Shang-Chi: and the Legend of the Ten Rings
It is great that movies are now using cultural language, but when the movie is for a child, where is the logic in this? Parents are not going to read them to them, especially in movie theatres or when kids watch the movie 50 times.
The movie is very entertaining and the fight scene between Xu (aka Tony Leung) Li is like a dance of love. In just that one fight you see years of courtship and changing of emotions. This leads to the question about the age of the characters. The movie tells us in 1996 the father goes looking for this mythical place. Even assuming he finds it the same year that he starts looking for it, and they fall in love and mate that same year. Shaun (aka Shang-Chi) would only be 24, and yet he (and his sister and best friend) looks to be around my age which would make him around 45. They should have left out the written line 1996. Or any reference to dates to make it more believable.
Shaun’s best friend Katy, played by Awkwafina (aka Nora Lum), is a great comedic relief to keep you from staying too long in one emotion. She also helps set up the back story and make you realize that there is a large secret, that Shaun has been keeping his whole life, which brings in the modern play of the ten rings.
There are continuity issues in lines. Katy has a line that she is not fluent in Chinese. This does allow the scene to change back to English with the slander I know ABC, but later she is very fluent in understanding and speaking it. Also, when they are driving through the magical woods, her left and right turn to look the same at the start.
And as always Michelle Yeoh, who plays Ying Nan, brings a wonderful performance. She has always known how to sow the emotions, not just speak them, as so many actors do.
Ben Kingsley who plays Trevor Slattery, is always a delight and plays the key to bringing Shaun to his mothers’ world. It looks like they imported Pokémon into the world they teleport to. I am confused as to why they would think the language on another planet would be Chines. But that is how they greet them.
Some of the fight scenes are entertaining but not realistic. Which makes you wonder which is more important. Honesty or entertainment? Which will lead you to the next philosophical questions. What is the balance in making one skin color equal to another? The light skins in this film are portrayed as being dumb.
The film also touches on many lessons and issues.
1. Young people not knowing what they should do, but never staying with something long enough to even become good at it. Be they fall to realize that some of us, can only be happy if we are doing many things, depending on our mood.
2. Servicer remorse is real and can be hard on the children when the remaining parent has it.
3. The way we fight can lead insight to how we see life and live it. The problem is most of us never have someone of good value to help us find the balance we need, both in life and in fighting.
4. We cannot become so blind that we do not listen to reason. It should not take the destruction of the world for us to open our eyes. To see the pain, we have been causing other people in our blind ambitions.
This movie is worth your money, and it has many great lessons if you wish to learn them to improve our world. It is also one of the movies that are not what the previews say and is way better than the previews.