Shang-Chi y la leyenda de los diez anillos

I'll start by saying that if you're looking for a great story, you'll be disappointed. Shang-Chi is a pretty standard hero's journey at its core, which is a shame because the story could have been inspired by House of Flying Daggers and other wuxia titles.

So why a rating so high? Because where the story falls, everything else excels.

Shang-Chi is visually spectacular and a real treat for the eyes with some visuals that are incredibly distinct for the MCU. In regards to aesthetics, Black Panther walked so Shang-Chi could run a marathon.

The fight scenes are all amazing. There's one weak fight, but it's meant to be weak, and they're all very long, which is great to see. One of the early ones went on for a solid 5 - 10 minutes, which was unexpected but far from disappointing.

The first actual fight scene is my favourite in the MCU, and I was worried none of the others would top it, but they were all delightful to watch, and I was so glad they did a parallel of it later on. Either way, the writers went hard on the fight scenes and that paid off.

In summary, the story is lacking, but I'm glad in a way because that allowed everything else to shine. And shine, it did. I hope future directors take lessons from the aesthetics and choreography of Shang-Chi.

Overall this movie exceeded my expectations. I wish I had gone to see it in theatres because visually, this movie is stunning. All the fight scenes, especially the ending would have looked even cooler on the big screen.

But stepping back and thinking about the actual story, it's kind of random, predictable at times and I'm not seeing how they're going to incorporate it into the rest of the MCU.

The other thing is the fight scenes: the choreography, the cinematography, the effects, they were great, and I think they knew that, so they took advantage of it. During the first half of the movie there would be a new fight scene every fifteen minutes that looked fantastic, but seemed to last just a bit too long.

All in all I liked it. The acting was pretty good, the pacing was reasonable, the soundtrack was unique and the visual effects were a strongpoint It was a good movie.

The story was riddled with holes and plot issues. Since when does Awkwafina's pedestrian character all of a sudden get invited to become part of the MCU team? What's her super power... stupidity? Don't get me wrong, I love her, but her character was lazily written. Then there's the whole daddy issues dynamic - Shang is with him, then against, then with etc.. Then we have these ridiculous dragons fighting, where one scores some power crystals and becomes stronger! This is just infantile lazy writing. There was zero shock value or anything spectacular in the entire runtime, with tedious long middle acts and a bumbling third act. The jokes were cliched and not funny. The funniest parts were Ben Kingsley's character, (of whom was in this for what reasons??) and the ending to go Karaoke - which was the only time I actually cracked a chuckle. You'd think with three writers we'd have something cohesive and coherent. But instead of a Marvel superhero story, we got a Disney evil vs good with dragons thrown into the mix. It's as if they tried too hard to create the Asian version of Black Panther.

It's a shame, because the directing and cinematography were spot on, and great S/VFX - although a little overboard with the CGI i.e. Dragons. The martial arts choreography was outstanding (although again, overboard after the awesome bus scene), and the casting and performances were excellent, especially Leung, who pretty much carried the film on his shoulders. It's a 7/10 from me.

The best marvel movie after Endgame. The story is a bit cliché but the rest is absolutely amazing. The fight scenes are the best in the MCU in my opinion. Simu Liu as Shang-Chi is perfectly chosen and all the other characters are nice and the all the actors do a good job. Act 3 is on another level that we haven't seen before in MCU and the visual effects are spectacular, by far one of the best origin stories from Marvel!

Watched the IMAX version! Best solo since Iron Man (2008)! I had no expectations of this before. But the movie is much more lively. Enjoyed every moment. And also very engaging from start to finish. A kinda Cute-Action movie with some fun stuff!

This is the first movie that focuses more on martial arts than Marvel's superpower thing. Love to see a mix of Marvel's MASTER-LEVEL-CGI with Martial art. Kung-Fu with this kind of visual effect! Marvel nailed it again.

I've always loved Marvel's casting. Katy is too perfect for her role. Loved her chemistry with Shaun. Also laughed out loud at her childish stuffs.

Just one thing, not a big deal, the action scene of 'Dragon Riding' doesn't fit into the usual Marvel movie. But as Chinese flavor, it is OK. Except for this, the cinematography and VFX are a lot mesmerizing!