‘Shang-Chi’ Character Posters Bring a New Legion of Fighters Into the MCU

Several new character posters tease the arrival of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s newest superhero and the cavalcade of all-new supporting characters in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The vibrant posters give us a good look at each character’s respective costumes and weaponry, and include one-sheets for the likes of Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, Awkwafina as Katy, Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan, and Tony Leung as Wenwu AKA The (real) Mandarin.

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton from a screenplay he wrote with David Callaham and Andrew Lanham, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will chronicle the story of Shang-Chi, a skilled martial artist who was trained at a young age to be an assassin by his father Wenwu. After leaving the nefarious Ten Rings organization and opting to live a normal life in San Francisco, Shang-Chi is soon drawn back into the clandestine world of the Ten Rings and is forced to confront the past he thought he had left behind.

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Created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Jim Starlin back in the early 1970s, Shang-Chi is often referred to as the “Master of Kung Fu”, but is proficient in numerous styles of both armed and unarmed combat. From the footage released for the movie so far, the MCU’s version of Shang-Chi will be very worthy of this title. In the pages of Marvel comics, the character later gained the ability to conjure countless duplicates of himself which led to him joining The Avengers, though whether the movie will contain this superpower is currently unknown.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will introduce a newly undiscovered world of martial arts and magic into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the movie due to introduce another all-powerful weapon in the form of the Ten Rings, as well as an underwater dragon and, finally, the real version of supervillain The Mandarin, who just so happens to be Shang-Chi’s father.

In fact, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will revolve around the relationship between the Marvel hero and his father, Wenwu AKA The Mandarin, played by Tony Leung. “The core of Shang-Chi’s arc in the comics is really a family drama,” said producer Jonathan Schwartz of the Shang-Chi story. “That was something that Destin keyed into really early on in our conversations, the idea of taking this broken family and this really dark, even abusive family background and seeing what that does to a child over time.”

S hang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings scheduled to be released in the United States on September 3, 2021, as part of Phase Four of the MCU. It is just one of several projects on the MCU horizon, with Phase 4 due to introduce audiences to the Eternals, and eventually The Fantastic Four. Marvel’s fourth phase will also include further adventures for the likes of Doctor Strange in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor in Thor: Love and Thunder, and Black Panther in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Not satisfied with stopping there, Phase 4 will also see the return of other heroes in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Marvels, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Topics: Shang-Chi