Shang-Chi: Marvel’s refreshing Phase 4 debut, China’s latest mascot
The riskiest gamble in modern cinematic history began with billionaire genius Tony Stark’s abduction by a terrorist organisation known as The Ten Rings. In dark caves of Afghanistan, Stark conned his captors and built a metallic suit to become the unlikeliest superhero who would go on to save the planet twice.
That was 13 years and 25 films ago. Now the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is the most successful film franchise of all time.
The MCU began with Iron Man in 2008 in Afghanistan at a time when the West led by the United States was fighting the Taliban and Russia dominated much of the policymakers’ minds. Now Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings has ushered in the MCU’s Phase 4 that not just brings The Ten Rings to the fore that was teased in the very first film but also acknowledges our world that has changed massively since the MCU began.
Shang-Chi is also the story of evolving geopolitics and the way the Chinese state asserts its influence through popular culture. First, the film, and then the geopolitical story behind it.
Shang-Chi is the most refreshing Marvel film
Shang-Chi is a Marvel film like none other. It’s such a refreshing take that it feels like a crossover between the Fantastic Beasts of Harry Potter universe and Marvel. Fantastical animals, ancient magic, and classic Marvel heroism and its fight for what’s right come together to produce a film that retains the core of the MCU and fuses new elements to drive it into its new phase.
The film begins with a clear black and white distinction but moves into the grey territory by the end which now feels like a hallmark of MCU’s Phase 4.
Until Avengers: Endgame, we were used to villains like Ultron and Thanos who easily fell in the black territory. Grey characters like Wanda from WandaVision, Loki and Sylvie from Loki, or (as it appears) Yelena in Black Widow appear to be a constant in Phase 4.
Film sets tone for MCU’s future
The grey streak of Shang-Chi sets the tone for the future of the MCU where we expect more morally ambivalent characters who’d be hard to place in the good-bad binary.
The confirmation of The Ten Rings’ return in later MCU entities also feels like a continuity from earlier MCU phases where two organisations are pitched against each other. Earlier, it was SHIELD vs HYDRA and now it appears like SWORD (introduced in WandaVision) vs The Ten Rings. While SWORD is a clear successor of SHIELD in MCU, The Ten Rings has the potential to succeed HYDRA with its ancient roots, immense resources, and skilled operatives.
There is another less-focussed aspect of the film that, if it materialises later in later MCU entities, appears to be a very promising theme — the sibling rivalry. Much like the way Thor’s and Loki’s dynamics were central to earlier MCU plots, we now have another set of siblings in Shang-Chi and his sister Xu-Xialing who seem to share at least some of the dynamics of the Asgardian siblings. It will be interesting to see whether it becomes a running theme in Phase 4.
Shang-Chi brings China’s best face to world
In bringing to fore a Chinese-American protagonist and setting a film in China, the MCU has taken us far from the Americas and Europe that we are used to seeing in superhero films. This has been in the making for sometime — Dr Strange took us to Nepal and Black Panther to Africa — but it’s in Shang-Chi that we see the central story set entirely in the East.
This acknowledges our world that has changed massively since the MCU began. Between 2008 when Iron Man came out and 2021, the US forces left Afghanistan, China replaced Russia as the major challenger to the US hegemony, and much of the intrigues shifted to the East from Europe. In short, China is the superpower of tomorrow as the US hegemony ebbs.
The cinema is acknowledging it as more and more films shift to East and Asia — most often a euphemism for China. Once limited to occasional villains and trivia rather than crucial plots, the Chinese have now firmly established themselves in the mainstream Western cinema with influence that’s rising by the day.
Shang-Chi brings out the best in China just as the Chinese state would want the world to view their country as. Far from the concrete jungles of the West, Shang-Chi’s China is the one where lush green forests hide magical realms, where ancient magic co-exists with the epitome of modernity — young men and women dancing to pop music on roadsides, underground fight clubs, and of course the curved, glittery skyscrapers in contrast to dull and decaying American public infrastructure.
This is not a first. Hollywood has been displaying the best of China in films like The Martian and Gravity — even if the country enslaves more than a million Muslims.
Even as China forces hundreds of thousands of Tibetan Buddhists along with their spiritual leader to live in exile, Shang-Chi’s China is one in which an ancient community, their faith, and culture lives peacefully in serene forests.
Predictably, this ancient community based in China is safeguarding the planet from ancient dark creatures that eat your souls and are immune to all human weapons. Only dragonscale can save you from these ancient villains. Only China has dragons. China is the one that has been saving the world. As the Chinese would say, it’s world security with Chinese characteristics.
Cinema reflects geopolitics and China’s rising power
One of the world’s largest media behemoths, Disney, has a rather cosy relationship with China. For Disney, China is the most important market.
For the unversed, Disney owns Marvel.
When Chloé Zhao-directed Nomadland won an Oscar, Disney pressed journalists to refer to her as “Chinese” or “Chinese national” in their reporting despite the fact that she has spent much of her life outside China.
