Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Strategic Genius

we begin our little tale with an introduction of the real mandarin now last time i checked shongxi and the legend of the ten rings takes place in the mcu and therefore it should respect its established history right no no no mandarin sounds familiar doesn't it i am the mandarin in preparation for this movie i rewatched iron man 1 iron man 3 and all hail the king knowing that the 10 rings the mandarin and trevor slattery would be featured now despite if shanxi's mandarin is an improvement over the other one i will not be giving it credit if it breaks continuity with what happened in those three films so we begin with a mandarin and his army approaching this empire [Applause] wow that's pretty [ __ ] powerful i hope this single introductory scene doesn't [ __ ] with the stakes of anything that's about to come now how did the mandarin obtain and master these incredibly powerful rings well he kind of he just kind of found them it's not really known where and we won't get further elaboration on this irrelevant comic comparison time well i don't read comics but i was curious what you comic book nerds thought about the 10 rings being 10 bracelets that go on the user's forearms rather than actual ringies on the thingies from the images i've seen it looks like trevor's mandarin actually got this right do you guys feel insulted anyway with this intro we know that the mandarin is thousands of years old this is actually congruent with all hail the king you don't know the history of the mandarin himself he was a warrior king inspired generations of men through the middle ages perhaps even further back in time well done apparently he's been fighting wars taking over governments and changing the course of history for centuries why does he want to take over the world well [Music] i guess i'd like to point out the narrator mentions he's been doing this from the shadows and yet he sent men with visible tattoos of his terrorist organization's logo so yeah the mandarin is a strategic genius we then jump to 1996 where the narrator says having conquered everything he could he came for my home hold up everything he could we're in 1996 and this guy still hasn't conquered the planet why he's had a couple thousand years in the resources to do so editor madvocate here whenever i say 2 000 years from here on out i mean at least 2 000 years the mandarin could be 10 000 years old for all we know i guess i was just being charitable how far did his conquest even reach did it not extend outside of asia and europe i mean the narrator said the ten rings spread into every corner of the world but uh the mandarin is alive in the present day and the rest of the world doesn't seem to be under his control nor would shield hydra and the red room even be allowed to exist if he were in power unless we're gonna get another winter soldier twist in the sequel revealing he had his men in each group secretly pulling the strings and everything that's happened thus far in the mcu went according to his plan please god not another loki situation i mean it didn't entirely with the nearly world-ending events tony getting involved in iron man and as we see in ant-man he sent someone to invest in the yellow jacket but couldn't because scott intervened which uh they did this [ __ ] in that movie too and for some reason they've doubled down on it in this one and isn't that something to think about if we were to believe this dialogue about the mandarin having power in every corner of the world which would include germany it means he just allowed red skull and the nazis to rise to power who knows he might have even had a hand in it you're literally making it impossible to have any sympathy for this dude movie anyway he learns of a secret mystical village named talo the narrator's home he just heard of this village by picking up some random book and reading about it how has he not read this book or heard of this village earlier oh right because chongqi has to be an adult in the present mcu the mandarin is quite eager to conquer it and the village is only accessible through a moving bamboo forest maze that completely opens up once a year but that's not the only way to get through it sometimes a pocket will open but you need a fast moving vehicle to stay in it guess the pocket was only useful once cars were invented so unbeknownst to the mandarin and his men the maze changes on them while driving through it sending them off-roading mandarin saves himself with his rings and then goes to the tallow entrance but by just walking there making waiting for the mace to open pointless i'm getting ahead of myself at the entrance he meets its guardian ying li she tells him to [ __ ] off and the mandarin kills her [Music] oh i'm sorry i thought he would have instantly killed her considering what he was capable of in the beginning so the mandarin goes really easy on ying li instead of trying for some reason don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch don't stop to watch so he's an idiot yeah but like always when two hot people fight they start giving each other the eye and the whoa whoa just like that did the mandarin never mention he was a two thousand year old conqueror responsible for a plethora of death well yes he actually did because yingli is the one narrating this thing are we going to get an explanation as to why she'd fall in love with a guy who attacked her and tried breaking and entering her home after telling him to leave was she really never suspicious that he might have been sweet talking her to eventually let him into tallow and slaughter her people we are talking about a man who's only strived for world domination through lethal force for two thousand years you know what they say love is blind wouldn't it be pretty stupid if a movie in 2021 used that as the justification for her falling in love ah i'm sure this will clear things up i mean the mandarin is played by b tony liang i mean if it was any other actor i'd have to ask the director and like do some backstory like research imagination but with tony it's just like it's almost like it's impossible to not fall in love with him right he's so charismatic so charming even when he's angry you're like oh you're so handsome so i feel like it's almost like very natural ah the power of horny strikes again thank you for excusing the lack of romantic developments between two starkly different characters by saying the actor is just handsome and charming so it was meant to be thank you for admitting you would have preferred more substance had it been an uglier actor and what about him how is he even capable of loving at this point two thousand years of dictatorship and massacre and he decides to give that up on a dime because woman and who's that oh it's mr mvp [Music] the mandarin didn't give it up because he saw a woman advocate he later says he thought being a warlord was all he was meant to be but ying li showed him a part of himself he didn't know was there and it was like he was seeing the world for the first time okay so what does that mean the visuals accompanying the narration don't help at all what part of himself did she discover for him that he couldn't discover on his own or from someone else previously that love in families are a thing that he doesn't have to take over the world why did he think that was all he was meant to be to begin with did childhood trauma completely affect his worldview was he manipulated by a close one into abusing his power society well no at the very beginning yingli says he could have used his rings for good but all he wanted was power and i'm not saying it's impossible for him to love and completely change