixelburp · 19-04-2021 4:11pm

speedboatchase wrote: »

This looks like an interesting way to decide if MCU fans will watch any old ****e. Remove the MCU branding and this looks like a Mortal Kombat spin-off, with nothing we haven't seen before and zero stars. But it's 'Phase Four' so... $800m worldwide.

Well, Marvel already has form here: pandering directly to the Chinese market via some incredibly clumsy interludes during Iron Man 3; I'd not be surprised if this adaptation was greenlit with half an eye on that audience. Not like that market isn't a prized pig in certain franchise circles.

So if it does well there, it won't really matter if the rest of the world goes "meh". As you say it's Phase 4, and pandemic starvation will make this the #1 movie of the year regardless. Purely from the POV of the martial arts genre, I hope for once Marvel let the action speak for itself.

Agent Coulson · 19-04-2021 4:17pm

I just want to find out how Trevor is!

mikhail · 19-04-2021 5:24pm

If the action isn't edited to ribbons, I'll give it a look. It looks a bit bland and generic though.

Sleepy · 19-04-2021 5:42pm

The quality of the scraps on the Luas Red Line looks to have improved at least...

pixelburp · 19-04-2021 6:59pm

mikhail wrote: »

If the action isn't edited to ribbons, I'll give it a look. It looks a bit bland and generic though.

I've brought it up already but it's truly, 100% my main worry. Martial arts movies are only as good as their choreography and given the MCU loves shuffling set pieces onto the second unit, maybe this time they'll have hired some proper experts in the field to shoot them. A couple of moments looked pretty cool TBH, while others looked too accentuated. We'll see.

More curious though was how the ostensible lead character spoke one line, a reaction at that, with Awkwafina getting more. Maybe it's just her being more famous, but I found it odd.

paulie1983 · 19-04-2021 7:40pm

Be nice to see the proper Mandarin in action especially after the Iron Man 3 mess.

Eduard Khil · 19-04-2021 7:46pm

Wonder will we see Danny Rand in any vein seems an ideal chance to reintroduce The Iron Fist

Varik · 19-04-2021 8:09pm

Eduard Khil wrote: »

Wonder will we see Danny Rand in any vein seems an ideal chance to reintroduce The Iron Fist

paulie1983 wrote: »

Be nice to see the proper Mandarin in action especially after the Iron Man 3 mess.

Not really going to be a proper Mandarin here either as they're combining multiple characters, and using alternate version of them.

Mandarin (who has 10 alien rings) and Shang-chi's father where they seem to be using the Battleworld version of him who lead the Ten rings.

The Battleworld version is set in a version of K'un Lun with a version of Danny Rand.

Slydice · 20-04-2021 12:28am

That looks cool enough. Some bits Ant-man-ish, some bits more hands-on actioney. Was that Madripoor in some of the shots?

Eduard Khil · 20-04-2021 11:21am

Crouching Tiger Tokyo Drift Bullet Proof Monk all got into a blender

Homelander · 20-04-2021 3:27pm

Even though my interest in the MCU post End-Game is dramatically waning, I'd still go watch it given that it's a little off the beaten track of the MCU, and also that Marvel's closest thing to a dud was probably Captain Marvel, and even then it was grand as a popcorn flick.

Chris_Heilong · 21-04-2021 11:53pm

Looks kind of dull at the moment and I have been a big fan of kung fu films since the 80s but it does not seem special yet and I hated that cgi scene with the dragons and the giant lion creature so hope there is less of that and more grounded fight scenes, However I never judge a movie wholly on its first trailer as usually trailers can give off the wrong impression so will wait until the next one comes out. Also the star just looks like an average joe and does not look like an actor at all.

p to the e · 22-04-2021 9:37am

I read on another forum (Re**it) that a few people were saying the film might not go down well in China as the lead actor was too ugly to play a Chinese hero. Apparently the male lead needs to be beautiful. Not handsome or rugged but beautiful. I've no skin in this game so can't confirm either way. As has already been mentioned this film will soar or flop based on its fight scenes.

Chris_Heilong · 22-04-2021 1:32pm

p to the e wrote: »

I read on another forum (Re**it) that a few people were saying the film might not go down well in China as the lead actor was too ugly to play a Chinese hero. Apparently the male lead needs to be beautiful. Not handsome or rugged but beautiful. I've no skin in this game so can't confirm either way. As has already been mentioned this film will soar or flop based on its fight scenes.

Knowing china so well I can understand that completely, the Americans always seem to put average looking Asians into roles but do not do the same thing for Black or White actors, it is like they do not get it.