Last year, a Disney subsidiary convinced a New York-based film magazine to delete a quote from a 2013 story in which Zhao sounded critical of China, her country of origin and Disney’s most important market in terms of penetration and new revenue streams. Understandably, Disney has left no stone unturned to please the Communist Party of China.
One shouldn’t forget Mulan for which Disney officially thanked the Xinjiang local government, which is the province in which more than a million Muslims are enslaved by the Chinese state.
Hollywood — a means to an end for China
All dictators portray that popular democracy is flawed and their own governance models are the best. The Communist Party of China has been preaching to the world for years that their “socialism with Chinese characteristics” has brought growth and equity for the Chinese people, whereas the democratic West is mired with social injustice, poverty, and infrastructural decay. It’s not only the state-controlled media that advances this narrative.
While Marvel’s Falcon and the Winter Soldier portrays the polarisation in the post-Trump United States and highlights racial tensions and touches sensitive themes of refugees and borders, these complicated themes and nuanced reflections of real-life tensions are absent from depictions of China in Shang-Chi.
In Disney’s China, heroes wear silky costumes, warriors fight with the elegance of a ballet dancer, and ancient magicians ride colourful dragons to save the world. In Disney’s China, you get off the airport and see curved, glittery sky-scrapers, families enjoying dinners and young men and women dancing in flash mobs.
Contrastingly, in depictions of the West, you see homeless under bridges and White police personnel stopping Black men just because they are Black. It’s not that it doesn’t happen in the West — it does — but it’s a disproportionate depiction of realities that’s the point.
While the flaws of the West are portrayed liberally, China is portrayed as a utopia where everything is fine. People earn good money, families enjoy dinners, and ancient cults save the day. Of course, dragons are portrayed as saviours of the world, not as nefarious figures that frequently gobble the American Eagle or the Indian Elephant in Chinese state media’s cartoons.
There is of course no mention of enslavement of Muslims, destruction of Tibetan Buddhist culture, or the cover-up of sexual assaults by top Chinese leaders.
Liberal institutions used to advance illiberal goals
The Chinese have used the free market principles and the liberal Western (and also Indian) institutions to the hilt to advance their interests but have disallowed the same benefits to the rest of the world.
For example, the Chinese export goods and services to the entire world. The country is a technological powerhouse both in hardware or software. But they have closed themselves to the rest of the world. No Google, Facebook, Twitter, or even LinkedIn. The Chinese have a market of a billion-plus with great purchasing power and that’s their biggest leverage.
First, the Chinese build a relationship with an entity and then they hold them hostage on the back of market access. The Chinese simply close their markets to whoever is not towing their line. The China-Australia trade stand-off is a great example. Hollywood has been subjected to the same.
There are three conditions to have your film screened in China, the world’s largest film market. These are: sharing revenue with the Chinese government, co-producing it with a Chinese company, and paying a flat one-time fee. Of course, the film also has to be cleared by the Chinese state censors which means that the Chinese can never be shown in bad light — no Chinese villain.
Shang-Chi is not the first Chinese cheerleader
The Chinese don’t have a subtle influence over Hollywood. It’s quite overt. It’s so overt that the 2012 film Red Dawn had to change the villains in the film from China to North Korea. The movie Looper had two versions, one international and another specific to Chinese with 15 minutes of additional scenes shot in China.
In The Martian, the Chinese saved the American astronaut stranded on Mars. In Gravity, it was the Chinese rocket that brought Sandra Bullock home.
The 2013 film World War Z is perhaps the most relevant film today. In the film, a pandemic caused by a virus turns most of the people into zombies. It’s based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Max Brooks. In the novel, the first cases of the virus appear in China (sounds familiar?) from illegal organ trade but the patient zero (the first cases) in the film originates in India.
As part of their misinformation campaign, the Chinese have asserted since last year that the coronavirus pandemic might have originated in India rather than in China.
It was later reported that the China-to-India change in World War Z was not an organic change but a change made specifically by the filming company to let the film pass the Chinese censor. Moreover, in the version that released in China, the virus was discovered by “heroic Chinese scientists” — not very differently than how the Western press and intellectuals defended China over the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Shang-Chi is an amazing film but it’s a Chinese mascot
Riding on their financial prowess and strategic heft the world over, the Chinese have infiltrated our liberal institutions like free press and independent cinema and have acquired influence to advance their goals.
In India, the iconic Sadda Haq song blurs FREE TIBET banners featured in the song’s video.
While Shang-Chi is an amazing film, it should be watched in the context of the geopolitics of the day where the Chinese are using every avenue possible to advance their goals. While they might save the world, first and foremost, China-origin superheroes are comrades of the People’s Republic. One shouldn’t forget that while watching Shang-Chi.
Madhur Sharma is a Meerut-based journalist. This is a personal blogpost. This is an independent post and has no relationship, financial or otherwise, with any subject mentioned. Madhur tweets at @madhur_mrt.