course but because he's established as being evil for two millennia completely of his own volition and from the lack of on-screen development i'm calling this one character assassination though there are people who somehow think this change was completely earned and the relationship between wenwu and lee is also completely believable playing dance dance revolution as a family suggests that mom and dad were happy together but we see some genuine chemistry between wenwoo and lee to be clear nando might believe the actors have genuine chemistry which is all good but didn't stop to think if this entanglement even makes sense with who the characters are and what their place in the world is we then jump to the present day where shangxi aka sean is a big boy in san francisco working a job as a valet attendant he has a plucky side character co-worker and friend of 10 years named katie how do i know they've been friends for a decade you may not have caught it but it's really subtle and not contrived sean we've been friends for 10 years okay you know i'm not an idiot a few moments later i knew katie was trouble the first day we met in high school a few moments later i've been by your side for half your life why have the painfully shoehorned 10 years line if you're going to then give us an idea of when these two met we later learned that chongqi picked his american name at 15 so that narrows it down even more of all the things they could have been worried about explaining this was one of them does disney seriously not trust their audience to do the quick maths and right before he's about to throw the first punch katie comes out of nowhere steps right between us and starts screaming the lyrics to hotel california what it's the art of confusion works great on stupid people this line here is meant to be a setup for a payoff later however it is important to note the context of the story katie is telling she saved shangqi from a beating by yelling something random at a bully in high school presumably a dumb teenage bully that is all keep this in mind for later the next morning sean and katie hitch a bus when some dude confronts sean telling him to give up his pendant a fight breaks out where sean burst into a kung fu frenzy yo what up y'all it's your boy cliff coming at you live on the bus in this shot clev's live stream begins with 43 viewers with comments and likes already flooding in and it shoots up to 1.3 k viewers in 6 seconds cleve should not be taking the bus with these numbers he should be driving a lamborghini with sponsorship and ad money oh well it's not like this live stream will have any effect on future plot right right right quick nitpick because it's hilarious that they [ __ ] up the timing on this but his phone says he started streaming one minute and five seconds ago even though he just said yo what up y'all it's your boy cliff and the fight only started 20 seconds ago seems like an easy fix for the editing room but honestly what can you expect from the studio that can't even get tic-tac-toe right [Music] okay this is a little too [ __ ] for my suspension of disbelief like this thing isn't even nanotech but somehow a long-ass blade with a flaming edge can retract and be powered in such a confined amount of space but whatever guess the 10 rings are just that technologically advanced oh how do i know these men are from the 10 rings you ask well the mandarin decided to dress this guy in 10 rings merch logo fully exposed when he's allegedly trying to commit a murder from the shadows man it's been quite a while i wonder what the ten rings have been up to all these years i'm guessing when they weren't crippling governments they were streaming movies and shows exclusive to the countries they're in you can do this too without having to travel the world by using surfsharkvpn the sponsor of this video with surfshark you can access region blocked content so you have even more movies and shows to 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that's surfshark.deals advocate for 83 off a one-year plan plus three months free thanks serve shark for sponsoring the video come on bro and now you're probably wondering why hasn't the bus driver stopped and demanded these lunatics get off his bus or call the cops well you see he had his earbuds in listening to music loud enough to not hear all the commotion in the back and loud enough to prevent him from looking at his rear-view mirror and seeing the fight now if you haven't kept track the bus has been driving for 2 minutes and 15 seconds before the brakes are accidentally cut and in these 2 minutes and 15 seconds nobody's gotten the driver's attention nobody's pulling the signal cord everyone sits around doing nothing because i guess it's just your typical tuesday in san francisco no red lights or stop signs were encountered and nobody's needed to get off or on at any of the stops the bus has already passed as soon as the brakes are cut the bus driver just so happens to need them to stop at his first red light contrived yeah i'd [ __ ] say so did you see that blade arm doesn't even touch chongqi even though it's sliced right through the laptop yup he's dead and if it wasn't even going to touch chongqi to begin with it means he just destroyed this poor woman's laptop for no reason well when we consider she reacted to this with all the concern of a plastered rodent it's really her fault her property was destroyed shang chi actually shows some concern for innocent human lives so that's a step in the right direction after this embarrassment and you and your sister deserve what's coming oh scary keep this threat in mind it will become relevant later after an inane amount of collateral damage and possibly death it turns out blade arm man successfully snagged shang chi's pendant and his immediate response is to fly to macau to protect his sister those guys are going after my sister next i have to get to her first my sister sent me this a few months ago i think it's the address of where she's staying if they hurt her i'm sorry but i have to go fine you can explain on the plane what no katie you can't you can explain on the plane sean why is katie going with him i don't know you'd think chongqi would do everything in his power to prevent this considering another death match like the one on the bus is likely waiting for him in macau so katie's blood is on his hands if she dies she might even just slow him down if she needs saving since you know she has zero combat experience oh that's exactly what happens it wouldn't even be hard to stop her katie just leaves so all he has to do is not tell her what flight he's taking or where he's going exactly so they're both going on this spontaneous trip to another country with no telling of when they'll be back and i guess these valet attendants have the money for immediate plane tickets we're already prepared with everything required for international travel and expect their jobs to welcome them back with open arms whenever they return after my mom died my dad started my training from sun up to sundown i was taught every possible way to kill a man by the time i was 14 i could barely remember what life was like before she died oh so you're giving chongqi the finn treatment like you did with elena shut up the point is i've never i've never had control over my own life before and now i do god i knew it i knew you did it's so cool right it's good yes and you can put so much stuff in there you wouldn't even know this would be a cool way to die i don't get my period [ __ ] i don't have a uterus that's what happens when the red room gives you an involuntary hysterectomy they kind of just go in and they rip out all of your reproductive organs they just get