Happy birthday to Simu Liu, and happy birthday to all of us. Marvel has given its next great superhero, along with all of its fans, one heck of a gift today. Marvel surprised the world with an early release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings‘ first trailer. And the movie looks like it will add an all-new, much needed dimension to the MCU.
The first trailer for Shang-Chi looks like a Marvel movie, but feels like something entirely new for the franchise. We’re accustomed to seeing heroes with amazing abilities save people from bus crashes and violent attacks. And that’s here in abundance. But never before has the MCU given us anything that reminds us of an all-time classic like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
It also shows why we’ve been so excited for the film since 2018. Liu plays the eponymous Shang-Chi, whose father says he can defeat anyone. That’s because he can master any form of combat. This will help him take on the international terrorist group The Ten Rings. MCU fans know them as the people who kidnapped Tony Stark in the original Iron Man.
Marvel
For as much as we like this first trailer, which is only scratching at the surface of the full story, our favorite part about it might be that Liu didn’t seem to know it was coming. He shared the first poster for the film on Twitter 30 minutes before the trailer dropped. Per his tweets, he thought it was coming in three weeks. No surprise he had the best reaction to the surprise drop.
GHUUFXDTGVXDFGHVCDDTGHUIKKBVCDSTYGHJHGGHHJBVGGFYFYGUBIH THIS IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! https://t.co/j1FD3Frpoo
— Simu Liu (@SimuLiu) April 19, 2021
Same. Hard same. Which is why even though it’s not my birthday, it sure feels like it is.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings also stars Awkwafina, Mang’er Zhang, Ronny Chieng, Fala Chen, Michelle Yeoh, Florian Munteanu, and Tony Leung. Destin Daniel Cretton directs. The movie comes to theaters September 3.