That’s 24 of 25 for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Yes I’m counting, but this one was special.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was my most anticipated MCU movie of 2021, and it wasn’t even close. With all due respect to Black Widow, Eternals and Spider-Man: No Way Home, this was the movie that was highest on my radar, largely for cultural significance reasons.

I’m not Asian or Asian-American, but being black, I remember what Black Panther was like as an experience for me in 2018. Regardless of what I’ve said about Marvel Studios marketing their diversity, for Ryan Coogler, the late great Chadwick Boseman, Ruth Carter and the rest of that cast and crew to make that movie, and show us all an example of a strong, vibrant African culture that had been completely untouched by slavery or colonization, was a thing to behold, which is why I saw it three times in the theater, my fiancee saw it four times, and why there were stories of teachers taking their entire classes to see it as a point of cultural significance.

I wanted the same experience for Asian culture with Shang-Chi. They deserve it as much as any other minority on the planet does, especially one seeking more representation in American media. When the pandemic hit and affected all of Hollywood as a result, that dampened financial expectations, but the importance of Asian representation still remained, and knowing who was in the film, what it was about, and the energy behind all of it, I was hoping for an experience that was either on Black Panther’s level, or surpassed it.

In my humble opinion, the latter happened. No joke.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is the second best comic book film to release in 2021, and if you’re seriously wondering what the best one is, I’ll just say that Shang-Chi is also to date the best widely released theatrical comic book film of the year, and that should make it pretty clear to you.

The thing is, it’s a CLOSE second, and as much I hoped that would be the case, it was still unexpected.

Marvel Studios has seriously impressed me with Phase 4 this year, starting on Disney+ with WandaVision, leading to The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and then Loki, before going back to theatrical with Black Widow finally releasing this past July. In each of these signature MCU projects, I have found things in all of them that I’ve literally been waiting years for the franchise to do, in terms of storytelling, character development and general tone. Things that quite honestly became more than a bit static and cookie cutter in the middle phases of the franchise.

Shang-Chi is a very adult MCU film, perhaps even more so than Black Panther or Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Were there families in my theater enjoying it? A few, but this isn’t a movie built specifically to take the kids and turn the brain off. They’re going to have a few questions after this one, and mom and dad are going to have to answer them, same as they might have for Black Panther and a few others in the franchise as well. It’s nothing gratuitous or uncalled for, but I don’t remember seeing many MCU films in the past where a side character left the room flipping everyone else off in the process, a la Mystique in a scene from X2 way back in 2003.

I know it might be unfair to keep comparing this film to Black Panther, and part of me wishes it wasn’t in the back of my head the entire time watching it in IMAX, but to be honest Shang-Chi follows a similar formula to that film in terms of tonal balance, family dynamic and cultural impact on the material. Once you hear Joel P. West’s score with full orchestral work, there is no denying that you are watching a film steeped in Asian culture, while also blending the Western aspects of composition into it as well. The merging of mystical storytelling motifs and Eastern legends with the big budget superhero genre is seamless, and even though there are definitive callbacks and connective tissue to the rest of the MCU, a fan of Asian cinema or culture can watch this movie and simply be entertained by what they are seeing and feeling on screen.

The unsung hero of this film though, with respect to everything else, is the fight choreography. Never has the MCU gone to this level with hand to hand combat, let alone martial arts. Ever. If director Destin Daniel Cretton and Director of Photography William Pope set out to bring a new level of fight scenes to a more than 13-year old franchise full of on screen battles, then mission accomplished. Massively. Shang-Chi has THE BEST fight choreography in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. Period.

Actually, it’s because of Andy Cheng, the film’s fight choreographer that has previously worked with Jackie Chan, which explains much of the fight style that you see in Shang-Chi and how it’s filmed. This isn’t a rookie effort or a bad attempt to copy what Chan’s films did, this is a full fledged understanding of the aesthetic, how it works, and what it should look like in a world that features aliens, gods, super soldiers, and at some point officially, mutants. There isn’t a single fight sequence large or small in this movie that looks rough or cheaply done. It’s all fluid, seemingly effortless, and utterly entertaining.

