Strong kickoff for another Marvel character

 

    Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings leaps into Asian-American mythos in much in the way that Black Panther brought Afrocentric freshness to the indestructible Marvel universe.

    I don’t know if Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will have the same impact as Black Panther — either commercially or culturally. But this latest Marvel movie has enough positive elements (action, humor and a story with deep family roots) to constitute an entertaining addition to Marvel’s apparently endless stream of movies.

     Shang-Chi gets off to a lively start. Sean (Simu Liu) -- later to become Shang-Chi -- works as a valet in San Francisco along with pal Katy (Awkwafina). It doesn't take long for the two to take a dizzying ride in a borrowed car.

     Sean and Katy also encounter a group of thugs on a bus, a sequence in which clever martial-arts maneuvers are augmented by the excitement of watching a large vehicle careen through the streets of San Francisco.

    Sean, we learn, has a secret. He was raised in China by a father (Tony Leung) who schooled him in martial arts. Leung's Wenwu was no pipe-and-slippers dad. Centuries ago, he acquired the fabled 10 rings which gave him superhero powers and eternal life. He expected his son to take his place as head of a powerful secret force of warriors.

    Shang-Chi had other ideas. He fled China when he was 14. 

    Upon his return to Macau 10 years later, Shang reunites with his younger sister Xialing (Meng'er Zhang). She's still upset that Shang left her with a father who didn't treat his daughter the way he treated his son.

   The plot eventually takes Shang and Katy to the mythic land of Ta-Lo where they meet Shang's aunt Ying Nan (Michelle Yeoh), a wise woman who makes positive use of her martial arts-skills.

    Like most Marvel movies, Shang-Chi gobbles up comic-book mythology as if were popcorn. Wuwen, who gave up his powers when he married Shang's mother (Fala Chen), believes that he can reunite with his late wife if he penetrates a seal that separates an evil soul-sucking dragon from humanity. 

    The meeting of Wuwen and Chen's Jiang Li produces some of the movie's more intriguing and well-choreographed action. Li's the only person who's able to subdue Wuwen's fighting spirit. 

     It makes more sense to see all this in a theater than to write about it in a review. Besides, the mythic elements of the story are supported by recognizable emotions: a husband's inability to accept his wife's death, a son's struggle to accept his true identity, and a sister who can't totally abandon her sibling resentments.

    The Ta-Lo sequences include an element of cuteness in the form of a furry faceless, winged creature that struck me as more Disney than Marvel, a little too precious perhaps. 

    But Shang-Chi never skimps on action. A fight that takes place on scaffolding attached to a high rise offers vertiginous fun.

    I've read that Liu wanted to model his fighting style on Jackie Chan. The fight sequences contain elements of Chan-like humor but, in my view, don’t rise to the level of Chan’s best work, which admittedly makes for a high bar.

   Director Destin Daniel Cretton and his team were smart to give Shang-Chi a sidekick and the movie suffers a bit when Awkwafina is off-screen. Liu masters the physical aspects of the role but sometimes  comes up short on personality. Oh well, that's probably a marginal criticism considering that Shang-Chi is an emerging character.

   The supporting cast -- particularly Yeoh, Leung, and Zhang -- offer more than window dressing. They really supports the movie, as does Benedict Wong, whose role is smaller but still strong. Ben Kingsley adds humor as Trevor Slattery, a fading TV actor whose presence is played for laughs. 

   The movie's ending -- involving dragons (good and evil), a father/son battle, and lots of fiery combat -- can't entirely avoid the bloat that seems obligatory in these efforts.

    Overall, though, Shang-Chi succeeds in introducing a new Marvel character to the screen and proves an invigorating addition to the Marvel universe. 

    Equally important in a world in which sequels seem mandatory, the movie leaves you wanting to see more of Shang-Chi and Katy, a comic-book duo with promising  potential.

A visually beautiful 'Grandmaster'

Even with flaws, Wong Kar-wai's martial-arts epic tends to sweep you away.

Director Wong Kar-wai 's second foray into the world of martial arts after 1994's Ashes of Time might be one of the most elegantly mounted martial arts movie yet.*

In telling the story of the great Ip Man -- the martial artist who trained the legendary Bruce Lee -- Wong has made a sprawling, beautiful epic that suffers only because it has been trimmed down for U.S. consumption.

Best known for creating sensual, luciously stylized images in movies such as In the Mood For Love (2000), Wong has met martial-arts material more than half way.

Wong's fight scenes are nicely assembled, pitting various martial arts schools against one another and also helping to anchor a review of Chinese history from the 1930s through the 1950s. The story includes the Japanese occupation of China, frictions between northern and southern China and lots of jockeying for position among various martial arts masters.

Those familiar with Wong's work won't be surprised to learn that Grandmaster also tells an ill-fated love story between two great martial artists, Tony Leung's Ip Man and Zhang Ziyi's Gong Er, a woman who devotes her life to restoring the lineage built by her father (Wang Qingxiang), a master from northern China.

Wong allows Zhang -- who's playing a gifted female martial artist in a male-dominated milieu -- to share the spotlight with Leung as the movie explores themes hinged on fate, skill and honor, often in sequences soaked in heavy rain.

I'm not certain how the staunchest of martial arts fans will react to Wong's movie because the story is told in an operatic style that embraces melodrama and because Wong has aimed higher than the genre sometimes demands.

But Wong doesn't slight the artistry of fighting. Author and boxing aficionado Norman Mailer used to call boxing matches a form of conversation. Wong seems to adopt a similar view, making clear that when skilled opponents face off, they're engaging in an exchange between warring spirits.

To this end, he makes fine use of the work of gifted fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping, who stages the fight scenes, a job he also performed for movies such as The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Drunken Master.

Because the movie has been altered for American audiences, Wong adds title cards that offer historical guidance to those of us who come up short on Chinese history and martial-arts lore. These title cards play roughly the same function they would in a silent movie.

Even Wong's detractors will have to admit that the director's collaboration with cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd's has resulted in some of the year's most gorgeous imagery.

And true to the ethos of these movies, the martial arts warriors all exude skill, but only reach the highest levels of achievement when their craft is tempered by a sense of duty and honor.

History turns Ip Man into an exile. He moves to Hong Kong at a time when the great martial artists are less revered than they once were. His commitment to his art isn't always recognized.

The version of The Grandmaster being released in the U.S. includes a few narrative lapses and a protracted ending, but no matter how you react to the story Wong tells, it's difficult not to be swept away by his unashamed commitment to style and rhapsodic displays of visual artistry.

*Ashes of Time was recut and re-released as Ashes of Time Redux in 2008.