The great hope of Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

More than just kapows and booms, Marvel’s latest superhero movie might have you reaching for the phone.

Could an Asian-American superhero in a gargantuan Marvel epic actually change hearts and minds? Could it make the world more inclusive?

It may even elicit an unexpected emotional reaction, no matter who you are.

That’s the big hope riding on the shoulders of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Marvel’s first movie to be headlined by a character of Asian descent, specifically of Chinese heritage.

Based on a comic book character created by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin in 1973, Shang-Chi has a patchy history in Marvel’s pages, including the association of offensive stereotypes. You won’t find those particular landmines in the 2021 movie.

In part because Marvel has entrusted filmmakers from Asian-American backgrounds to bring the story to screen, including director and co-screenwriter Destin Daniel Cretton, a Japanese-American filmmaker whose background is in helming grounded dramas.

Cretton grew up in Hawaii, the son of a Japanese-American mother and a caucasian father, but for him Shang-Chi, which was filmed in Sydney last year, is more than just a movie for Asian diasporic communities, it’s also for people who don’t look like Shang-Chi.

“I grew up on an island in the middle of the Pacific and I connected with people on the outside world by sitting in theatres, watching them on screen,” he told news.com.au over zoom.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is Marvel’s first Asian superhero.

“That was how I travelled. That was how I met people that didn’t look like me, who had different cultural experiences to me.

“It’s how I felt connected to them and realised I had a lot more in common with kids on the mainland who didn’t look like me because they were also going through pain like I went through – they were also bullied or had insecurities, or they have hopes and dreams similar to mine.

“When you feel a connection to someone who you don’t look like, it’s hard to hate that person. It’s hard to project a one-dimensional stereotype onto them. And I hope that this movie introduces people to characters that may not look like them, and that they are surprised by how much they actually connect with them.”

Cretton’s previous films have included biopics Just Mercy and The Glass Castle while his 2013 debut feature Short Term 12 had a cast of then up-and-comers who went onto become big deals including Brie Larson, Lakeith Stanfield, Stephanie Beatriz, Rami Malek and Kaitlyn Dever.

Cretton drew from his experiences of working in a teen group facility to craft his film and he once again turned to his own life for Shang-Chi.

“No matter what I’m making, I’m trying to find ways to infuse my own experience or thoughts or things I’m working through into the projects that I’m making,” he explained. “I love processing through questions or watching my characters work through things I’m thinking about.”

Destin Daniel Cretton is the director and co-screenwriter of Shang-Chi. Picture: Valerie Macon/AFP

In Shang-Chi, one of those things is family. We meet the character, played by Chinese-Canadian Simu Liu, as a young man in San Francisco. He’s adapted the Anglicised name Shaun and as far as he’s concerned, his past is behind him.

That past includes his father Wenwu/The Mandarin (legendary Hong Kong star Tony Leung), who is the head of the crime organisation the Ten Rings. A family trauma has scattered the brood, but Shang-Chi is soon to find out those blood ties are not so easy to sever.

Superhero movies, including Marvel’s Avengers films, are often about found family, those you choose to be with, but for many cultures including Asian ones, those family bonds as well as community over individualism, are strong.

“Family is definitely a topic that is rich that I always feel deeply connected to,” Cretton said. “My co-writer David Callaham, who is Chinese-American, was equally as connected to that subject.

“So, we did pull a lot from our own backgrounds, our own upbringing, our collective respect we have for our families, our respect for our parents and grandparents and what they did to get us to the place where we are.

“But also, our collective experience as individuals learning how to move forward as people and defining our pasts as something that can allow us to step forward into the future. At its core, that is what Shang-Chi was doing.”

Awkwafina plays Shang-Chi’s best friend, Katy.

Liu, best known for his role as one of the leads in Canadian series Kim’s Convenience, related to his character’s pull between forging his own path and his family bonds.

“It speaks to such a diasporic Asian experience in between caught between two worlds and feeling like you’re constantly navigating your parents’ expectations on your shoulders and trying to strike the balance of making sure they’re happy but also finding your own path and shaping your own destiny,” he told news.com.au.

Cretton, whose mother had sent him a Hawaiian Lei to wear to the Shang-Chi premiere, added that even those moviegoers who seek out the film for cool martial arts fight sequences might find themselves unexpectedly emotional and yearning to call their mums.

“You will potentially leave the cinema feeling more connected to your family, to your parents and grandparents who may not be with us anymore. You may be more grateful and thankful to the sacrifices they have made.”

Simu Liu spent most of 2020 in Sydney filming Shang-Chi. Picture: Valerie Macon/AFP

Liu joked that while he couldn’t directly relate to having a parent being part of an assassin’s organisation, juggling parental expectations was part of his growing up – and even now.

The experiences of first, second and third-generation immigrants are vastly different from their friends who are part of the dominant culture, and in some ways, even more different from those who grew up in their ancestral homes. That feeling of not belonging anywhere is prevalent.

There may have been superheroes in Asian cinema, but no Western movie has centred on an Asian superhero. The distinction is hugely significant to Asian diasporic communities all over the world, including the 1.2 million Australians who claimed Chinese ancestry in the 2016 census.

Growing up Chinese in Canada, Liu said he felt he was a “misfit”.

“I never quite saw myself represent so I related to this idea of [superheroes] being a misfit but even those misfits didn’t look like me.

“Fast forward to today and we’re about to debut the world’s first titled Asian superhero in the MCU and I think that’s incredible.

“I think that means so much to so many people and I hope that we can reach out and touch kids that have never felt seen in that way before and give them a sense of hope and infinite possibility.”

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is in cinemas from Thursday, September 2 (excluding lockdown areas)

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Originally published as The great hope of Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings