revenge-of-the-shit:

Holy shit. Just saw Shang-Chi and it is IT. Before getting into the Chinese cultural parts of it, I’d like to note that it had a solid plot and wonderfully developed characters. The worldbuilding and CGI and the relationship building was absolutely phenomenal and I was absolutely hooked. The fight choreography was THE best choreography I’ve ever seen in the entirety of the MCU and the cinematography is amazing.

Now, onto the Chinese cultural references.

My god. I’ve never felt so seen. As a Chinese woman living in a western diaspora I’ve genuinely never seen something that so genuinely felt right and that truly felt like it connected to me personally. There were so many little details that I could connect to that made me feel emotional because I’ve never had any media that connected to me this way. It was so well done and it was so obviously done by people who lived through it.

(minor) Spoilers ahead! Just small details about the Chinese Diaspora experience in the movie.

Some little details that stood out to me included:

• The food! All the food shown on screen was Chinese food - be it homemade food or dim sum platters - and those were exactly the types of plates that I grew up eating.
• When Shang-Chi took off his shoes to go into Katy’s house and she was wearing slippers inside the house
• When he was talking through the little Chinatown area and there were the fruit cardboard boxes outside the Chinese CL groceries and the white sketchy dim sum sign with English on top of the Chinese
• Katy struggling with her Chinese as a diaspora kid because she’s only a heritage speaker and her first language is english
• When Katy was struggling to pronounce Shang-Chi’s Chinese name asldhhdjskala I felt that
• Katy sticking to her English name despite also having a Chinese name bc she’s a diaspora kid and is used to using the English name
• Every single one of the magical creatures inside Ta Lo were inspired by Chinese mythology.
• THE DRAGON IS A PROPER CHINESE DRAGON
• Katy’s parents comparing her to others and asking her to “get a better job” with her H. B. from Berkeley (I felt that)
• The whole thing about familial expectations and relationships in Chinese families?? Bro. I felt that. Holy shit.
• So. Much. Mandarin. I can’t explain how happy I am to hear that language. Many western movies have a tendency to mainly use English with an accent but this movie used a LOT of (accurate!) mando and it makes me so happy
• The architecture?? The art?? Phenomenal. Amazing. So accurate.
• The shrine to the mother and the other deceased looks EXACTLY like every single Chinese cemetery I’ve been to, down to the photos and the incense and the fruits and all the people paying tribute to it.
• The martial arts?? Oh my god. So good. I recognize it. Having trained in it and having watched multiple family members practice varying Chinese martial arts over the years I can’t express how fucking happy I was to see arts such as Tai Chi and Wing Chun and Wushu on screen. I could recognize it. The forms, the movements - I can’t explain how, but it felt right. It felt familiar. It felt so wonderfully connected to me.

There’s probably more but it’s late at night so more to come later, maybe. I’m going to just bask in the fact that this was a fantastic movie for chinese representation and I felt so seen. I went to see it with several other Chinese friends and. We came away so happy. We felt seen. We felt heard. I can’t express how much this meant to us.

Representation matters.

So I just saw Marvel’s Ten rings movie. Honestly, it was a pretty by the numbers “adventure” movie. I think the cast being Asian is the only reason it got traction. A movie’s cast ethnicity shouldn’t factor in my opinion but who am I but merely a internet nerd…

At least it had a giant monster fight so that is a reason for me to rewatch the film. Oh and Hollywood thinks these action scenes are good? Ah, Anything from Toei’s Koichi Sakamoto’s work beats this film’s action scenes. 3 out of 5.

Xialing and Wenwu

Out with the old / In with the new ( “Swan Song” by Saweetie & NIKI)

She takes after him 

Fucking hell… I found him too