Eduard Khil · 23-04-2021 10:39am

Jet Li was an average looking Asian man in most of his roles if you are looking for shaolin monk or Fu Manchu types to indicate intent or martial arts experience

silverharp · 23-04-2021 11:38am

were they hoping for chinese bucks?

pixelburp · 23-04-2021 11:58am

silverharp wrote: »

were they hoping for chinese bucks?

Given the shape of the worldwide box office, it's ... possible but debatable too - and not like anyone's going to come out and say "yeah, we want the Chinese box-office to gobble this up". It's likely Shang-Chi will have some Phase 4 overlaps, especially if "magic" is going to take centre-stage so it's not like the film's going to exist in its own narrative space either.

There is form here re. China. Iron Man 3 made a big, blunt swing towards the market with a crude interstitial only shown to that audience. Apparently, there was only 4 minutes added, included a commercial for milk, and weren't shot by Shane Black; they also starred Wang Xueqi and Fan Bingbing - who'd have been big stars there - so Marvel obviously threw some money at the idea.

The IP came about as a fairly overt attempt by Marvel to cash in on an interest in Martial Arts; if Wikipedia is to be believed, Marvel wanted the rights to adapt the TV show Kung-Fu; they couldn't get 'em and instead bought the use of Fu-Manchu (a character pretty-much synonymous these days with the "Yellow Peril" portrayal of Asian characters) and ran with it from there.

You can see one of the scenes here; not great quality or subtitled, so for all I know it's fake & from another, coincidental scene within another movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39m85puOQok

Mr Crispy · 25-06-2021 2:45am

New trailer;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YjFbMbfXaQ

Midnight_EG · 25-06-2021 7:17am

Fin Fang Foom underwater and Abomination in the cage fight... Interesting

pixelburp · 25-06-2021 9:18am

At least the lead spoke some lines this time. I dunno, still can't quite cut the mental gap between this and the MCU. Same with the other phase 4 stuff so far. No doubt about it, after the emotional crescendo of Endgame, I have never returned to that resting eagerness to learn what the next episode was (which the MCU basically functioned as). I want to know what the "in" here is beyond _Moar MCU_, cos I don't see it yet.

I hadn't realised just how wedded I was to the iconography and characters of the MCU til they were all removed from the equation.

FunLover18 · 25-06-2021 4:32pm

pixelburp wrote: »

At least the lead spoke some lines this time. I dunno, still can't quite cut the mental gap between this and the MCU. Same with the other phase 4 stuff so far. No doubt about it, after the emotional crescendo of Endgame, I have never returned to that resting eagerness to learn what the next episode was (which the MCU basically functioned as). I want to know what the "in" here is beyond _Moar MCU_, cos I don't see it yet.

I hadn't realised just how wedded I was to the iconography and characters of the MCU til they were all removed from the equation.

I'm trying to approach it as a new series rather than a new episode. Phases 1 through 3 are very much their own contained story so I'm going into Phase 4 as I went into Phase 1 with lower expectations. They're not going going to hit the ground running and we are going to have to sit through a few origins but hopefully we won't get anything like IM2 or TIH.

I really like the look of Shang-Shi, as someone mentioned earlier it feels very Black Panther in terms of world building.

pixelburp · 25-06-2021 5:02pm

FunLover18 wrote: »

I'm trying to approach it as a new series rather than a new episode. Phases 1 through 3 are very much their own contained story so I'm going into Phase 4 as I went into Phase 1 with lower expectations. They're not going going to hit the ground running and we are going to have to sit through a few origins but hopefully we won't get anything like IM2 or TIH.

I really like the look of Shang-Shi, as someone mentioned earlier it feels very Black Panther in terms of world building.

You're not wrong, and my conscious brain is trying to do this; maybe if The Eternals and Shang-Chi's trailers left me a bit more energised I'd be more pumped in turn for Phase IV; but knowing now the Big Guns are back with Marvel (ie, the X-Men), trotting out these D Listers for the brand new "season" feels a bit underwhelming. Now, we've seen what the MCU has done with the lesser characters, so I remain cautiously optimistic.

Cotts72 · 26-06-2021 3:04am

Thought this trailer was very promising, looking forward to it be now

Slydice · 26-06-2021 3:07am

Midnight_EG wrote: »

Abomination in the cage fight... Interesting

I was literally like .. HOLD UP! was that ABOMINATION!!!!

I guess it was.

Midnight_EG · 26-06-2021 10:55am

Slydice wrote: »

I was literally like .. HOLD UP! was that ABOMINATION!!!!

I guess it was.

It was, turn on subtitles and it confirms it

pixelburp · 26-06-2021 10:56am

Wonder will Tim Roth lend his voice; one of those actors who had a fairly prominent career for a spell, then disappeared. Popped up in TV a couple of times, which is not the step down it used to be of course.

