This review of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” was first published on August 23.
Marvel Comics creators Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin originally conceived martial-arts hero Shang-Chi as a loose composite of the imagery and mythologies of Bruce Lee, Caine from “Kung Fu” (whom Lee created), and Sax Rohmer’s pulp villain Dr. Fu Manchu. If Marvel Studios has thus far made slow progress in developing solo adventures for its many superheroes of color, it takes another successful stride, if not quite as sizable as “Black Panther,” with “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” a film that builds simultaneously on the lexicon of 50 years of Hong Kong action films and the thematic boilerplate of MCU origin stories.