do you think there’s still a sad dusty dance dance revolution pad somewhere in the Xu household, propped (or rolled) up against the side of a wall after the last time the family played it. i mean probably, right? wenwu keeps pictures of his wife around everywhere in his room, his bed looked like the same bed they used in flashbacks, he probably kept everything about their life together.
I’m sad that shang chi the movie is hated by most of the Chinese internet, because the narrative there right now is that “storyline of Asian American defeating his evil Chinese father is demeaning and symbolic of western ideals defeating china,” when the movie obviously isn’t about that at all. the climax isn’t about shang chi defeating his father through fisticuffs, they fight but it’s not a good versus evil combat.
you don’t defeat your parents when you’re in a standoff like shangchi and wenwu, you come to a resolution, or you don’t. it’s either a double win or a double loss, it’s the opposite of a zero sum game. they’re both blinded by grief (which, as we all remember, is love perservering), and it took shang chi resolving his inner conflict for wenwu to start seeing his own way out of the maze (and also some other spoiler stuff, but the point still stands).
and thats very clear in the movie, and I loved that wenwu wasn’t your traditional antagonist, because everything hes doing is out of crippling grief.
the one thing marvel couldve done though, was to also hire an actual Chinese director alongside with Cretton. because as a different language system, obviously chinese dialogue requires certain experience to direct. so much of the movie was in Chinese, but the diction and the way people spoke their lines were a bit off, plus the chinese script was a bit too straightforward, it felt more like an English translation most of the time. you need to know chinese, know about acting in Chinese, and a really experienced grasp of what good Chinese dialogue sounds like. and that’s not anything a western director would know about no matter how much research marvel did.
otherwise the only character whose chinese lines sound natural and good in the film is going to be Wenwu and thats not because of directing or the script that’s just because hes played by Tony freaking Leung. (this became a simp post again lol)
“It was an important story-point to have those two different types of martial arts styles sung throughout the journey of Shang-Chi in this movie. One style is obviously from his mother, and then the other, more forceful traditional martial arts style is from his dad.” - Destin Daniel Cretton
First poster for Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings(2021)
Alright, it is time for me to head to bed. I feel officially caught up on tumblr posts for a while. I will leave you all with this awesome poster for Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings.