FunLover18 · 26-06-2021 11:03am

pixelburp wrote: »

Wonder will Tim Roth lend his voice; one of those actors who had a fairly prominent career for a spell, then disappeared. Popped up in TV a couple of times, which is not the step down it used to be of course.

I would be surprised if he doesn't given that he has been cast in She-Hulk. I wonder if that show will take place before or after Shang-Chi.

pixelburp · 26-06-2021 11:30am

FunLover18 wrote: »

I would be surprised if he doesn't given that he has been cast in She-Hulk. I wonder if that show will take place before or after Shang-Chi.

Oh yeah, keep forgetting that show's happening. Was weirdly coy for ages about who would be lead, but seems to have ramped up of late. As you say weird if he didn't lend his voice, and voice work is probably something that can stay fairly remote now.

plastic glass · 26-06-2021 11:38am

pixelburp wrote: »

You're not wrong, and my conscious brain is trying to do this; maybe if The Eternals and Shang-Chi's trailers left me a bit more energised I'd be more pumped in turn for Phase IV; but knowing now the Big Guns are back with Marvel (ie, the X-Men), trotting out these D Listers for the brand new "season" feels a bit underwhelming. Now, we've seen what the MCU has done with the lesser characters, so I remain cautiously optimistic.

I really hope they don’t incorporate the x-men into the marvel universe even though I know it’s inevitable. I’m not sure how you tell the story about discrimination against people with powers when non mutants with powers in the current movie universe don’t really get discriminated against. Also the x-men story has been told on screen, albeit often badly.

I am far far more interested in fantastic four and dr. Doom which I think will fit into the current and future phases quite nicely. Dr. Doom as the next big bad would be cool, though he needs some allies for a bit of variety

Varik · 28-06-2021 1:06am

Marvel dealt on a number of occasions with the every weirder discrimination of mutants when there were so many people with powers other than them. Inhumans too.

Think it's more of a job to tie them in to existing cannon if it's not multivers stuff rather than explain why people would have an issue potentially millions of random people gaining powers expecially teenagers compared to still limited arms race among at most a few thousand.

pixelburp · 28-07-2021 5:10pm

Another new trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfVyikMrJ_o

silverharp · 14-08-2021 9:04am

Box office projections are out for this and it doesnt look great $35m-$55m, will probably do a little better than suicide squad but looking like it will be a flop. Its not being streamed until a month and half after I think, also looking like wont be shown in china. Marvel will have to take the L on this and probably The Eternals too. Im sure the Delta variant will be used as an excuse but there just doesnt seem to be any buzz about the film

pixelburp · 14-08-2021 5:42pm

At this stage who can possibly say? It's new MCU on the big screen so I find those estimates a little over cautious. Black Widow did pretty well, especially for a parallel digital release - and it a mere prequel too.

This film is literally the first step in Phase IV, there is bound to be interest, even hype. If the film's crap it might drop like a stone through word of mouth but the estimates can't know that. And been a while since MCU had a total stinker.

The real question is when the big hitters of the X Men are coming. They were the prime IPs of the stable and the silence on their appearance has been curious.

CastorTroy · 14-08-2021 6:13pm

Shang Chi's performance will be interesting.

With Iron Man it was something pretty fresh which encouraged people to keep seeing more in the series but as we know there's pretty much Superhero fatigue at this point and a lot of people probably used Endgame as a jumping off point.

This is like watching a tv series where they're multiple seasons in and most of the original cast have left at once and they're bringing in new guys. Like Scrubs.

Then you have the pandemic. People will still be cautious and if going to the cinema they may want to just risk it for something they're familiar with.

We know it'll be available online 45 days after release and at this point people have been conditioned to watch films at home.

These are some factors to go against it and if it doesn't do well, I hope the studio sees those factors as the cause and not the fact that it's an Asian led film.

pixelburp · 14-08-2021 6:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117753797#Comment_117753797

Not convinced the fatigue is real TBH, and certainly if this flopped it wouldn't be a trend til we saw a few phase 4 films underperform.

It's crazy to think where this started, speaking of Iron Man. Probably well known at this stage but Marvel bankrolled that film with a loan from Merrill Lynch, and 10 of the marvel IPs were used as collateral. Had Iron Man flopped, they would have lost all its remaining top tier IPs.

FunLover18 · 14-08-2021 7:09pm

I haven't been following the cases in the states but are we back to anywhere approaching a normal level of cinema attendance where we're considering any movie a legitimate flop?

Sad Professor · 14-08-2021 7:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117754168#Comment_117754168

In terms of ticket sales, no, not even close. https://www.the-numbers.com/market/

The problem isn't the movies, it's lockdowns and lack of new films.

Slashfilm have an article about this film vilifying Disney and accusing them of experimenting with people's lives and jeopardising public safety for not releasing it simultaneously on VOD.

