Actor Simu Liu received quite a birthday gift today: the very first look at Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings.
Liu stars as the iconic, titular Marvel comic book character — and the very first Asian superhero pic from Marvel or any superhero pic as far as I know (don’t @ me if I’m wrong).
True to form, Marvel is giving us a mere taste of what the Destin Daniel Cretton-directed pic is all about…even with the first trailer. Don’t get it twisted — the trailer is dope as hell, but all we know is that Liu’s Shang Chi had a rough upbringing and he looks good with his shirt off as all male-identifying Marvel heroes do. But let’s be honest, seeing the legendary Tony Leung as Shang Chi’s father Wenwu (aka The Mandarin) is the gag of this whole trailer.
So what we gather from the trailer is that SC trained to be something he didn’t want to be (this story sounds all too familiar for Asian and many immigrant families). From the looks of it, Shang Chi Chi ended up following his own journey as he and his BFF Katy (Awkwafina) go about their days doing karaoke and living their best lives.
10 years later, Chi Chi is brought back into the family business which is the mysterious criminal Ten Rings organization (hence the title of the movie). As a result, action-packed shenanigans ensue and Awkwafina serves some Sandra Bullock in Speed realness.
How is this all connected to the MCU, who knows? But we are dying to see.
Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings also stars Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan, as well as Fala Chen, Meng’er Zhang, Florian Munteanu and Ronny Chieng. Cretton wrote the script with David Callaham and Andrew Lanham. The film is produced by Kevin Feige and Jonathan Schwartz, with Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso and Charles Newirth serving as executive producers. Shang Chi opens in theaters on September 3.
Watch the trailer above and check out the poster below.
