‘Shang-Chi’ sequel is coming next year

Maybe it’s the post-COVID memory haze, or audience fatigue over franchise movies and TV shows in general. Whatever the case may be, now’s the perfect time to brush up on the events of Ten Rings by rewatching Jackie Chan’s mid-to-late 1990s filmography—from Rumble in the Bronx (1995) to Rush Hour (1998)—in which Chan, arguably the greatest entertainer to walk, run, spin, pole vault, pratfall, and tumble upon the face of this Earth, uses furniture, soda bottles, shopping carts, ladders, a Charlie Chaplin comic sensibility, and even the jacket off his back to repel bad guys. 

A repeat viewing of Ten Rings seems like a more logical step on paper, but remember, gang: Marvel Studios isn’t shy about recycling material, however fresh it may be. (Ever notice how 2016’s Dr. Strange is basically a retelling of 2008’s Iron Man? That’s no accident.) Case in point, Wreckage of Time, rather than a brand-new narrative, is actually just a reboot of Ten Rings, in which high-flying martial arts action sequences and imaginative CGI creatures drawn from Chinese mythology are deemphasized in favor of a more grounded, character-driven story that’s completely divorced from the events of the original film.

In other words, Wreckage of Time—a reference, perhaps, to the way the half-decade gap since Ten Rings’ release has affected viewers’ recollections of its existence—will put Liu front and center and shuffle its predecessors’ plot into the background. All that plot still happens, of course, but in a stroke of genius by Cretton’s co-screenwriters, Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham, the story will unfold without Shang-Chi’s participation; it seems that in their retelling, he is totally uninterested in keeping up his martial arts training, and instead has focused his heart, body, and mind on establishing his own fast food franchise in San Francisco’s bustling and frankly overcrowded dining scene.

Simu Liu during the TAAF Heritage Month Summit on May 5, 2023 in New York City.

JP Yim/Getty Images

What does this mean for Liu’s co-stars if Shang-Chi’s character arc is all about trading in his wushu duds for a bistro apron? Awkwafina fans, worry not. She’ll reprise her role as Katy, Shang-Chi’s bestie, who joins him on his restaurant ventures because for one, being a valet is a drag, and for another, why the hell not? Good news for Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh diehards as well, because they’re also back in their old roles as the villainous Wenwu (and Shang-Chi’s father) and the more or less anonymous Ying Nan, respectively. In fact, the entire cast is back. None of that’s changed. What’s changed is that while Yeoh and Leung are in the mystical fantasy village Ta Lo, waging a high-stakes battle between darkness and light, the movie stays anchored to San Francisco. There are still cool fight scenes in the film inspired by wuxia cinema, a’la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. They’re just kept out of the frame where no one can see them and they’re thus unlikely to detract from the human drama Cretton and co. have made their priority. 

This shift in storytelling philosophy seems to have been spurred in part by mass cultural amnesia over Ten Rings’ 2021 theatrical run, though ample box office receipts suggest that a lot of people paid to see it. What better way to remind Marvel’s core and general audiences alike that Ten Rings is indeed a film that got made, distributed, and exhibited in multiplexes than by rebooting it while rebranding it as a sequel at the same time? 

But there’s more to this creative choice, and it’s Liu’s increasing star power. He hosted Saturday Night Live two whole months after the movie’s Labor Day weekend premiere, after all, on which he had an “Asian firsts”-off with Bowen Yang; since then, he’s shown up in nothing but hits, like Paul Feig’s Jackpot!, Brad Peyton’s Atlas, Andy Fickman’s One True Loves, and April Mullen’s Simulant, which really should’ve been titled Simu-Lant. (Missed opportunity, Mullen!) He was even in seven minutes of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, and don’t forget the casual ease with which he nailed his “tired dad” part in Alex Woo’s In Your Dreams. This is an actor not so much on the rise, but who has risen. Wreckage of Time is the platform he deserves to show this industry what he can do—all over again, like he did in 2021.