Slydice · 15-08-2021 2:25am

Hadn't really seen much about how this was expected to perform bar something like Antman level.. then recently I think Grace pointed out that the Black Widow lawsuit might mean they'd be ok with letting this film sink to point to it as an example of MCU films generally not making money at the moment.

pixelburp · 15-08-2021 10:21am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117756214#Comment_117756214

I dunno, I'm sure those in the lawsuit are just circling each other til a suitable dollar amount appears. Can't imagine marvel wanting a failure of its literal new phase, new generation in fact, of movies. The antman projections sound right though, had a look at they "only" made 500-600 million. Am so used to their mega successes in the team films, something that low feels quaint lol

johnny_ultimate · 15-08-2021 10:33am

I've no doubt there'll be (likely many) more Marvel hits in the future, but really is this new phase as much of a draw as what came before? There's no big team-up on the immediate horizon. There's a few big-name sequels later this year and next year, but also these unknown quantities kicking things off. 'Phase four' all seems a bit scattershot, at least until the films themselves start hinting at an actual direction of travel.

I mean, eventually we're going to get the X-Men or something to spice things up for the audience and build towards some big team-up, but Endgame was also a clear ending and exit ramp for many. It'll take a while to rebuild that sort of momentum, and Marvel have done the whole 'spend years building up to a big climax' thing so it'll be harder to make that seem fresh again.

But then again it'll be impossible to separate that side of things from the pandemic's impact on Shang-Chi. If it is a flop, it's certainly not going to be credible to go 'ahah, superhero fatigue!'. It's all too messy at the moment, making it impossible to judge what this first batch of new MCU films mean for the series' financial future.

silverharp · 15-08-2021 1:25pm

Going against Shangchi is that its an obscure Marvel property nobody would know about it, toys are already in the clearance aisle though I dont know how important merch is for these films. This film was being set up to be as big as Black Panther a few months back lol

speedboatchase · 16-08-2021 10:01am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117757328#Comment_117757328

I feel bad for anyone who thought that was possible. I had never seen a big-budget fantasy/comic book/James Bond-ish blockbuster with a nearly entirely black cast before Black Panther. Considering the demographics in US and the framing of Wakanka as a paradise, you could tell people were bursting to see it. For Shang Chi, we have an action movie with an Asian cast and martial arts scenes - something audiences in the West have been seeing since the 70s. Remove the MCU tag and this performs on par with Snake Eyes.

silverharp · 16-08-2021 10:33am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117760692#Comment_117760692

Im sure as a film it will be fine and even get good audience scores, it just wont be popular , this kind of property is best made for Disney Plus, as a series perhaps

pixelburp · 18-08-2021 11:38am

I dunno: the MCU managed to take the then extremely obscure Guardians of the Galaxy - a series featuring a talking tree and racoon - and make it one of its most successful and beloved properties. I wouldn't ever bet against the success of a MCU. Admittedly, GotG likely turned heads precisely because of that outlandish setup - and its ear-worm soundtrack.

Shang-Chi comes across a little more formulaic than James Gunn's films but like I said, wouldn't bet against it being a success all the same.

silverharp · 18-08-2021 11:58am

the lead was trying to do a they have it in for us sthick, it certainly is an experiment though, release a $200m film with no fanfair , knowing it will be streamedable in a month and a half. Grace Randolfph seems to be bigging it up

https://twitter.com/GraceRandolph/status/1427744302340485122

Foxtrol · 19-08-2021 8:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117756672#Comment_117756672

Don't know how you can call Phase 4 in any way comparatively more scattershot at this point - we've barely had a movie yet. We'd no idea what was coming during Phase 1 after the same number of movies. As for big names, we know we have X-Men, Fantastic 4, Blade all coming down the tracks, along with all of the sequels you mentioned.

I don't think it is a mistake that Marvel have chosen to go with some no-name properties first, it is pretty obvious they made the decision to do somewhat of a palate cleanse rather than trying to keep momentum from Endgame - trying to top that was just setting themselves up for failure, even prior to COVID. MCU is more like a TV series than any type of movie franchise we've ever seen. With a new season of a TV show you rarely try to match the momentum of the finale of the previous season.

Trying to build something that eventually matches Phase 1 - 3 might never be achieved, but the performance of their Disney+ TV content alone shows there is still a huge audience demand - whether it can be turned into movie going dollars in this new world is still up in the air.

pixelburp · 21-08-2021 10:07am

For anyone curious what martial arts in the MCU might look like there's a clip out from one of the fights. It's not as heavily edited as i thought it might be; looks like the action might be allowed to speak for itself and not be chopped into oblivion.

https://youtu.be/22Hy7jNoya4

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings [Marvel]

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