Given how uninteresting these costumes and designs look, I doubt they will sell many of these.
Honestly much of later Marvel has some very uninteresting heroes and villains. The only ones I can recall looking actually comic book-y of late are Taskmaster and Death Dealer.

 

Hmmm…



I do agree that I’m underwhelmed by Shang’s costume. Sneakers…really?

 

I hate to say it but the movie was just ok.
6.5/10
Beginning was good then it just was meh the rest of the movie. The rings are basically like Whiplash's electric whips and it shoots from his arms and not much else for having 10 rings. So far this year the movies I have been waiting for has underwhelmed me and the one I didnt expect any of like Nobody and F9 was more entertaining.

 

I stopped having much interest in this movie when I learned the rings were bracelets and not, well rings. And while I don't know this for certain, it seems like the rings don't have specific individual powers, like in the comics. I don't mind when they change minor things for the movies, but this is pretty fundamental.

 

You can partially blame the Infinity Stones for that.

Shang-Chi Producer Confirms Avengers' Infinity Stones Influenced MCU's Ten Rings Design (Exclusive)

 

I get why they changed it. The rings always felt like a less powerful version of the infinity gauntlet despite coming into the comics first. After having a whole 20+ movie series focused on the gauntlet I’m sure people don’t want to see rings that have similar but weaker properties.

 

If they were creative about it, they could have changed the abilities about what each did. Even if they made their power all the same, at least make them rings and not bracelets.

 

I'm pretty sure they took the route they did with the Rings because A) the comic Mandarin and his whole apparel is based heavily on the ultra-racist "Yellow Peril" stereotypes of the 60s/70s, and B) handwave-y mystical stuff is Dr. Strange's hat, so with both concerns in mind, they made a conscious effort to do something new for the franchise, and leaned further into the martial arts angle instead.

 

Having seen the movie, I would advise that there is much more to the rings than we (and the characters themselves) know.

 

Unfortunately I won’t be able to watch till October when it’s 45 day window is up…

 

and I know this is semantics, the rings technically still are rings. Just not finger rings.

 

I've not seen any spoilers for the movie outside what's already in the trailers, so I noted earlier that they could easily show the rings as being finger-rings on like, a Celestial or something, to at least nod to the comics. I have no clue if the movie already does just that, or gives some other origin to them.

 

Saw it and while I did have fun with it, I was also disappointed on some directions they took. The climax is certainly my top let downs.

Spoiler

I knew dragons were gonna be present, but for a Shang-Chi film I wanted it to keep the "giant monster/alien battle" climax out of it and make it exclusively martial arts. Well, guess what happened. Giant monsters distracting us from Shang and Wenwu's battle and dynamics. The Qi Kung Fu magic I could let it pass but the dragon fight is where it fell apart.

6.5/10

 

Spoiler: the final fight

I expected a final duel against his dad after Shang-Chi discarded the ten rings where they just go hand to hand, no alien magic rings, something more satisfying than his dad's soul getting eaten by a cgi monster.doesn't help that i went in with martial arts goggles on because I've been a fan of Brad Allan's work for the past ten years, so the turn to Shang-Chi standing on top of a Leviathan fighting a soul-eating Bahamut kinda took me out of it.

Aside from the ending's dive in quality I enjoyed a lot of the film. Maybe if I liked fantasy more than grounded stuff then I could like it more, but I appreciated how the first two acts brought in things from my Asian-American upbringing like the shoe rule, elders asking when you're gonna marry your friend (grandma, stop, she's only my friend), speaking ABC (American-Born Chinese [although for me it'd be ABV since I'm Viet]), etc.

Act 1: 9/10
Act 2: 9/10 (would've been an 8 but Shang-Chi vs Death Dealer was amazing. way better knife fighting and cinematography than Winter Soldier)
Act 3: 7.5/10

Also, according to Chinese speakers, the English subtitles misses some nuances. "小子，你对我说话尊重一点。我吃的盐比你吃的饭多"

Spoiler: lost in translation

Wenwu calling Deng Bo a young man apparently translates into "Kid, show some respect when you talk to me. I've eaten more salt than you've eaten rice in your entire life." which is just an Chinese boomer way to tell a younger person that they have a lesser experience. Such a great line.

 

Seems like it's more of an "easter egg" for Chinese speakers, rather than a missed nuance.

 

Anyone here like me and pondering how did that one armed dude drove his car?

 

I’ve known a few one armed people who can drive their cars just fine.

 

Razorfist drives an Automatic.