right in there and they chop them all away everything okay okay so you can okay you don't have to get so clinical and nasty oh well i was about to talk about fallopian tubes but okay you'd think giving a child this inhumane kind of training to commit the most inhumane act every moment he's awake until he's 14 would be detrimental to his psyche for the rest of his life but nah he's a fun-loving socially adept well-adjusted dork if he asked me to burn the world down i would have asked him be for vegetarian ah looks like we were getting a little too serious for disney not only is this [ __ ] an absolute tone killer but the writer thought it would be an excellent idea to double down on it and milk it as much as they could so oh we're out of the vegetarian too now we only have beef beef because that's all you have right okay you'll have the beef yes and and the beef two beeps i should also probably mention that my name's not technically shawn it's shanxi you changed your name from shang to sean i wonder how your father found you i was 15 years old all right hi my name is gina i'm gonna go into hiding my new name's jaina [ __ ] off with the lampshading movie i mean for [ __ ] sake this dude spent years practicing how to kill people in every possible way i doubt he's supposed to be this incompetent when it comes to strategy actually considering he's the mandarin son and was trained by him he probably is we all know the strategic genius that guy is at macau seong shi and katie find the location of his sister in the golden daggers club which is an underground fighting ring in a skyscraper full of wacky zany characters on the elevator ride up some shady dude tells shanghi to sign his ipad to enter he doesn't ask katie to sign in though and shanxi isn't suspicious of this at all also what kind of sign-in sheet requires this much reading with steps shanxi signs a contract without looking at it on the way up but if you took even one proper glance it's very clear that they are about to go into an underground fight ring it even says the company takes no responsibility for any physical injuries or death by superpowers or aliens they are then greeted by some dude who immediately recognizes him as bus boy apparently the bus fight streamed by cleve already got 2 million views and this guy just had the video on standby whatever the greeter tells them the fights are streamed to the dark web [Applause] no [Applause] is up next in the big cage and in the big cage is wang and abomination yes the same abomination from the incredible hulk well not quite actually cause now he has fins on the side of his head wong opens a portal to counter his punch and i am once again forced to imagine the missed opportunities of using this on thanos and infinity war to cut his arm off after knocking him out wong takes abomination back to what looks like a cell now if you haven't turned off brain you might be wondering huh the hell just happened why are wang and abomination associates how did they even meet each other if abominations been incarcerated for over a decade and a half you're telling me wang just decided one day to pay him a visit in his cell why the hell does wang think it's a good idea to illegally bring what is essentially evil hulk to a public space for [ __ ] cage fights are there really no cameras in his cell that would catch this and inevitably make wang a criminal it is of no concern [ __ ] you wong you were the only character i was rooting for in no way home after the trailer told us the entire plot happens because doctor strange is a goddamn out of character [ __ ] you're gonna do this [ __ ] and then tell strange not to cast a spell because it's too dangerous ironic [Music] just leave me out of this after witnessing wong's assassination chongqi naturally tells the greeter that a cage fight isn't what he's here for and the greeter says he has to because the thing he signed was actually a fighting contract uh isn't this supposed to be an underground fighting ring who would they even report a breach of contract to so xiang chi could easily refuse the fight knowing there likely won't be repercussions also remember how he immediately dropped everything back home and booked a same or next day international flight what was that for again oh right because the sister might be in a life or death situation so what does chongqi do [Applause] [Laughter] and turns out the person he's fighting is drumroll please his [ __ ] sister and the greeter introduces her by her real name [Applause] [Music] i'm not here to fight anybody okay i'm looking for my sister never heard of her [Applause] [Music] so the greeter lied to shanghi even though he would have absolutely no reason to since yelling's name is used out loud in here and for years gelling has just been using her real name in an underground fighting ring while she's likely being searched for by her father they would have made complete sense for her to have used an alias the greeter wouldn't recognize her real name when asked therefore he wouldn't have lied for no reason and she's supposed to be hiding from the mandarin i guess she's dumber than chongqi at least he americanized his name anyway now you might be wondering wait i thought the mandarin prohibited yelling from training with the boys how did she get so amazing at fighting i'll have to jump ahead but well i wasn't allowed to train with the boys but i watched everything they did and taught myself to do it better somehow simply watching translated to actual hands-on practice with experts in the field not how this works getting a little deja vu from lawn division these are runes wanda only the witch that casts the runes can use her magic a few moments later [Music] you know what he said to me when he left i'll be back in three days three days turning to a week a week turned to a month and a month turned to six years so this is interesting because shanghi dropping everything and instantly flying here tells me he deeply cares for his sister and yet he never came back for her instead he went to california to start a new life nor did he go visit her right after he got that postcard months ago even though he straight up says he assumed this address is where she's staying getting a little deja vu from black widow where did you think i was all this time i thought that she got out and we're living a normal life and perhaps there is a reason for him going to another country and never returning but that doesn't mean he couldn't help his sister anymore there is no indication he went to the authorities or tried contacting shield or tony stark to ask them to look into the mandarin and his location with their advanced technology his compound is on the side of a mountain fully exposed i'm sure this would get picked up by satellites if chongqi could get in touch i imagine telling them he's related to the guy running the 10 rings base of operations would spark their interest just a little bit he could have killed three birds with one stone save his sister [ __ ] over his dad and topple the 10 rings he had 10 years to make an attempt but he did nothing as proven by his complete silence not looking great for his characterization i can't tell if he really cares about his sister or doesn't give a [ __ ] at all what's also interesting is how did chongqi even get to america the reason he was able to leave was because his dad sent him on a solo mission to kill the leader of the iron gang the one responsible for yingli's death but it can be inferred that the iron gang also resides in china a whole bunch of them just show up to wenwu's compound one night in a flashback and wenwu pays some of them a visit in a bar soon after so shanghi wasn't taken out of the country to deal