Image Attribution: “Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings” by Ayush Karki is licensed under CC BY-NC. (See interactive map)
Ayush Karki
T00687740
Dr. Terryl Atkins
Part A, Assignment 4, VISA 1500
The picture above is from the movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings”. The movie is created by Marvel Studios, which is one of the biggest cinematic industries of the present time. It is one of the highest-earning action movies of 2021 and has a rating of 7.6 in IMDb. Simu Liu the lead actor of the movie portraying the character of Shang-Chi. This scene is from the fight scene that happened in a moving bus in the movie where Shang-chi is attacked by a man having a sword attached to his right hand and he is dodging the attack from that man. The background is blurred, and the two men having one vs one combat are focused.
Simu Lui is the first marvel Asian superhero and after getting this role first he received a lot of hate from the audience saying that he was too ugly to fit that role (Hui, 2021). In this movie like any other superhero movie the leading character is a male and is shown more powerful. However, there is less violence in this movie and the fight scenes are shown in a cool way. There are not any brutal death scenes in the movie and the movie scene also doesn’t contain disturbing bleeding scenes after a fight. Generally, children prefer to watch superhero movies and the moviemakers do not use cinematic elements and tools to create a violent scene that might disturb the mind of young kids.
The movie represents Asian traditions. From the costume to the fighting style everything is resembling Chinese culture. There are many scenes in the movie where the actors interact with each other In the Chinese language. Talking about the role of a female character in the movie they also play an important character and are also shown in power. Such as Shang- Chi’s mother, sister and aunt were very powerful, but his girlfriend was a character full of sarcasm, but she also did play an iconic scene in the movie. Generally, it is seen that to play an Asian character moviemakers prefer to cast Asian people and they also categorize male Asian characters to be hyper-masculine or highly skilled people in many movies (Setiawan, 2020). Due to such beliefs, Simu Lui was seen as an imperfect actor to play such a big role. However, the hard work and efforts of Simu Lui paid off and the movie was a big hit.