Let’s get something out of the way first: When I say Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is beautiful, I mean by the MCU’s standards.

I am perfectly aware that if you are someone who grew up with authentic Chinese media, you might find this one just a bit off, or you might take one look at that slo-mo combat sequence in the beginning and experience secondhand embarrassment. It says: “Hollywood still thinks Zhang Yimou’s style is the only style”. It says: “Marvel watched 2 episodes of The Eternal Love and thought they had the whole jig”.

But putting that aside and looking at this film from a broader angle: this is genuinely an impressive attempt to weave Asian aesthetics into the MCU.

The action choreography is exciting. Simu Liu and Awkwafina’s charms carry through. The bus fight alone is worth the experience. And Tony Leung does what Tony Leung does best: making brooding look like an attractive lifestyle.

And yet, try to connect Shang-Chi to anything else in the MCU and you’ll find there is nothing to hold onto. The film built this gorgeous, fully realized world and then never installed any doors letting anyone in or out.

Let’s take a look.

*SPOILERS ahead. 

The Xianxia of It All

The structural issues with Shang-Chi start in the first scene.

The movie pulls heavily from Xianxia — the Chinese cultivation fantasy genre where heroes usually unlock inner power through philosophical enlightenment and ascend to greatness through a combination of destiny and good vibes. It’s a rich tradition that has produced some unique and beautiful storytelling, (some could use less episodes than others, but you get the point). And Shang-Chi is borrowing from it right out of the gate.

When Wenwu and Shang-Chi’s mother, Ying Li, meet, we get the full “Destiny” package. Slo-mo combat, flying and dancing through the air, prolonged eye contact mid-fight, etc. It’s visually stunning. It’s also the opening five minutes of every other Chinese fantasy idol drama ever made. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends on how much exposure to Chinese media you’ve had, and how much tolerance you have for unsubtlety.

Anyway.

The moment flying and dragons enter the equation, the story has quietly exited “martial arts movie / sci-fi” and stepped into High Fantasy. For a film that’s supposed to be grounding a brand new hero in the MCU, that’s a bold tonal gamble to make.

The Xianxia logic pauses there as we are introduced to Shaun and Katy,  but then picks up and carries on straight through the end to the training sequences. Shang-chi’s aunt, Ying Nan, prepares him for the final battle by passing on his mother’s fighting philosophy: “Your mother knew who she was. Do you?”. And: “Stop hiding, nephew.”

That’s the whole thing, and somehow Shaun gets it. No discussion of stance, no movement philosophy, no explanation of what makes his mother’s style distinct from anyone else’s style. And please don’t say the “technique” is to absorb and redistribute or to sweep one foot in circular motion before a fight — those are basic martial arts theory lessons, not an applicable strategy when your opponent is a 1000+-year-old warlord.

We get vibes, and the movie treats this as sufficient character development.

And look, vibes are great, vibes can carry a lot. The entire Endgame movie survives mostly on vibes. But narratively for a standalone intro? This is not enough.

Later, Wenwu blasts Shang-Chi into the ocean and the latter has a flashback to his mother telling him to embrace everything about himself, and then a Great Protector dragon materializes underwater so he can ride it triumphantly into the sky. And later, while fighting Wenwu one-on-one, Shang-Chi once again flashes back to his mother teaching him some childhood movements, channels those feelings, and proceeds to disarm a man who has been wielding the Ten Rings for a millennium.

Then there’s the Dweller-in-Darkness — the soul-eating dragon lurking behind the dark gate, the sinister voice that manipulates Wenwu into cracking the seal. In Xianxia terms, this is the Generic Apocalyptic Entity you deploy when you need a final boss and don’t have a real one. Ancient evil, sealed away by noble protectors, waiting for some misguided fool to set it free. Shang-Chi defeats it by becoming a powerful wielder of the Ten Rings through the above vibes and making it explode.

Now, to be fair: the flying, the dragon, the interdimensional mysticism, the cosmic-scale threat — none of this is inherently problematic. Writers all over the world make use of these concepts for their fantasy storytelling. Doctor Strange features all of the above. The Ancient One flies. Dormammu is an abstract dimension-eating entity. MCU sorcery operates on the same scale as as Ta Lo.

The difference is in how the characters are allowed to deal with all that fantasy.