with them and he couldn't have hitched a plane because it's not like he has money a passport a visa or even an id you might say well he traveled to the iron gang in a helicopter with a pilot so there you go but a the pilot wouldn't just agree to help shangxi fly away from his dad and b even if xiangxi knocked out the pilot and took the chopper for himself he doesn't know how to fly it traveling across continents and an ocean with no resources isn't just something you can say just happened you could honestly have an entire movie just about how shangji escaped but we don't even get a throwaway line anyway xiangxi then confronts yelling about the postcard she supposedly sent him and get this the postcard which had no name and no message supposedly sent by someone who would have no [ __ ] way of knowing where he lives wasn't actually sent by her who would have guessed and oh my god if it ain't the biggest coincidence of all time katie we're out of options we have to go now i'll buy you some time just keep going on a dark desert highway cool wind in my hair remember when she said doing this confuses stupid people this th this this was the payoff it works on a deadly assassin trained by a 2000 year old conqueror no katie is dead [Music] wait why are they using stun batons and not guns good question please piss off if you're going to tell me they don't because the mandarin wants to stick to traditional weapons or his culture that would be like defending the wakandans using trial by combat to elect their king this dude was literally buying stark weaponry in 2008 which were purely explosives and firearms he was also about to buy the yellow jacket in 2015 meaning he was very interested in more efficient methods of killing but nope i'll downgrade my men to use electric sticks and piss off twice if you're going to tell me his army doesn't use guns because he doesn't want to draw attention hey get off of me come on bro [Music] strategic warlord everyone [Music] who the [ __ ] approved this [ __ ] yelling somehow knew katie was about to fall which floor to be on and which room to be in and had the super speed to make it there on time no katie is dead again no they're both dead i do not believe for one second yelling is capable of catching katie the way she did with her legs while barely holding onto the scaffolding after katie's fallen several stories the force would have been far too great and look the bamboo is too girthy for hands to fully wrap around for a strong grip katie would have taken gelling with her to the street and before i get called a misogynist let me phrase that differently i do not believe a regular human is capable of catching katie the way it was done okay first of all shongxi didn't leave you for dead he may have left you with a neglectful and shitty father but that doesn't mean you were constantly at risk of being killed second you had no idea if he would survive this onslaught you can't tell him you were trying to make a point if he's [ __ ] dead she was so determined to make this point she was even chill leaving his friend who had nothing to do with his decisions to die what does he want did america make you soft no what the [ __ ] he wasn't sparing him he was trying to get information chongqi literally kills someone a few seconds before this to save you great work i can't tell if this was supposed to be a girl boss moment or subtle commentary on western culture or nothing at all either way this just made yelling look stupid again i told my man they wouldn't be able to kill me if they tried glad i was right glad you were right what what the [ __ ] is going on what why the [ __ ] would you take that risk you only need the pendants you [ __ ] idiot let's go home okay let's go over the mandarin's goals and his plan thus far he wants both pendants he also wants to bring his children back home so that kind of means he needs them alive he knows where both of them live and of course he wants to remain hidden from the world which would best be achieved by not making a scene in public so his plan was to send his son a postcard with nothing but an address and a drawing in hopes he will think it means it was sent by his sister who somehow knows where he lives he's also hoping his son wouldn't go to set a dress to see his sister within the months before he sends his men there he's also also hoping both of them still even have their pendants and regularly wear them months later he will send a group of his men sporting his terrorist logo to take the pendant from him one of them having a [ __ ] sword for an arm his men are to confront him on a bus in public and if he refuses they should try to kill him over it the mandarin is confident that his son who's been gone for a decade has continued martial arts training during this time so that he's at peak performance for this fight and won't get killed after they have chongqi's pendant the same group of men plus a bunch of ninjas are to go to macau for xiaoling's pendant the mandarin is confident that his son will show up at the same time his men do and when he does they should try to kill him and his friend despite already having his pendant and this time they'll use explosives and knives then after this fight's gone on for a while and the friend died multiple times he reveals himself and expects xiang chi and jellying to be cool with all of this and come with him back to the compound what was the point of the postcard if all you did was have chongqi intervene and possibly sabotage your mission of getting zhaoling's pendant why didn't you send two separate groups of men to attack your children at the same time why didn't you have them attack in a private place like their homes instead of out in [ __ ] public if you wanted to bring them home with you then what exactly were you going to do if xiang chi didn't or couldn't go to macau after his pendant was stolen or more likely what if chongqi didn't know you were going after his sister because this guy didn't end up saying you and your sister deserve what's coming what were you going to have your men travel from california to macau pick up jellying and then travel back to california to pick up chongqi you know what actually would have happened chongqi would have either given up the pendant or gotten his ass kicked because he's been actively repressing his previous life as a martial arts assassin for the past 10 years he's in absolutely no condition to take on the henchmen and no doing push-ups before you go to work does not equal rigorous hand-to-hand combat training let's talk more about this dumbass line and you and your sister deserve what's coming i've already covered that this line is the only reason why shongxi knows to go save his sister but it makes no [ __ ] sense with what the mandarin's goals are he allegedly doesn't want to kill his children and he has no grudge against them so what the hell did he tell blade armand to make him this [ __ ] pissed and tell shongxi he and his sister deserve what's coming that's a straight-up threat of revenge blade arm man should have been confused as [ __ ] when he saw the mandarin welcome his children with open arms i told my men they wouldn't be able to kill me if they tried uh no apparently you didn't you and your sister deserve what's coming [ __ ] this plan and [ __ ] this villain at least he can't get any worse than this right let's go home [Music] why a funny story some years ago atari restroom america needed a booyah man to bring your country to his knees he appropriated the ten rings my tan rings but because he didn't know my actual name he invented a new one the mandarin he gave his figurehead the name of a chicken dish america was terrified of an orange oh so you're not