The same can be said for the visual effects, which features work from Digital Domain, Scanline VFX and Weta Digital among others, which completely explains the polish this movie has on its big set pieces. For all the smaller personal moments the movie has, when it goes big, it’s epic, especially toward the end of the film, and dare I say, in a moment of franchise line blurring here, there are definitely times where Shang-Chi channels Aquaman AND Man of Steel for its visual look and feel, which coming from me is high praise without question.

The cast is flawless. Seriously, there isn’t a weak link, and that includes Awkwafina as Katy, Shang-Chi’s best friend. The trailers did their best to highlight her as comic relief, given her comedic style she is commonly known for, but there are more than a few quieter, emotional moments in the film where she has to do some emotive acting and reaction to what is happening to her and her friend, and it works. I’ve had no issues with her as an actress since personally discovering her in Ocean’s 8, and that continues to be the case.

But seriously, this is about Simu Liu in the title role and how he handles the responsibilities of being the lead in a big budget comic book movie EXTREMELY well. Of everyone in this cast, he’s the one that has to pull off the full range of emotions and growth from start to finish, and he was absolutely awesome. When we talk about actors being given a shot with a massive IP, and in this case as the lead as well, this is what we mean when we say it can be a life-changing decision for those people. From now on, Liu IS Shang-Chi, no matter what else he does in his career, and being the representation of a powerful Asian hero on screen that younger audiences can see and look up to, is an honor he wears incredibly well throughout the whole film.

If anyone can steal that show from him though, it’s Meng’er Zhang who plays his sister Xu Xialing. Not only is she the fiercest and most capable female character on screen, her character’s backstory is an outstanding angle on the main plot that manages to delve into a key part of the progressive storytelling in the script, without taking away focus from Shang-Chi’s primary story, because it really is a vital part of his story. As capable as he is on screen, so is she, and it was joy to watch her choreography as well, in addition to her character development.

Subjectively speaking of course, there IS a villain problem that has existed at times in the MCU, where the primary antagonist isn’t written quite on the same level as the heroes or the story itself. Shang-Chi very much avoids that by making the antagonist, Xu Wenwu, unconventional here, in not only that he’s Shang-Chi and Xialing’s father, but also with his dangerously misguided motivations and very human frailties on an emotional level. Tony Leung, who is one of the biggest Asian actors of all time, plays the role as nuanced and tortured as you could hope for with a character villain, giving you the perspective of seeing why he does what he does, but still understanding why it’s a problem. Those are indeed the best villains, the ones that aren’t one note and simply twirl their mustaches for no apparent reason.

I waited the whole movie for Emperor Georgiou…I mean, Michelle Yeoh to pop up on screen and I wasn’t disappointed one bit. Her character, whom I won’t reveal for spoiler purposes, is awesome, as is Fala Chen, the actress who plays Ying Li, the mother of Shang-Chi and Xialing. It was also great to see Benedict Wong appear as Wong from Doctor Strange, and his involvement with Shang-Chi going forward will be intriguing to say the least.

It’s not a spoiler to mention that this film DOES acknowledge and address the “faux Mandarin” and his Ten Rings logo from Iron Man 3, but I’ll admit they did much more with it than I thought or expected they would. I’m 50-50 on it overall, but definitely glad it was addressed and not ignored.

As expected with the MCU, there’s mid credit and post credit scenes, one of which takes a hilarious turn, both of which are seemingly important. In fact, I wasn’t expecting to see certain people in one of them, but in retrospect I wasn’t surprised either, given the nature of the franchise itself. The other scene, which directly points to a potentially massive future development in the MCU, intrigues me enough to read up on the comics about it. In fact, I probably will do that in general for the Shang-Chi character itself now.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings may not reach the billion-dollar pinnacle of Black Panther, but it is every bit as culturally relevant and representationally vital to Asian and Asian-Americans as Black Panther was and is to African and African-Americans. Whatever it does financially in its exclusive theatrical release will hopefully be more than enough to continue the story, because Round 1 was an absolute A-plus effort and an automatic top tier MCU film.