Shang-Chi and The Wreckage of Time (April Fool’s) Review

Somewhere in our multiverse, rather than waiting forever for a sequel to 2021’s Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings, I saw some of our dimension’s rumors manifest on the date that gave us Mufasa instead.

Shang-Chi and The Wreckage of Time overall appeals to me less strongly than its predecessor did, but I can appreciate the areas in which Wreckage improves. For instance, the inclusion of fantastical elements across all three acts allows for less jarring shifts in genre than Legend of The Ten Rings. Arguably, Marvel dropped the ball when it came to giving Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) a new enemy. Like Spider-Man: No Way Home, Wreckage simply brings back villains from other Marvel Comics adaptations. However, they do provide a welcome addition to the movie I’d narrowly call my favorite released by Marvel Studios in that year.

Shang-Chi and The Wreckage of Time

Release date: December 20, 2024

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Writers: Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham & Diana Lee Inosanto

Don’t think we’ll let your Hand try on these Rings.

-Katy Chen

Shang-Chi and the magical Ten Rings get caught in a war between Xialing (Meng’er Zhang)’s Ten Rings and the Hand when Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho) resurrects the Death Dealer (Andy Le) to do her bidding.

The return of the Hand to the Marvel Cinematic Universe also allows for the return of Colleen “Iron Fist” Wing, played once again by part-Singaporean-British Jessica Henwick. Beforehand, I only saw her in The Defenders, the worst Marvel/Netflix show I watched for at least a whole season. As expected from Destin Daniel Cretton’s writing and direction, Colleen provides a fascinating presence, and shares strong chemistry with Shang-Chi and Katy (Awkwafina). This results in some action scenes actually topping the Legend‘s finest set pieces in spectacle. Both she and Madame Gao recap important points from the Netflix shows in a natural manner, ensuring that neither movie characters nor casual viewers would get lost. I appreciate learning that the increase in major female characters also led to the addition of a female screenwriter, even if part-Filipino-American Diana Lee Inosanto’s limited experience writing movies suggests that Marvel hired her mainly for her pedigree and Disney connections.

It does feel ridiculous how many villains Wreckage of Time resurrects, but they seem to benefit from their comebacks. Death Dealer remains overshadowed by Xialing and Madame Gao, but I actually enjoyed learning more about his fearsome reputation as a fighter of the Ten Rings organization. Madame Gao remains compelling, even if the movie doesn’t explore her connections to any Hell’s Kitchen villains outside of the Hand. The reveal that she was once rivals with Wenwu (Tony Leung) provides a contrived justification for getting his children involved in foiling her plans, although one can’t blame the writers for wanting one more appearance from Leung. The notion of Shang-Chi and Xialing finishing his business threatens to undermine the Legend‘s theme of learning from the previous generation’s mistakes, but at least they ultimately refrain from any temptation to build a new empire.

You probably figured out right away that this movie doesn’t really exist, and that I just wrote this article for April Fool’s Day. However, tricking my readers felt less important to me than does sharing my disappointment with Shang-Chi’s ongoing lack of a second canon MCU appearance. Although I rarely prefer an MCU series’ second movie to the first, I’ve had trouble believing that Marvel would undermine their own efforts to pull the Master of Kung-Fu out of obscurity. Even though The Legend of The Ten Rings topped Black Widow and Eternals to become Disney’s highest-grossing/most-acclaimed Marvel movie of 2021 – my wording credits all of Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s success to Sony – it seems like it’ll remain the only one of these three not to receive a cinematic follow-up this year. Disney+ has started bringing Shang-Chi back in animation, but since these appearances have no confirmed connection to “the Sacred Timeline,” they couldn’t attract me. Not even his confirmed return in Avengers: Doomsday could settle my impatience: five years still sounds longer than I hoped for him to reappear, and I can’t trust the Russos to treat Liu any better than they did Dave Bautista.

I don’t have as strong a desire to see the Hand return, but I needed some Asian Marvel villain to both “wreck time,” and justify the rumors of Iron Fist teaming up with Shang-Chi. The Netflix shows remained conveniently vague on whether or not Madame Gao died for good. To close things off, I’ll rattle off some other occurrences I imagined for this premise: Shang-Chi fighting addiction to the magical Ten Rings; the audience finally seeing Death Dealer’s face during meetings with the Hand; a dragon fight high above Hell’s Kitchen; a lighthearted mid-credit cameo from OB (Chinese/Vietnamese-American Ke Huy Quan).