Shang-Chi, the master of weaponry-based Kung Fu, is forced to confront his past after being drawn into the Ten Rings organization.

Shang-Chi poster It’s nice that Marvel isn’t doing as many origin stories as before. It would get boring if every movie introducing a new character had to be their direct origin story, but then again, just jumping in leaves me lost with these new characters. You still have to introduce them somehow.

So it turns out that Shang-Chi is more like a superhero’s RE-origin story. He used to be a villain, and how he’s a good guy, but his Dad is still a villain, and he’s gotta stop his Dad. le sigh, more Daddy issues

Ok, that could have worked, but this left me no reason to care about Shang. Ten minutes into the movie and a big fight on a city bus springs out of no where. It just didn’t work for me. Everything was very convenient and all the new concepts didn’t jive.

When Michelle Yeoh is giving the backstory on Ta Lo’s magnificent cities, better than anything you got, all I’m thinking is… uh, pics or it didn’t happen. They kept telling us about the history and the big bad but they never showed us.

The actors did a decent job. The banter between Simu Lu and Awkwafina was fun. Ben Kingsly was hilarious. But Tony Chiu-Wai Leung wasn’t villainous enough, but that’s because he didn’t have anything to work with. This guy is supposed to be the biggest warlord in the world over thousands of years, well then make him a villain!

I think the movie would have worked better if the plot was more about Shang’s dad and his redemption arc, instead of Shang: Dad was evil. Wife made him good. Wife dies. He’s sad and goes back to evil. His kids bring him back from the Dark side, uh I mean, evil side. (This seems familiar.) Instead, he just happens to be listening to the disembodied voice of his wife, and the audience is supposed to just pick up that it’s the Big Bad. Is he evil? Up until the end, I couldn’t tell. Maybe the Dad was being tricked? There were a lot of assumptions the audience had to make. I kept second guessing everything.

The martial arts were good. In some scenes it was hard Wushu, and in other scenes, soft tai chi. Altho’ it still suffers from the 90 lbs. woman knocking over 250 lbs man trope, and I keep reminding myself that physics don’t matter in a Marvel movie.

Not Marvel’s best, but it probably won’t be their worst. It could have been good and they’re building up a new overarching story with the tie-in at the end. Hopefully, that will be good, but the execution this time around just didn’t work.

Watch: If you’re a MCU fan.

Re-watch: Probably not.

IMDB gives is 7.8. That is too high.

TBH, I preferred the new GI Joe: Snake Eyes movie. SHHH!