Shang-Chi Appreciation 2021

[Ascended]

Ah...I was hoping for his MCU debut...

I'm personally hoping for a new origin and name, but something that will, at its heart, be Fin Fang Foom.

I'm cool if they remove the awful "alien" origin, maybe try to tie the character to something rooted in Chinese mythology, and I'm cool with a name change because that sh*t does seem awfully damn tone deaf. But a martial arts master fighting a evil dragon in the MCU is too cool an idea to *not* use....even if dragons are noble, good creatures in Eastern myth instead of the monsters we have in the West.

[CosmiComic]

I'm personally hoping for a new origin and name, but something that will, at its heart, be Fin Fang Foom.

I'm cool if they remove the awful "alien" origin, maybe try to tie the character to something rooted in Chinese mythology, and I'm cool with a name change because that sh*t does seem awfully damn tone deaf. But a martial arts master fighting a evil dragon in the MCU is too cool an idea to *not* use....even if dragons are noble, good creatures in Eastern myth instead of the monsters we have in the West.

Why was the alien part inappropriate?

[Ascended]

Why was the alien part inappropriate?

Not inappropriate, just weird. I never really liked the idea of Foom being an alien; it just seems like a poor mishmash of genres to me. But I didn't know Foom was an alien for years after first reading about him, I thought he was just an evil dragon, so this is probably just my bias speaking.

It'd be one thing if Foom and his kind were the source of all our "dragon" legends, but we know there's actual dragons on earth and Foom was just mistaken for one. I dunno, it's just a little hangup for me. I don't like Ghidorah from the Godzilla franchise being an alien either; there's all these "home grown" giant kaiju, why do we need some from deep space too?

Either way, from the sounds of it we won't be seeing Foom in this movie at all, unless this is all a mislead and they're using him with a different name.

[CosmiComic]

Not inappropriate, just weird. I never really liked the idea of Foom being an alien; it just seems like a poor mishmash of genres to me. But I didn't know Foom was an alien for years after first reading about him, I thought he was just an evil dragon, so this is probably just my bias speaking.

It'd be one thing if Foom and his kind were the source of all our "dragon" legends, but we know there's actual dragons on earth and Foom was just mistaken for one. I dunno, it's just a little hangup for me. I don't like Ghidorah from the Godzilla franchise being an alien either; there's all these "home grown" giant kaiju, why do we need some from deep space too?

Either way, from the sounds of it we won't be seeing Foom in this movie at all, unless this is all a mislead and they're using him with a different name.

Really? I've never had a problen with that. Aliens exist in these universes so I don't see why they can't have dragons too. It's because there are so many home grown kaiju we need some from other worlds. Space Ghidorah is the best Ghidorah!

FFH probably won't show up here outside of a post credits scene. But I'd like to see him in a future project

[Tien Long]

Great tidbit from Empire magazine about the inspirations behind Shang-Chi. It's not just about Asian-American representation. The martial arts and superheroics play just as vital roles within the film. Check it out from Empire magazine:

“Authenticity and respect and staying true to this genre was the main objective from day one,” he tells Empire in the new issue. That meant drawing from the greats. “There’s choreography that’s reminiscent of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and other fight scenes are inspired by Jackie Chan. We also had choreographers from mainland China who created some beautiful wuxia-style fight scenes.

“It was important for us from the beginning to have the MCU’s first Asian-American superhero be a superhero,” he says. “We want him to be on par with other superheroes in the MCU and not just be the master of kung fu. Shang-Chi is an incredible martial artist, but he’s so much more than that.”

Bits of Jackie Chan and Wuxia. Nice!

[CosmiComic]

So will they be fighting using nearby objects as weapons, like Jackie Chan does?

[taozen]

Great tidbit from Empire magazine about the inspirations behind Shang-Chi. It's not just about Asian-American representation. The martial arts and superheroics play just as vital roles within the film. Check it out from Empire magazine:



Bits of Jackie Chan and Wuxia. Nice!

Looks like the film will go the route of mystical kung fu instead of the in your face action of say Enter the Dragon/Way of the Dragon or the Master of Kung Fu original series.

[Blind Wedjat]

Get Shang-Chi his own video game ASAP!

[Blind Wedjat]

[Tien Long]

Heard about this bro. Seen the trailers and have been digging the premise for a while.

Saw the Shang-Chi trailer in a movie theater. Even after nearly two months, that trailer still gets me going. Plus there seemed to be some extra seconds of footage for one of the scenes. Think the rest of the audience were impressed with the movie, especially the fight on the bus. Looking forward to 3 months from now when it will premiere!

In Simu Liu news, here is link to Vanity Fair article https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...take-on-marvel In terms of Kim's Convenience, he had to modifiy his stance on the series and its impact. I'm glad that he became more nuanced in his statement.

