*Spoilers.*
Okay, so I only did one Marvelous Wednesday post that was mostly unrelated to Wenwu before sliding right back into it. But hey, baby steps! The relationship between Shang-Chi and his dad is the heart of the film, so it’s only fitting that we talk more about it.
Dads, and daddy issues, have loomed large throughout the MCU. Whether the characters are alive or not, their impact on their adult superhero (or villain) children is strongly felt. We’ve got evil adopted dads like Thanos, distracted/disinterested dads like Howard Stark, and ostensibly well-meaning dads that still screw up their kids like Odin. As for Shang-Chi, he’s got a real doozy of a dad – his first film devotes extensive time to flashbacks depicting his messed-up childhood with Wenwu. It’s weird enough when your dad is a 1000-year-old former war lord who only recently stopped wearing the Ten Rings that grant him lethal power and immortality, but for the first few years of Shang-Chi’s life, his childhood is about as normal as it could possibly be under those circumstances. I remain obsessed with the brief flashback of the Xu family playing Dance Dance Revolution and then cozying up on the couch together as the kids fall asleep. For me, that’s the “Avengers hang around drinking beer and trying to lift Thor’s hammer” scene of The Legend of the Ten Rings, and I love it so much.
But after Shang-Chi’s mom is killed (in retribution against Wenwu for something he did in his war-lord days,) any pretense of normality is forever gone from the family. Wenwu decides to rebuild the Ten Rings army, takes his 7-year-old son to watch him murder some gangsters in revenge, and then trains said 7-year-old son to be an assassin, again in service of revenge. While Shang-Chi eventually runs away from home and tries to start a new life for himself away from his dad’s influence, it’s not until after he takes his first life at the age of 14.
The two don’t see each other for 10 years, and when circumstances/Wenwu bring them back together, it’s a real head trip. First Wenwu sends Shang-Chi a postcard that appears to be from Shang-Chi’s sister Xialing, then he sends some of his men to recover Shang-Chi and Xialing’s Ta Lo pendants by any means necessary (but he’s confident that his men “couldn’t kill [Shang-Chi] if they tried,” so let bygones be bygones, right? Right?) After picking them up in his helicopter and flying them back to his compound, Wenwu has dinner with his kids, drops an unbelievable bombshell on them, and then has them thrown in his dungeon when it looks like they’re going to get in the way of his plans. It’s not a surprise when Shang-Chi comes to the conclusion that, because Wenwu needs to be stopped at all costs, Shang-Chi will have to kill him.
All that is classic hero kid/villain dad dynamics: the manipulation and abuse, the “join me on the Dark Side” invite, the “I’ll never be like you!” defiance. But this isn’t a Luke-Vader situation where the one redeeming moment comes at the eleventh hour. Wenwu is objectively terrible, but he’s also bizarrely, sincerely loving too, and that makes the whole thing even harder for Shang-Chi (and Xialing, but more on her another day) to deal with. As Shang-Chi is telling Katy about his twisted upbringing and his father shaping him into an assassin, he admits, “I would’ve done anything he asked.” And the way he says it, it’s not out of fear. It’s a kind of admiration, a kind of love that Wenwu engendered from his son. Wenwu draws it out of Shang-Chi with the way he kneels down to 7-year-old Shang-Chi’s eye level and earnestly entreats Shang-Chi to help him avenge Li’s murder. With the way he tenderly cleans Shang-Chi’s bloody knuckles after training, with the way he tells Shang-Chi about the family legacy of the Ten Rings with just the slight hint of a fairytale. Wenwu is powerful and imposing, but he’s magnetic too. He knows when to use a light touch, and for many years, that kept Shang-Chi caught in his orbit. A huge part of the reason Wenwu is so compelling, as both a dad and an antagonist, is that all of his menacing scenes are about 10% tender and all his tender scenes are about 10% menacing. It’s love and care and power and possession and rage and grief and vengeance and longing all rolled into one. No wonder he throws Shang-Chi off-kilter.
This is why their big fight scenes in the second half of the film are dramatically engaging as well as being excellent action. You can feel the force of the emotion on both sides. Shang-Chi defiantly insisting he’s not afraid of Wenwu and Wenwu coolly replying, “Yes, you are.” Shang-Chi’s accusation that Wenwu chose the Rings over his family when his children needed him the most and Wenwu hurling back that Shang-Chi should have protected his mom on the night those men came for her. Shang-Chi’s taunt, “Is this what you wanted?” as he faces down Wenwu, preparing to imitate his dad’s own ruthlessness, and then Shang-Chi choosing to be better when he’s positioned to land the killing blow. Shang-Chi trying to get through to Wenwu as he tries to break down the gate in Ta Lo (thinking it will free a still-alive Li when really, it’s the Dweller in Darkness luring him in,) sadly insisting, “She’s not back there, Dad,” Wenwu’s desperation as he avows, “I have to save her!” These fights are charged and personal, and they illuminate Shang-Chi (and Wenwu) for us in ways that the spectacle of the climatic battle with the Dweller in Darkness just don’t.
By the end of the film, Wenwu is gone, having pulled the classic last-second redemption move of putting himself between danger and his son when the Dweller in Darkness escapes the gate, giving Shang-Chi the Ten Rings with his dying breath. And I mean, I get it. 1) Marvel probably didn’t want to bank on getting an actor of Leung’s stature to sign on for more than one movie, and killing Wenwu off is the cleanest way to get him out of the picture. And 2) Wenwu is such a foundational presence in this film and in Shang-Chi’s life, so for Shang-Chi to ultimately be established as his own hero, he needs to get out from under his dad’s shadow, both personally and narratively. But it’s still a damn shame. Even if the MCU is littered with sons and daughters who have complicated relationships with their dads, this was one was done spectacularly well, and I really wish we could’ve seen more of it going forward.
(Quick side note, because I can’t help myself: not to mention, I just kind of wish we could have Wenwu in everything. I would watch the hell out of a movie/Disney+ series/whatever that showed the rise of the Ten Rings, and I saw this fan art of Wenwu facing off against Tony Stark (the Mandarin is primarily an Iron Man villain in the comics) and was blown away by the sheer thought of all that coolness we won’t get. Unless… What If…? Maybe? Leung enjoyed working with you, Marvel – if you play your cards right, you might get him to make more appearances in the universe!)
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