Marvel’s latest offering of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings takes us from the streets of San Francisco to the dirt paths of the fabled guardian village of Ta Lo in the titular hero’s quest to oppose his father’s misguided desire to destroy the gate that seals away the demonic dragon Dweller-in-Darkness and his soul-stealing minions. It stars Simu Liu, Awkwafina, and Meng’er Zhang with Ben Kingsley and Chinese action powerhouses Tony Chiu-Wai Leung and Michelle Yeoh. It’s directed by relative newcomer Destin Daniel Cretton and has a score by Joel P. West that fits the Eastern flavor of the movie quite well.
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First Impressions
Eve’s Thoughts
I thought Shang-Chi was enjoyable but also brimming with Asian philosophy, which is extremely anti-Christian. It reminds me a little bit of Kubo and the Two Strings in its philosophy. I’ve always liked martial arts movies, but this one had the added benefit of all of the Marvel tie ins.
I found the Katie character to be almost as annoying as Jar Jar Binks was in the Phantom Menace. She was possibly a good portrayal of Westernized Asians, but her annoyance factor nearly ruined the movie for me. (Hearing Awkwafina’s voice in this movie was possibly too soon for me after seeing Raya and the Last Dragon). If Jar Jar Binks represents an extreme 11 on a 10 point scale, Katie probably falls somewhere in the 8-9 region. While extremely annoying and really out of place through most of the movie, she does play a key role near the end, so she’s not completely useless.
Tim’s Thoughts
Considering Marvel’s extremely high bar, Shang-Chi rates as standard Marvel fare. It was enjoyable, had good action and good acting (though I’m not fond of Awkwafina), but lacked in any real meat on the bones. It was not terribly original in presentation but follows the proven Marvel formula for a movie worth seeing.
The themes were pretty standard: family, parental redemption, grieving, deceit. But the visual effects and fight choreography are both engrossing, very reminiscent of Asian martial arts classics like Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Yin Yang Legacies
Shang-Chi is told by his aunt that he is the legacy of his father and mother, “the good and the bad.” This dualism is prevalent in a lot of Eastern movies.
“In ancient Chinese philosophy, yin and yang is a concept of dualism, describing how obviously opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.” wikipedia.org
Shang-Chi’s parents are the epitome of yin yang: opposites with just a touch of the other side to bring them together. Shang-Chi and his sister have to reconcile those two opposing sides in their personal legacies. Shang-Chi becomes more like his mother, and Xialing is more like her father in the end. The Protector and the Dweller in Darkness also represent these two sides of the natural balance.
The Dualism of Eastern philosophy is counter to what we know of God. He is all good, not mostly good. Light is not in balance with darkness, but rather darkness is the absence of light, dry the absence of wet, cold the absence of heat, and so on. God simply is and without him is evil and hell.
We see this dichotomy frequently in the misrepresentation that God and Satan are eternal equals, locked in a struggle of perfect balance. But God is the creator, and Satan the created being who rebelled. Hell is Satan’s prison, and God’s grace upholds the world in the current dualism that we see.
The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb. (Revelation 21:23)
Unequally Yoked
One of the ways that the yin & yang theme plays out in the movie is the marriage of Xu Wenwu (the Mandarin) and Li. Through the narrative, we see that her “goodness” balances out against his “badness.” She is dedicated to defense, he is a conqueror. Both of them set aside these traits to become a couple.
Their conflicting personalities do not necessarily doom their relationship, but their differing worldviews make it very difficult. One of the aspects of the yin-yang is that the elements are opposite but not contradictory.
This does reinforce the myth that “love conquers all” (regarding loving someone is enough to change their evil ways). However, when Li is killed, Xu returns to the rings and his warlord ways.
Sinfulness and holiness are contradictory (mutually exclusive), though, and cannot coexist.
Do not be yoked together with those who do not believe. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)
The ESV Reformation Study Bible says,
The prohibition against being yoked together with unbelievers must be considered in situations where significant control over one’s actions would be willingly yielded to an unbeliever through a voluntary partnership or association. Neither Paul nor the rest of the New Testament tells us to have no association at all with unbelievers (Mark 2:15–17; 1 Cor. 5:9, 10). But we are told not to be “yoked together” with them in such a way that they significantly influence the direction and outcome of our moral decisions and spiritual activities.
This is not to be confused as a prohibition against interracial marriage since all humans are members of a single genetic race. The only “races” recognized in the Bible is that of the saved (children of God) versus the unsaved (children of the world/Satan).
Chasing Desires
Xu Wenwu sought out the 10 Rings, and instead of using them for good, he chased power and fortune for 1,000 years. “He chased money and power for a thousand years but always wanted more. There was nothing left on earth left to conquer.”
He transferred that desire to his wife and when she died, he not only went back to his old ways, but he became vulnerable to the Dweller in Darkness, who was a “voice from the other side promising [him] what [he] most desired.”
Despite the Asian philosophy in the movie, this is probably the closest to a Christian understanding of sin as a movie like this can get.
No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:13-17)
The desires of the flesh are distractions that will actually choke out and destroy the things that will most fulfill you.
Others are like seed sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. (from the Parable of the Seeds Mark 4:18-19)
As Christians, we are not supposed to be ruled by our flesh, but rather to offer ourselves in service to God.
So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. (Romans 6:11-13)
“If you aim at nothing, you hit nothing.”
One of the things that makes Katie (Awkwafina) so annoying is her complete irresponsibility. This was purposely built into the character, though, so I can’t really blame her. That she is trained in three days to be an archer who ends up saving the day is beside the point. (Though maybe it isn’t. The fact that once she actually took aim, she could hit what she aimed at perhaps bodes well for the future of her character.)
Her lack of ambition and general immaturity is perhaps supposed to be indicative of her generation in the Marvel milieu, a group that saw the snap, then the unsnap, the wars and the displaced. Her lack of motivation rivals that of the youth in the last movie we reviewed (The Tomorrow War).
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13)
While Katie isn’t necessarily concerned about death, her apathy arises from a life lived with no hope, no goal . . . nothing to strive for.
There is profit in all hard work, but endless talk leads only to poverty. (Proverbs 14:23)
It is not that we don’t have the right to support, but we did it to make ourselves an example to you so that you would imitate us. In fact, when we were with you, this is what we commanded you: “If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.” For we hear that there are some among you who are idle. They are not busy but busybodies. Now we command and exhort such people by the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and provide for themselves. But as for you, brothers and sisters, do not grow weary in doing good. (2 Thessalonians 3:9-13)
Not only does our faith in Christ give us, as Christians, eternal hope, but it also sustains us in a personal responsibility to not be a burden on others and to work as unto the Lord.
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