the mandarin [Laughter] ladies and gentlemen xiangxi has now retconned the retcon of the subversion the mandarin see it's not real i am the mandarin i'm not the one that's going to kill you mr slattery there's somebody who wants to meet you don't know him no but you took his name and now he wants it back he gave his figurehead the name of a chicken dish america was terrified of an orange [Music] my real name is wenmu so why did you send a team and a fake interviewer to break trevor out to kill him yourself if the mandarin is so irrelevant to you you think it's pathetic america fell for such a silly character for crying out loud why even go after trevor some lunatic actor when the details of the fake terrorists were publicly exposed with killian and the vice president behind all of it who the [ __ ] knows we'll just chalk it up to arrogance i guess since that's the excuse every stan uses to explain characters inconsistent and idiotic decisions these days the truth is i've had many names throughout my life it's the warrior king mastagon okay general rule of thumb if you're going to give an alias to your villain you want the audience to sympathize with don't give them a name like master khan for the longest time my friends and i thought master khan was referring to genghis khan it wasn't until recently that i googled master khan and found out he's a fictional character from the comics do you know why we instantly believed wenwu was the genghis khan of the mcu because they're pretty much the same person and wenwu was alive during the reign of genghis khan only genghis khan was much worse for being a serial rapist with several wives and concubines it was also hard to believe that for two millennia the power hungry psychopath remained celibate so we didn't even bat an eye when we thought the movie was confirming his dick ran rampant spawning children left and right this family is portrayed as being special to wenwu and the only one he's ever had but because you wanted to make this obscure comic reference you just risk destroying that notion with this name especially as it lines up with wenwoo's history good job she gave up everything so we could be together why so when woo tells everyone how after xiangxi and xialing ran away he started researching how to get through the maze to the tallow entrance to connect with yingli um literally a minute ago during the dinner scene there were flashbacks of him successfully going to the tallow entrance multiple times to go on dates with ying li i say again wenwoo has been desperately trying to find the path to tallow for years when he's [ __ ] walked there multiple times with no problem in the past okay okay okay okay okay let's just accept this galaxy brain logic for a second let's just pretend it completely makes sense so wenwu can't just walk to the tallow entrance okay all right why not use his [ __ ] helicopter to fly to the entrance it is of no concern i mean knowing the psychopath he is i'm surprised he didn't just send his army to cut down the forest and make his own path or [ __ ] the army he could easily mow it down himself uh advocate it's a [ __ ] magical moving forest the bamboo is probably extra strong and immune to the ten ring sorry had to jump ahead to shut down any comments about to tell me i'm wrong for assuming that anyway until recently wenwu started hearing his wife's voice telling him she's trapped behind a gate there held prisoner by the villagers she grew up with wenwoo 100 believes this and even mentions ying li is leaving behind clues now i need to jump ahead to a flashback we're shown for a second when woo saw ying li's dead bloodied corpse with his own [ __ ] eyes he probably buried her himself nobody checked the body at the grave now let's rewind and pretend for a moment that wenwoo's men successfully killed shangshi and or jalin let's also pretend this voice talking to wenwu is believable and real and he's successfully freezing lee so they can live happily ever after how the [ __ ] does he think she's going to react when she finds out one or both of her children were killed by men sent by him or that he raised her son to be a killing machine yeah there goes your happily ever after you [ __ ] idiot oh my bad she probably wouldn't care if he killed her children you see your empire come to think of it wenwu doesn't only want ying li he believes her return will unite their whole family and things will go back to the way they used to be how the [ __ ] are you going to achieve that if one or both of your kids are dead and it only gets worse wenwu says the tallow elders forbade him and yingli from living in tallow together because he wasn't worthy to them and for that he blames them for the death of ying li now i need to jump ahead again to the same flashback i brought up before since they can't live in tallow they obviously lived in wenwoo's compound and one night the iron gang just walks into the compound and kills ying li where the [ __ ] was wenwoo security it is of no concern if wenwu was out for groceries at [ __ ] 10 pm you'd think he'd have at least a few guards by the front door to protect the only people he's ever loved especially when he knows he's made enemies or you know he could have just [ __ ] locked it yeah her death is 120 percent your fault you absolute [ __ ] is it safe to say now that it's very possible the mandarin from iron man 3 is better than the supposedly real mandarin the timing of the iron gang's arrival is so strange as well wenwu ended his reign in 96 when he met ying li and shang chi and jalen are little kids when they storm in so they decided to be mad at wenwoo and barge in years after he went dormant chiang chi tells them there's no voice their mom is dead and she isn't leaving behind clues and when will responds then what are these oh those those are just pendancyingly gave her children when they were little to help them feel safe when they're lost did did you not know they were made god knows how many years before yingli died well obviously he did because the entire first act was about obtaining them from his kids who he hasn't seen in 10 years so what the [ __ ] is this assumption he's acting as if the pendants just showed up on his doorstep one day or materialized out of thin air in front of him so the two pendants are used to activate this water simulation of the maze upon placing them in the eyes of this dragon mural that was never established how is this physics-defying mural that creates a map to a place when we was unfamiliar with even in his compound to begin with i i i don't i i it is of no concern since xiang chi and zheling don't buy one woo story and refuse to help him because why the [ __ ] would they he imprisons them either wenwu only has one damn cell for prisoners and no way to chain them up or his guards were too arrogant to put them in their own individual cells and chain them up i have a hard time believing both someone getting the dankest head in the world is heard in the distance [Music] and when they approach the individual it is revealed to be trevor [ __ ] slattery he's alive i'm not the one that's going to kill you mr slattery then my dad broke you out to kill you but just as his men were tying me up for my execution i launched into a performance of my macbeth whence is that knocking away duncan with their knocking i wish though because they couldn't get enough of it i've been doing weekly ghosts for lads ever since i am so tired remind me why was wenwu going to execute him you took his name and now he wants it back he gave his figurehead the name of a chicken dish right so not only did the guards put them all in the same cell and gave them free reign to walk around but a cell that was already occupied