(Non-spoiler review) A little too reliant on fight scenes, but I otherwise enjoyed it.
I'm not gonna lie, I was pleasantly surprised. After being let down with Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, and Black Widow, Shang Chi ended up being pretty fun. The fight scenes were great, and it's nice to see an MCU movie with an Asian-style action choreography. The difference between Asian action stars and White action stars is night and day in terms of how complex and long their fight scenes are, and this movie is just another example of that.
That said, there were quite a lot of action scenes, and little time spent on plot and lore. Other MCU movies, even in their first entries, had a lot of character scenes with the action spread out. It happened to work for me this time, but I hope the lack of focus on the story doesn't become the norm. No matter how good action scenes are, they're pointless if you don't care what's going on.
It's just a shame that some of the marketing for this movie had to be woke and obnoxious. Instead of pretending that this movie is breaking new ground for Asian representation, they should've presented it as a love-letter to all the previous kung fu movies that managed to find popularity around the globe, such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, Fearless, and even American movies featuring an Asian lead like Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon.
It's also a shame that Simu Liu had to act like other Chinese kids while he was growing up didn't have anyone to look up to, ignoring superstars like Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and Donnie Yen, among others. He should've instead acted more humble and honored to potentially joining a long line of great Asian action stars and hoped the fans would enjoy this movie as both a Marvel fan and a kung fu fan. Just because those other actors didn't wear a costume, that doesn't mean they weren't somebody's hero, hence the proverb "not all heroes wear the capes".
Will this movie have a strong opening weekend? Maybe, maybe not. Will this movie break even, let alone make a profit? We'll see, in time. Better marketing could've assured this movie's success, even in covid times, but for a while now Hollywood elitists just can't seem to help make a fool of themselves.