I’ve long bemoaned the prominence of the “punchplosion” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (see Avengers: Age of Ultron for prime examples of flying fists that land with a massive thud). Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the 25th installment in the franchise and a thoughtful consideration of how to hold power, dares to question the potency of the punchplosion.
Simu Liu stars as the title character, an affable car valet in San Francisco who is hiding a complicated past from his coworker and best friend, Katy (a very funny Awkwafina). That past involves his estranged father Wenwu (the legendary Tony Leung). Wenwu presides over a nefarious, secret army of assassins by way of the titular rings—ornate bracelets that he wears on his arms and can manipulate energy in all sorts of powerful ways, including punchplosions. (I love the way they clink in the sound design, adding a tactile touch to the CGI wizardry.)
Shang-Chi’s past is revealed early on in one of the movie’s many thrilling and expertly staged fight sequences. (Brad Allen, who passed away just before the film’s release, served as supervising stunt coordinator and second unit director; the director is Dustin Daniel Cretton, who also wrote the screenplay with Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham.) In this sequence, Shang-Chi and Katy are blithely riding a public bus when they’re suddenly surrounded by his father’s henchmen, who threaten them both with violence. Shang-Chi has no choice but to bust out the martial-arts moves that were cruelly indoctrinated into him as a child, before he ran away from his father’s home. The ensuing brawl (incorporating the bus’ seats, poles, and—in one ingenious bit of comic timing—the signal cord) has the complexity, energy, and inventiveness of the great Jackie Chan (Rumble in the Bronx, Police Story)—as well as a bit of Spider-Man flair in the way Shang-Chi protects the other passengers while fending off his assailants.
Other fight scenes have more elegance, recalling the wuxia tradition on display in the likes of Wong Kar-wai’s Ashes of Time and Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Perhaps the most beautiful sequence in the film is an early flashback detailing the first encounter between Wenwu and Shang-Chi’s mother, Jian Li (Fala Chen): as opponents in a bout in a bamboo forest. Amidst the swaying grasses, their jousting transforms into wooing (like all good fight scenes, this one has a psychological component). Jian Li harnesses the wind at one point, and the camera begins to float about as if it’s riding the breeze—keeping its distance to allow us to appreciate the actors’ acrobatics, then moving in closer to observe their intricate footwork.
Throughout, there is also a focus on their hands. When Wenwu punches, Jian Li deftly cups his fists and manipulates them into open palms. Later, Shang-Chi (and I should note Liu is a triple threat in the lead role: athletic, funny, and dramatic) learns this technique from his aunt (another legend: Crouching Tiger’s Michelle Yeoh). And in the climactic sequence, Wenwu’s final gesture is yet another play on this clenched fist/open palm motif. The moment is made all the more affecting by Leung, who manages to bring layers of melancholy from his Wong collaborations—Happy Together, Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love, the aforementioned Ashes of Time—to the MCU.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings isn’t perfect. There’s a bit too much exposition involving myths, history, and character backstory; that climax inevitably abandons the intimacy of the fight scenes for gargantuan CGI. Yet by that point the movie has earned too much goodwill to be affected much by such complaints. I’m sure there are plenty of punchplosions to come in the MCU, probably even delivered by Shang-Chi himself, but at least Ten Rings offers a momentary respite from the reverberations.
