If you didn’t know the character or see the logo, you might not immediately realise Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is the latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sure, if you look closely you can see a few cameos in some of the trailers — but beyond that, these are new characters and new stories that are set to bring the MCU to whole new worlds.
The one obvious thread connecting Shang-Chi and the other Marvel movies is its scope. Shang-Chi is no simple, small origin story. It spans the globe with massive action set pieces that don’t just blend all styles of martial arts, but incredible stunt and effects work too. And, in two new videos you get to see all of that and more. First, there’s a behind the scenes glimpse of how those action scenes get put together, and second, a brand-new trailer set to one of the film’s signature songs, which will pump you up for the release coming in a few weeks. Here’s video one.
So right there you see just how big some of the action scenes can get. Proper Michael Bay shit. But, what that featurette doesn’t tell you is most of the scenes it dives into are from the first half of the movie. There’s way more beyond that. Which this trailer shows a lot of. In fact, maybe it shows too much.
Yeah, that trailer has a ton of stuff from the third act of the film, which should be rather obvious. Shang-Chi doesn’t just start the movie with his awesome superhero suit or showing off with a dragon. But it’s the things from the beginning — such as his relationship with his best friend Katy — that really makes the whole movie that much more complete and successful.
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings stars Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Meng’er Zhang, Florian Munteanu, Michelle Yeoh, and Tony Leung. It opens September 2.