The first trailer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings debuted not too long ago, and it’s already gone down a storm online. The 25th feature-length installment in the franchise hits the big screen on the first weekend of September, and with a little over four months to go until release, it was about time for the marketing campaign to kick into high gear.
Admittedly, it looks to be following a very similar template to many other MCU origin stories in that we meet a hero who seems to be suffering from daddy issues which have caused him to turn his back on his destiny. Inevitably, Simu Liu’s title character will learn what it means to be himself, embrace who he truly is and save the day with the help of a wisecracking sidekick, played by Awkwafina in this instance.
That’s not intended to be dismissive, because as familiar as the narrative appears to be, the visuals look unlike anything we’ve seen from the long-running superhero series before. There’s more than a hint of classic wuxia cinema in among the standard superheroics, but a martial arts film set within the context of the MCU is a massively exciting and entirely unique prospect. And now, to mark the debut of the first promo, an avalanche of images have made their way online, which you can check out below.
This was only a teaser trailer, so there’s much more to come from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and hopefully the theatrical industry will have returned to something resembling full capacity by the fall so audiences can head down to their local multiplex in their droves to check it out.
