Iñigo Ortega Martínez

Movies

Movie Reviews are only in original language or English

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

8.0

2021-09-11

MANY SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU ARE WARNED.

Feels like Marvel is dying for adding to the plot more empowered women. I mean, it's fine, you have already done it before (check Captain Marvel), but do it at least in a proper way you know?

The protagonist, Shaun or Xu Shang Chi, what is he doing there? I mean, in the plot? He is like jumping around, hitting bad guys, playing a kind of "sucker" role, basically, nothing too complex I must say. We could say the only reason for him to be around is that he is the "receptacle" or the heir for the 10 rings. Nice, really cool. However, you have a super powerful woman, at least a genius, capable of learning advanced fighting techniques just by looking at people fight, capable of escaping from the mansion of, probably, the most powerful and oldest man in earth (then the one with the most experience/knowledge), capable of running a business with 16 years and succeeding more than anyone could have expected, the only person in the world capable of streaming live fights in real time through the dark web (something impractical because of all the hops, encryption and measures tor, and probably i2p, take), with inhuman strength that allow her to take down walls and make holes in them without even getting dirty. She is also the only one that is greeted by the dragon on the whole film. For some reason, she can also wear a completely different armor on the final fight, you know, to make it prettier or what? it's not like she is the protagonist... or is she?

Well, that's enough talk about the proper protagonist. What about Shaun? meh, I see nothing interesting on him. One thing I do realize, on the bus fight, there is a moment, when the bus is going to split in two, that all the bad boys except Piccolo wannabe disappear afterwards. Did he disintegrate them or something? Well, who cares. And what about the final fight with his father? Why does he say that his mother was murdered because he, the father, cared too much about the rings? I mean, what? He literally stopped using the rings because of her. He literally saved them on a box to be with his beloved. This guy, the son, is personally not adequate to perform the protagonist role. I doubt he is so mediocre on original comics.

Just put more competent people on the field Marvel, please. And remove the leftovers, please.

Katy? Well, at least she is funny? It's fine. But, by the way, someone fine doesn't just pierce a mega giant Golbat with a single arrow. I mean... If it was so easy... The other archers were just looking and walking around or what? And like one of those Zubats sucks the soul of her one-day-long master and she is like "this is fine", waits until Zubat finishes using Leech Life on the guy and then she runs away? what does she do? I don't remember and I don't need to. Of course he didn't want to take her to the fight, she didn't deserve any trust. Well, she is funny at least, right?

Well, let's just not talk about post-credits scenes. Well, I'm going to talk briefly about them. The first one is fine. The second one? Marvel, a second one, really? Now seems like Xia Ling is going to have like a fighting school for boys and girls? Nice, but why did Marvel even use a second post-credits scene just to show a non-canon 20-second-long side-story? Taking into account several details on this scene... It is of course another feminist propaganda trial. Well, whatever, but if you wanted to make good propaganda, you could've just used Xia Ling as the protagonist and removed that guy. The film would've had much more sense. Imagine, a woman that is marginalized as a child, mistreated by her father, that is able to handle anything by herself, that is the only one that the super dragon respects, that is like a super genius. What the f? Where do I sign?

Hey! But the film itself is pretty cool.

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