eh it's okay it's not like locking them up with trevor is going to reveal very important information that'll advance the plot for them in any way anyway trevor reveals very important information that'll advance the plot for them thanks to this mythical creature named morris that was picked up by wenwu during one of his expeditions to find the entrance to tallow maurice grew up with yingli and knows how to get through the pocket in the forest i'm putting a pin in discussing the issues with morris's very existence in this story once more information is revealed why is morris a native taloyian and potentially helpful for getting to tallow which he is incarcerated it is of no concern apparently a lunatic british hobo learned to understand morris's language somehow so you think it'd be easier for wenwu to learn it while shang chi and katie are learning about trevor and morris jaleen goes off somewhere and kicks down a stone wall wenwoo locked up his martial arts experienced children in a prison whose walls can just be kicked down and jaling says there are underground tunnels that can take them to the garage because that's how she escaped last time and in the garage they steal a car and are spotted by security cameras so wenwu has cameras in the garage but not in the prison or around his front door i'm not going to pull a clever and bother breaking down this fight because what happens next is a whole bunch of stupid chongqi manages to bring a goon in the car and knock him out because to open the garage door you need the fingerprints of a goon to open it and a thumb print to close it it's extremely convenient that the garage door opens and closes on a dime because it allows them to not crash into it and causes the goons to crash into it [ __ ] you advocate it was probably designed to instantly open and close in case of intruders wenwu is a strategic genius once again you are highlighting how wenwu takes great security precautions with his [ __ ] garage but not for his prison or his front door wenwoo is then watching them drive away and says they will come back once i bring her home oh this is his reasoning for not immediately going after them [Music] three days from now we will rescue my wife from her prison and bring her home they'll be driving for three days before wenwoo tries to free ying li and assuming wenwu assumes they're driving away as far away from him as possible since he doesn't know they have a creature that knows how to get through the maze and its location how the [ __ ] will they know when seeing lee is back from a feeling how do you know a feeling so he should probably go get them in case they never return or get stranded in the middle of nowhere from gas or battery depletion or don't because capturing them now would [ __ ] up the plot you know wait what he has cameras in several barren hallways and rooms one's on a stairwell one's just a truck are these bathroom stalls are these cameras watching the public in some far away city are these random stock videos of the world [ __ ] you have all these cameras set up but not a single one in your prison or your front door the next day while they're waiting for the pocket to open trevor tells everyone about what got him to start acting oh i know this story he told us a little in all hail the king he had a photo of him and his mum on october 12 1964 the day he landed his first role meaning he's likely been going to auditions before that chongqi can't possibly [ __ ] up this extremely simple piece of history right 1968 planets of the apes i was sitting in the cinema next to my mum watching mastery after the film i asked her how did they get those monkeys to do those things and she patted me on the head and she said it's not real pet it's just acting that's when i knew kowalski analysis enhanced feige all you had to do was tell the [ __ ] intern to watch iron man 3 and all hail the king and write down what's been established fear not for i am certain there is an extremely good reason for them kind of forgetting this so you became an actor because you thought the monkeys were actually riding horses i did yes when in fact they were simply acting as if they were riding horses i still can't get my head rounded to be honest the funny it was for the funny anything for the funny morris tells him to go since the pocket is ready to open how does he even know how to get through the maze if he'd have no reason to use it i'm but a transitory vessel for the infinite wisdom of a creature far more advanced than we will ever truly understand okay i guess he knows everything or can predict the future either way [ __ ] off he's the world's furiest and shittiest plot device once they're inside shangqi wastes time introducing everyone to the villagers instead of immediately telling them wenwu was preparing to wage war on them if it wasn't for his aunt joining they would have been forced out our people have been here for over 4 000 years preparing for something we hope will never happen we are the keepers of the dark gate sworn to protect this realm and yours from the evil that's locked behind it the dweller in darkness he came with his army devouring every soul in their path and with each kill they grew stronger your father isn't the first to come here to open the dark gate many have tried and failed over the centuries and they all had one thing in common they were lord here by the voice of something on the other side a voice that promised them their greatest desires this has been their purpose for over 4 000 years not only was this information absent from the scriptures about talo when we read in the beginning but ying li never told wenwu that since 4 000 years ago her village's entire purpose is to contain a soul-eating dragon behind a gate and that many people over the centuries have tried opening it because they were lured by a voice promising them their greatest desire because if she had told him this when we wouldn't be this much of a dumbass and this entire movie wouldn't have happened again they managed to fall in love date get married and have a family without once bringing up what yingly did for a living [ __ ] off now not to nitpick not unlike my podcast mostly nitpicking okay you kind of figure at some point in their at least eight-year relationship lee would have told wendy that's not an evil monster trapped in her dimension the promises you would ever use hey you know what's interesting about my village we have a monster tied up that lies to you but maybe when moon's just a bad listener i don't know we're really going to argue who's in a very happy marriage just doesn't listen to his wife about something so important i completely missed this the first time i watched it i didn't i don't i don't remember this at all but he's saying it is a nitpick and then he goes on to explaining why it's not a nitpick i can't wait why the [ __ ] is there literature about talo on earth if it's been a secret this whole time and the villagers want to keep it that way it is of no concern if someone previously found it and then wrote about it then how did they even make it to the entrance without knowing the maze and if you're going to tell me they just walked to it then why the [ __ ] doesn't wenwu just walk to it remember how i said i'd come back to discuss morris well it's time to go on that tangent morris being picked up during one of wenwu's expeditions to find the entrance to tallow means he wasn't inside tallow and presumably far away from the entrance he probably wandered off and fell through the portal to earth that's whatever i guess but this means ying li was never replaced as the guardian of the entrance after she left and as we just saw there still isn't a new guardian but if