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Shang-chi poster

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is the twenty-fifth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The movie follows the revelation in All Hail the King: neither Aldrich Killian nor Trevor Slattery (nor Maya Hansen, for that matter) are the Mandarin, and the real one is Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung), a legendary Chinese warlord who's lived and fought for at least a thousand years. Not only that: the Ten Rings are real, they're the name of both actual mystical weapons wielded by Wenwu and of the Badass Army he named after them, and the latter are the ones that kidnapped Tony Stark all the way back in Iron Man.

The movie itself follows the Mandarin's much more heroic son, Xu Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), as he fights to defeat his father and the Ten Rings armed only with his impressive martial arts skills - plus the help of his sister Xialing (Meng'er Zhang), their Cool Aunt Ying Nan (Michelle Yeoh) and his best friend Katy Chen (Nora "Awkwafina" Lum).

Tropes used in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings include:
  • Action Girl: Xialing. Katy, towards the end.
  • Action Survivor: Katy, mostly.
  • Adaptational Wimp: The physical Ten Rings. They're more of an Energy Weapon/Amplifier Artifact for martial arts rather than having the versatile array of powers that they had in the comics. It may have been done to distinguish them from the Infinity Stones.
  • Adapted Out: There's no sign of Fu Manchu. Some fans speculate that he was simply merged into the Mandarin and not mentioned otherwise.
  • Another Dimension and Hidden Elf Village: Ta Lo, which heavily resembles Medieval China.
  • Anti-Villain: Wenwu, in spades.
  • Archnemesis Dad: Wenwu, to Shang and Xialing.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: The Dweller-in-the-Darkness' throat glows purple when it eats a soul. Katy fires an arrow at, crippling it.
  • Badass Normal: Save Wenwu and his rings, everyone is just a really skilled martial artist. Until Shang gets the rings in the end.
  • Brilliant but Lazy: Katy's family expresses this sentiment about her and Shang. They could be so much more yet they choose to simply be valets. The citizens of Ta Lo do their best to whip this out of Katy.
  • Canon Foreigner: Katy Chen.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Trevor Slattery. He thought the apes in Planet of the Apes were played by actual apes.
  • Comic Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Wenwu is never referred to as "the Mandarin", save for when he's discussing his reaction to Iron Man 3.
  • Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Shang says this to Wenwu. For all that his father claims to care about his family, he abandoned them when his and Xialing's mother Ying Li died and went back to his criminal empire.
  • Imported Alien Phlebotinum: Implied to be the case for the Ten Rings. Neither Wong nor Carol have ever seen anything like them and Bruce Banner's analysis of them suggests that they're far older than Wenwu thought them to be. And they're sending out a signal...
  • The Lost Lenore: For all his flaws, Wenwu did love Ying Li and even now cherishes the memories of her. And once she kicked it...
  • Not So Above It All: Wong as always. Whether it be taking part in Dark Net fights against the Abomination or sing Hotel California in midnight karaoke.
  • Pragmatic Adaptation: Shang-Chi's father in the comics was Fu Manchu, a character riddled with Unfortunate Implications AND not owned by Marvel itself, which is why the movie changes him to the much less controversial AND Marvel-owned Mandarin.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Lampshaded by Katy. When Shang chose to hide in America, he renamed himself... Shawn.
  • Pet the Dog: After Trevor Slattery was brought to him in All Hail the King, Wenwu found him very entertaining and kept him around as a court jester, giving him food and shelter and getting him off drugs.
  • Real After All: The Mandarin.
  • Reimagining the Artifact: The Mandarin, a character built on Yellow Peril, is recast as Wenwu who is more representative of organized crime.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Morris.
  • Ship Tease: Shang-Chi and Katy
  • Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Justified. Despite the Dweller-in-the-Darkness being exactly the sort of thing that the Masters of the Mystic Arts signed up for, The Stinger implies that they had no idea it or Ta Lo ever existed.
  • The Stinger: Two. One has Dr. Banner and Carol Danvers talking to Shang-Chi, Katy and Wong about what happened in the movie itself, the other features Xialing taking over the Ten Rings and planning to reform it.
  • Rogues Gallery Transplant: The Mandarin was Iron Man's Arch Enemy in the comics.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The Iron Gang let Ying Li evacuate her children, Shang-Chi himself and his sister Xialing, before they exact their revenge on the Ten Rings.
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