Some other interesting tidbits there too, like meeting Angelina Jolie and her kids, epically failing while impressing girls with his Kung Fu (been there!), seeing Shang become a key figure in the MCU (think the movies, series, video games), and stepping up to be a role model. Check it out:

DURING THE AUDITION PROCESS for Shang-Chi, Liu started doubting his luck: “Wouldn’t they want that first Asian superhero to be somebody who looked the part a little bit more? What I’ve always really appreciated about MCU superheroes versus elsewhere is that they are trying to disrupt the idea of what a superhero can be."

FOUR DAYS AFTER Liu booked the role, he was flown to San Diego Comic-Con. “Angelina Jolie walked in with kids and a five-person team, and she’s looking around, and there’s no empty seats anywhere except at my table. The 8,000 fans were fantastic, but having dinner with Angelina Jolie is the mind-blowing, unfathomable Cinderella story. Her kids love video games, and she was having trouble understanding what the games were. I was like, Hold on a second. This is my time to shine. So I spent, actually, the better part of that night trying to explain League of Legends to Angelina Jolie. I guess you could say one of us was giving the advice.”

EVEN WITH AN arsenal of superhero tricks, Liu has mortal moments. “There was a cute girl on the crew that I was trying to impress during a very elaborate stunt. I winked at her and, when I started running, proceeded to lose my balance, fall, banged my knee, and ended up sprawled out 12 feet in the air.”

AS THE MARVELVERSE continues to expand, Liu sees endless possibilities for Shang-Chi. “My contract doesn’t stipulate what or where I could be summoned. Kevin [Feige]’s built this wonderful ecosystem where it’s almost platform-agnostic—movies, series, streaming, video games. It’s really incredible.”

HE DIDN’T ALWAYS see himself as a role model. “You’re talking to a guy that graduated from business school by the skin of his teeth, only to crash and burn at his first consulting job. What about that C.V. makes me a good representative of Asian Americans and Canadians? But I realized, if I don’t step into the spotlight, and the person next to me doesn’t step in, and the people around me don’t step in, then who will? Who’s going to speak for us when we need somebody out there? I want to be outspoken.”

[Hypestyle]

Lengthy interview, but Simu talks about Marvel and related topics, in his career.

[Tien Long]

Another great interview featuring Simu Liu. This time, the interview was conducted by Ronny Chieng. The full interview is here:

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/fi...rvel-superhero

I liked this part of the interview:

LIU: Okay, we’ll strike the joke. I’d like to be someone who helped to legitimize Asian-American culture. We’re in the infancy of discovering what Asian-American identity is, and for the non-Asian people reading this, I think even they will have trouble distinguishing between Asian people who grew up in Asia and Asian people who grew up in North America. They are completely different lived experiences and completely different struggles. A Chinese person growing up in China has never had to turn on a TV and watch himself being portrayed in a really stereotypical way, whereas people like me who grew up in the West, we had to deal with that every day, and we have the complexes that have arisen from that. And if there’s one thing that I can do through storytelling, it would be to make Asian Americans or Asian Canadians feel a bit more grounded in where they are, to feel like they have a sense of belonging and a sense of pride in their identity.

Simu hits the nail on the head. There are differences between Asians and Asian-Americans/Canadian/etc. Representation on media is one of them. Having an Asian figure on Western media means so much to us since that is not the norm. Whereas in a China, the representation is always there. Hence, there is a difference of opinion and excitement between Chinese in Asia and Chinese in the West regarding the upcoming Shang-Chi film.

[Ravin' Ray]

It's versus the FF for September!





SHANG-CHI #4
GENE LUEN YANG (W) • DIKE RUAN (A) • Cover by LEINIL FRANCIS YU
Variant Cover by MICHAEL CHO
Miles Morales: Spider-Man 10th ANNIVERSARY
Variant Cover by TAURIN CLARKE
SHANG-CHI VS. THE FANTASTIC FOUR!
Someone has been sending Shang-Chi strange messages in his dreams…
…and the messages seem to be coming from the Negative Zone!
But who is sending him these messages? And what do they mean?
And why are the Fantastic Four standing in his way?
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

[Frontier]

It's versus the FF for September!





SHANG-CHI #4
GENE LUEN YANG (W) • DIKE RUAN (A) • Cover by LEINIL FRANCIS YU
Variant Cover by MICHAEL CHO
Miles Morales: Spider-Man 10th ANNIVERSARY
Variant Cover by TAURIN CLARKE
SHANG-CHI VS. THE FANTASTIC FOUR!
Someone has been sending Shang-Chi strange messages in his dreams…
…and the messages seem to be coming from the Negative Zone!
But who is sending him these messages? And what do they mean?
And why are the Fantastic Four standing in his way?
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Yeah, I feel like they're kind of out of their depth against the FF.

[CosmiComic]

Yeah, I feel like they're kind of out of their depth against the FF.

Are the FF even that tough?