Been avoiding this thread for fear of spoilers (or even theories that turn out to be true!) but had to pop in and throw all the love at this trailer. The first one didn't really blow me away (it was fine, looked good but nothing I haven't seen from Marvel before) but this one....that hit all the right notes for me, and I'm even more hyped for Shang's film! I'm now at the point where I'm gonna avoid all future trailers, commercials, whatever. I'm sold, I've seen enough, I'll be there opening weekend. And yeah, it's hard to avoid spoilers when you visit sites like this one, but I've gotten pretty damn good at it over the years.
Someone asked what we thought about the rings. My guess is that each one doesn't have a specific power, that'd be too close to the Infinity Stones. I think they have a single powerset shared among all ten, and if you don't have all the rings the powers either don't work at all or work at a highly reduced level.
My theory is that they're magical relics (like the items from Dr. Strange) made from vibranium (perhaps a splinter that broke off the Great Mound as it fell to earth?). The energy signature around the rings looks a lot like the energy cascade from when T'Challa does one of those kinetic-buildup blasts, and the color schemes used in the last T'Challa-Killmonger fight are damn similar to what we see in this trailer (not identical, but close). My guess is that, on top of the usual things vibranium can do, these rings were enchanted to manipulate the classic elements of fire, earth, air, and water. That's a hell of a powerset with tons and tons of applications without bogging things down with a long list of random abilities. And from what I know of Chinese mythology, the "four elements" thing is fitting.
And I do think Shang will end up with the rings. If he's going to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the other MCU heroes, he's gonna need something other than raw martial arts. Even Hawkeye has a pretty robust arsenal of arrows, after all. And those rings look badass enough to put Shang on par with anyone who isn't an Asgardian or walking Infinity Stone (like Carol and Wanda). That said, if Marvel plans on Wenwu being a big, multi-film antagonist and Shang isn't gonna appear in any team films for a while, I can see him not getting the rings until his sequel. I think it'll happen in this first movie, but I won't completely rule out the idea of Marvel making us wait and using Wenwu/the rings for a future installment.
Oh, and yeah I do get a certain "Iron Fist/Hong Kong cinema" vibe from the trailer that I don't really associate with Shang Chi. Shang is more like Bruce Lee fused with James Bond, and is pretty grounded by the standards of comics, while Iron Fist leans heavily into Eastern mysticism and the more fantastical aspects of mythology. I expect dragons and magic from Iron Fist, not from Shang. But I'm not complaining either, that trailer was dope AF.
I do get a vague Jackie Chan vibe from the trailer too, with all the stunts. Might just be me but I feel like Jet Li and Bruce never had ridiculous stunts that seemed to be played for laughs like Jackie and this trailer do.