Marvel Reveals First Teaser for “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”

Marvel’s first Asian superhero is here. Behold the first teaser for director Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has arrived, and it’s flat-out thrilling. The teaser comes out just in time for star Simu Liu’s birthday, and it’s hard to imagine a better birthday present for the soon-to-be newest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Liu plays the titular Shang-Chi, a young man who was raised by his father Wenwu (Tony Leung) to be all but invincible. While Shang-Chi is revealed here to be the apprentice to his villainous father—who leads the organization called the Ten Rings—we’re being set up for an inevitable father/son dispute, the kind of familial drama that has charged so many superhero origin stories. Shang-Chi had walked away from his father’s life, but the action in The Legend of the Ten Rings—and hoo boy does the action look good—will bring father and son together again.

There’s no question that Cretton’s film looks and feels as singular to its story and characters in a way that Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther did when we got our first initial glimpses of his now-iconic foray into the MCU. It’s obviously too soon to tell exactly what kind of film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will be, but the martial arts on display in the teaser already gives the film balletic energy that feels fresh and specific. Sure, we’ve seen Marvel characters who know their way around a martial arts move before—but we’ve never seen a Marvel film steeped in martial arts itself.

Cretton directs from a script he co-wrote with David Callaham and Andrew Lanham. Joining Liu Leung are Awkwafina, Fala Chen, Meng’er Zhang, Florian Munteanu, Ronny Chieng, and Michelle Yeoh.

Check out the teaser below. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings hits theaters on September 3, 2021.

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Featured image: Simu Liu is Shang-Chi in Marvel Studios’ “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” Courtesy Marvel Studios

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