there was a guardian then morris would have never been part of this story the new guardian would have stopped him since they want tolo to remain hidden and having a creature like this roaming around earth would only raise many questions so yeah that's what i wanted to point out the way morris is included in the story is kinda shoddy she knew that one day you would find your way here and asked me to prepare something for your arrival [Music] remind me how did yingly die again oh yeah randomly so why does this line sound like she knew she was gonna die in advance as if she had some terminal illness how is she supposed to warn her sister to prepare these outfits you're telling me she was never gonna bring her children to tallow herself someday she was expecting them to go on their own after she died how are they supposed to get there if she never told him where the forest was or that the purpose of the pendants was to literally show them the path to get there like they don't even know they have to put the pendants in the eyes of the dragon mural the ten rings ambushed us in san francisco they took my pendant they're gonna come for years next i don't know what he wants of them we both know it can't be good apparently she told wenmu how to use them even though he's not welcome in tallow but she didn't tell her kids who she gave the pendants to in the first place what guess these outfits are one size fits all because it's not like she knew when they were going to arrive or how big they were going to grow what if chongqi came to tallow when he left the compounds at 14. what if he became extremely buff or really fat i know you might find it annoying i'm lingering on this line but it baffles me how something so simple like providing an outfit can be so nonsensical when you ignore the context to try to give it some deeper backstory it would have made complete sense if the ant just said here's some dragon scaled armor from our arsenal try it on anyway for the remainder of the day chongqi and katie go their separate ways to train the former in airbending and the latter in archery my mother was the only one who could beat him show me how she did it sorry champ you're gonna have to be a hot young woman to do that because wenmu would have annihilated her if he didn't stop to watch her and was consistent with his rings shangqi has a little pensive moment to himself and reveals that when his dad sent him on his first mission to kill the guy who killed english he went through with it and now he's making it this big deal telling katie oh i'm not who you think i am and making it sound like he's ashamed of her knowing he's killed before he also thinks his mom would hate him for having done this and now he's having this epiphany that he needs to kill wenwu all of this is weightless because a he's had no rule against killing throughout this movie and participates in it and b he [ __ ] forgot his mom willingly dated the man who's killed god knows how many hundreds of thousands i doubt she'd care if her son punished the one responsible for her death the next day wenwoo and his men arrive wait the next day i thought he said three days from now we will rescue my wife from her prison and bring her home and it's implied chongqi and the gang went through the forest the morning after that then they spent the day in tallow training then wenwu arrives the following morning so two days you couldn't even get that right wait a minute i just realized something everyone in tallow already knows yingli is dead they have a shrine for her k who told them who told them yingly is dead good question these people don't leave tallow unless it's to guard the entrance so was it wenwu the guy who doesn't know how to get to tallow okay maybe yingli used to visit tallow from time to time and they inferred that she died when she stopped visiting for several years in fact that would partially explain how she was able to tell her sister to prepare the outfits maybe she visited after both of her children were born but that means for some inexplicable reason yingli never took her own kids with her to meet their family okay keep in mind wenwu is the only one who's not welcome in tallow the ant literally greets shang chi and jiling with open arms you see you're probably young i'm going to assume you're younger than me probably by decades so there's this thing called life experience burn it down what just destroy them yourself it'd certainly get the job done much faster or tell your men to run them over with your jeeps wenwu finds the shrine for ying li who according to him is alive and trapped behind a wall as punishment shouldn't he be wondering why talo has a memorial for a living person they're pissed at and maybe perhaps realize they're telling the truth it is of no concern when wu and chang chi fight and for some unknown reason wenwu now blames him for not doing anything while his mother was attacked by the iron gang when he was seven years old and before when we even taught him how to kill people chiang chi then says even if you could bring her back what makes you think she'd want anything to do with you oy [ __ ] she was okay with him conquering and murdering for thousands of years what exactly do you think she'd oppose now [Music] yup he's dead it's truly sad it needs to be said but remember that everyone in this movie is a regular human with regular vulnerabilities fly now they fly now i will give this moment one thing though i'm glad they had wenwu briefly propel himself before landing to soften his fall otherwise his legs would have been obliterated [Music] [Music] okay if the punch didn't kill him it would have at least completely knocked the wind out of him aka he 100 should have drowned by now when woo somehow doesn't see or hear the soul eating minions escaping through the wall [Applause] same goes for the dragon that just burst out of the ground either that or he chooses to ignore it i gotta say the rules for the minions are about as fortified as the rules for the dementors from the flash so you know they [ __ ] up it's established that the only material that can kill the minions is dragon scales and they show normal weaponry phases right through them but then somehow blade arm man can just grab one he repeatedly tries to stab one phases through it each time but his hand doesn't upon grabbing it preventing it from killing him okay also the giant lion pooch thing can kill the minions by just biting them okay [Music] when woo somehow isn't destroying chongqi who was taught air bending only a day ago oh it looked like he was about to clap his cheeks with that move but they just cut away from it okay [Music] [Music] i'm sorry how [ __ ] long are these ropes meant to fight other people around you not only is the dragon hundreds of feet in the air but it's constantly moving and she happens to nail the minions okay this is a genuinely funny moment with trevor because it entirely stems from his character and isn't something random flung at us we haven't seen him throughout the entire fight and when we finally do through morris's perspective he seems to be dead but this dedicated actor known for being a coward who doesn't want to die has just been performing calm down mate i'm not dead it's just a performance now get down here play along the dweller in darkness busts out from too many minions collecting souls and feeding them to it and when woo finally realizes he was tricked and thus begins his well-earned character arc nope he pushes shanghi out of the way gives him the rings and then dies this [ __ ] was an irredeemable moronic [ __ ] throughout the whole movie and in his final moments he terrorized tallow broke out a soul-eating demon and its minions they've