Marvel’s Shang-Chi has completed filming despite the delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the cast and crew are celebrating their latest progress.
Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton was the first to confirm the wrap up in a post on Instagram. The director’s wife and sister joined him in the photo along with actor Zhang Meng.
Simu Liu, the star of the latest film for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), also posted a photo on his Instagram account to express his excitement over the completion of his movie’s principal photography.
Liu also indicated that Shang-Chi will debut in theaters in nine months. This means that despite the disruption caused by the pandemic, the superhero movie’s post-production process will be able to meet Marvel’s new target release date of July 2021. The film was originally set for a February 2021 outing.
According to Cinema Blend, work on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings started in February in Australia. In early March, the director had to get tested for COVID-19 which fortunately turned out negative.
However, Disney ordered all active productions to stop working as the world shut down and looked for safer ways to deal with the virus. The cast and crew were back on the set after over five months of lockdown.
Shang-Chi’s character explained
Little is known about Marvel’s latest superhero movie but Shang-Chi is the very first MCU film with an Asian lead and mostly Asian cast.
According to Screen Rant, the film’s development actually started as early as 2006. It is based on the 1970s comic release inspired by martial arts legend Bruce Lee.
The character’s father is Fu Manchu, the head of a criminal organization, who trained his son as a kung fu master. Fu Manchu wanted Shang-Chi to learn the discipline and the noble principles of the skill.
One day, however, the father ordered his son to kill an old man and Shang-Chi realized his father isn’t who he claimed to be. So, the son broke away and joined the MI-16 whose objectives are to defeat Fu Manchu. But Shang-Chi didn’t like what he did with the MI-16 as well and left to become a private detective.
As a superhero, Shang-Chi relies more on his martial arts skill but he does have superhuman strength. He has a unique fighting style that combines many forms of martial arts. He is also a master of the sword, the spears and the nunchucks.
Changes in the Marvel movie
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will not feature Fu Manchu. Instead, The Mandarin will be both the father and the antagonist, played by Chinese superstar Tony Leung. The Ten Rings is the organization of The Mandarin in the Marvel comic series and has ties to Iron Man.
Other familiar names in the cast of this martial arts superhero movie include Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina and Ronny Chieng. Marvel, however, has not disclosed their actual roles.
Shang-Chi will be part of the MCU’s Phase Four and will be the newest movie with a new set of cast members as with Eternals.
Image courtesy of Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America / CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 / via Wikimedia Commons