See The Trailer For Marvel’s Shang-Chi
Check out the first teaser Shang-Chi trailer, a true martial arts movie for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It looks pretty awesome
This article is more than 2 years old
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is set to take the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a slightly different direction during this phase. While the franchise has long been heavy on the action and the different heroes fighting in their own style, we haven’t seen a true martial arts movie for the universe. That is, until now. The Shang-Chi trailer just dropped its first teaser and it looks every bit a martial arts movie through and through. In fact, it looks pretty awesome, set to introduce a smaller figure from the comic book pages with a huge-looking story and feel.
Check out the first Shang-Chi trailer which ushers in a new world for Marvel and gives us the first real glimpse at what’s in store for the character.
Wow. Well, this looks like really something. It’s a full-blown martial arts movie to its very core with elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe running through the overall theme. The story, in many ways, looks like a simple one. In this Shang-Chi trailer, the titular character played by relative newcomer Simu Liu, is a man living your typical young-adult life. There are clubs, selfies, and mundane valet jobs that take up his daily routine. But behind all of that is something from his past that’s about to catch up with him in a big way. The voice-over tells us that Shang-Chi has been given ten years to find a life outside of his past, but it’s gotten him nowhere.
In this Shang-Chi trailer, some of the character’s back story comes in and we see that he’s haunted by a past that won’t leave him behind. Silently punching a post in a training dojo, we understand that this is where he’d spent his childhood. He was trained by his father Wenwu, who is otherwise known by his darker persona The Mandarin. The latter runs the group, the Ten Rings a secretive and violent gang, named after the rings which give The Mandarin his special powers. We see some of those on display in the trailer.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings looks like it dials up the martial arts action and fighting basically from the jump. While the Shang-Chi trailer shows him living something of a cookie-cutter life on the outside, it also looks like he’s been training in earnest all of these years, possibly in preparation for what happens next. Namely, his father wants him back in the fold, as a member of the Ten Rings who will one day take his place at the top of the organization. And this is where the action starts.
If the trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is any indication, this is set to be a very different kind of Marvel movie. Carrying over a number of tried and true martial arts themes, namely a family reckoning when it comes to the patriarchal nature of a violent father, this film will pit father against son in more ways than one. There looks to be intense and large-scale fighting sequences that bring in elements of the supernatural while also grounding themselves in typical set pieces. Frankly, it looks pretty awesome.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is set to release this fall, September 3, 2021. It’s unclear how it will fit into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Based on this teaser Shang-Chi trailer, it might not need to. This could be the beginning of a whole new, independent world. Though the character’s story does overlap at times with the likes of Daredevil and Moon Knight in the comic books. That remains to be seen, but for now, it looks like we are getting a spectacular new addition to the universe.