contained for 4 000 years when this really shouldn't have happened and then died and i think the movie wants us to feel bad for we'll him next time i'd like to point out that none of the minions went after shangchi or wenwu despite being the closest people to them but they're the main characters so we can't have that happen i mean neither of them are equipped with dragon scaled weaponry so imagine if they did go after them would kind of sort of maybe just a little bit change the plot the rest is just green screen schlock whatever man please be over soon i think the three biggest defenders in this scene are the siblings being able to hold on to the dragon when it's basically a roller coaster zelling's close range rope weapon literally turning into wonder woman's lasso like seriously you expect me to buy this amount of rope can extend this far and just wrap around stuff at will and the unexplored abilities of the rings like what are these things nando couldn't even answer in his video without making a really broad guess they are so powerful so versatile can anyone even tell what the stakes are when wearing them one of them carries zhongshi at some point providing yet another potential way when wu could have traveled to the tallow entrance i guess he never tried doing that in his 2000 years of using them okay speaking of nando i know breaking down what wenwoo and yingli actually did in this movie makes this video obsolete but to restore balance i want to bring up this other video of his now i consider this one to be clickbait because it's more of a critique of katie's character rather than praising her at least that's what i thought the title was implying but nando makes a good point the movie tries to give katie some kind of arc it's set up in the beginning in this breakfast scene where her mom says grandma didn't come to america for her to get a berkeley degree only to park cars then at the bar her friend tells her she should grow up and live up to her potential then her conflict is stated in the scene where katie tells the elder that she admires the villagers for knowing exactly what they want and spending their lives perfecting it unlike her where she gives up on something when she starts getting remotely good at it but this isn't true at all if anything the one skill we know katie has mastered driving is present throughout the movie it's literally her job one that isn't even a detriment to her life shanghi has the same job as she does with no support and he manages to afford his own place katie isn't struggling financially from what we can tell and she visibly enjoys being a valet attendant but this plot line throws katie under the bus for not working at an office movies love to use jobs like this as shorthand for a poor lifestyle choice but it's a job one katie is good at and one that gives katie time to hone the skills that katie uses to save the world but in tallow the movie gives up on that to tell us that katie is actually a screw-up who needs to stick to something and that something ends up being archery yeah she's told if you never aim you'll never hit then she trains in archery for a day and nails the neck of the dweller in darkness then she goes home that's it i have no idea what conclusion she's come to will she abandon the job that she enjoys to become an archer or will she look for a job that uses her degree which isn't even a decent message to put out to begin with and i'd agree with the whole wasted potential thing if katie was a lazy bum refusing to put her skills to use or if her current job was actively making her miserable but she's afraid to leave it because it's a stable source of income [ __ ] that one sure hits home anyway despite this plot and its characters being in shambles there's a nice scene where everyone is honoring the fallen warriors [Music] do you have the rings uh yeah yes good let's go we have a lot to talk about you too ah come on wong [ __ ] off this movie is not even trying in the slightest to make katie relevant or justify why she's brought along in three major plot thickening moments i don't match any artifacts from our codex what do you think they're not vibranium did you guys [ __ ] forget that after years of back and forth between bruce and hulk you finally had him make the decision to spend 18 months in a gamma lab to create professor hulk as a compromise damn [ __ ] off [ __ ] you why make bruce's off-screen development seemingly definitive and meaningful to him if you're only going to completely backpedal on it apologize to mark ruffalo right now you continue to do his character filthy [ __ ] you advocate they probably didn't have the budget to spend on the professor hulk effects oh yeah you're probably right and it's not like they could have cut out a different big cgi character that was completely pointless and created from scratch and used that money on him instead do you remember abomination you gotta give it up for abomination i do i do remember abomination oh oh boy it's another article i'm sure this will clear things up the rivalry between bruce banner and hulk was fixed and bruce's human form was completely out of the picture it turns out that this is likely why marvel made the switch in chiang chi as the studio always wanted to have bruce banner be an important part of hulk's character according to an excerpt from the story of marvel studios the making of the marvel cinematic universe oh they always want bruce to be part of the character yeah okay it's not like there's a three hour movie saying otherwise not sure why they don't consider bruce to be part of professor hulk when he's verbatim the best of both worlds it's like they completely missed their own point they made looks like they also gave up on carol's girl boss haircut too guess she was a little too sensitive to rocket raccoon's remark what you gonna get another haircut is that like a personal attack or something how about we mention the elephants in the room this man who supposedly bruce's friend illegally trains the monster that almost killed bruce years ago what a good friend he is what a good friend you are and that's it that's xiang chi in the legend of the strategic genius get it the strategic genius is a legend because there was no strategic genius he was fake i made him up for an inside joke title let me know in the comments if you thought i was actually about to praise wenwu as a villain a special thanks to skye who discussed new issues we found while i was writing the script and for inviting me on her podcast to break down this mess and review videos praising it after seeing this movie i had no interest in making a video until we went through it on ecom so this video's existence is pretty much thanks to her she also made a shanxi video of her own you can check it out on her channel which is linked below as well as those shangshi streams thank you to these mad lads my patrons over on patreon your generosity is always immensely appreciated and shout out to a buzz 03 code named john dominic the donkey drunk dan galactic archive karen williams sohu studio devil and the spicy gentleman for being the wealthiest men alive thank you to world renowned eagle pooch for lending her beautiful voice to play falachan and thank you to world-renowned e-squirrel and spider-man slayer shandy desquire for lending his voice to explain the professor hulk retconn and thanks again to surf shark for supporting the channel remember that a massive discount awaits you through the link down below [Music] hahahahaha

Channel: Madvocate

Views: 715,800

Keywords: ten rings, wenwu, review, inconsistencies, all hail the king

Id: fEZcdAivqY0

Length: 72min 3sec (4323 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 10 2022