Look at Doctor Strange‘s opening. The Ancient One is also fighting with magic, also defying gravity. But MCU sorcery comes with a visible system: Eldritch Magic manifests as Tao Mandalas, shields, whips. Almost everything is rooted in sacred geometry. The choreography gives the magic this physical and mathematical logic you can see operating, giving effective reminders that magic exists, but it exists alongside mortal life.

When Strange finally faces Dormammu, he doesn’t win by suddenly becoming more powerful. He traps them both in a time loop using the Time Stone and proceeds to annoy Dormammu into making a deal, haggling a cosmic entity like a stubborn customer who refuses to leave the flea market until he gets a better price. It’s Stephen Strange who saves the world. His stubborn, clever, annoying personality is the weapon.

Shang-Chi’s world doesn’t offer that same collab with reality. Shaun gets “know yourself” and “embrace who you are” like fortune cookies, and the audience starts to wonder about the stakes and who he is as a hero.

Everyone Else Showed Their Work

The “believe in yourself” arc is everywhere in hero storytelling. But the versions that actually land don’t stop at the philosophy, they layer it with something tangible.

Tony Stark beats Obadiah Stane while running on an inferior arc reactor. He lures Obadiah into position so Pepper can blow the roof reactor. A tactical play that requires a partner, a plan, and a willingness to nearly die in the process.

Steve Rogers doesn’t beat Red Skull by punching harder. The kid from Brooklyn does what he’s always done: throws himself on the grenade. He crashes the plane into the Arctic with himself inside.

Thor gets Mjolnir back because he stops trying to punch his way out and instead offers Loki genuine compassion, fully prepared to die for it. The hammer returns because Thor has finally earned it.

Doctor Strange, in his very first real fight with Kaecilius, gets wrecked and stabbed in the chest. His response? Use the very first skill he learned at Kamar-Taj, a sling ring portal, to get himself to a hospital, where he directs Christine Palmer to save his life while simultaneously fighting in the astral plane. In one frantic scene, we see all sides of Strange at once: the sorcerer, the surgeon, the improvising intellect. Every skill in his biography converging into one desperate, messy act of survival.

And then there’s Kung Fu Panda. Yes, the children’s animated film.

Po takes his adopted father’s mundane advice (“there is no secret ingredient”) and pairs it with actual tactical execution. He deliberately wears Tai Lung out, waits until the leopard is exhausted, then delivers the philosophical speech. We understands exactly what Po figured out and exactly how he used it.

Shang-Chi gets “be yourself” and “stop hiding.” The audience is then asked to accept that good vibes defeated a thousand years of combat experience.

The No-Ceiling Problem

This all matters beyond just the first movie, because characters without clear limitations become dead weight.

After one film, Shang-Chi possesses the Ten Rings, he’s apparently mastered his mother’s mystical fighting philosophy, he can summon a dragon, and he has access to Ta Lo. There’s no visible physical ceiling and no intellectual puzzle left to solve. No emotional arc remaining except the general vicinity of “processing some trauma.”

Compare that to Tony Stark at the end of Iron Man, walking around in what is clearly a duct-taped prototype. You knew there were twenty more suits coming, and you knew each one would cost him something. Shang-Chi appears to have peaked in his origin story, which is not ideal when your entire franchise model depends on sequels.

Drop Shaun into a team-up and every threat feels underwhelming. How do you build tension around someone who rides a cosmic dragon and wields thousand-year-old mystical weaponry? The options are either to depower him  or to escalate the threats so dramatically that nothing feels important anymore. Neither scenario is exactly dazzling.

And to be clear, this isn’t an unfixable problem. You can still pull Shang-chi out of the mystical world, place him in some grounding setting, and pair him up with a hero who complements his vibes for a low-stake adventure which might just rebalance the entire phase. But this, of course, requires long-term planning from Marvel, and we don’t get much of that lately for any MCU installment. Spaghetti has been thrown at the wall and post-credits scenes have been treated like TV commercials.

Anyway

Awkwafina’s Katy ends up being the most relatable character and the most “Marvel” part of this film. And it’s specifically because she’s the one person who reacts to all of this the way a normal human being would.

Shang-Chi got a beautiful standalone introduction, nailed it, and didn’t leave any loose threads for the larger universe to tug on.