I went in with kind of low expectations, but still hopeful after seeing a lot of positive reviews. However, I surprisingly really enjoyed this movie! I thought it was going to be a cheesy movie that touched on cheesy Chinese/Asian-American subjects, and in some ways it did, but it did not feel super cringey to me at all. I felt like it had everything -- family drama, great action/fighting scenes, cool CGI, training montage, martial arts, Chinese, a smattering of familiar Marvel characters, car chase, and humor. I also really liked how much Chinese language was integrated into the movie in a natural way, unlike the Mulan live action movie, which felt so weird to have all the characters to be speaking English the entire time. One issue I had is that some of the themes felt unresolved by the end of the movie (I would have liked to see what happened with the father, instead of them just leaving him dead on the side of cliff lol). I also felt like Simu Liu had like, an NPC expression for most of the movie lmfao I could NOT tell what kind of feelings he was trying to convey in his face. However, I felt like the supporting cast (especially Tony Leung) totally killed it. Someone I know pointed out that the movie was written and directed by two people who are Wasian (white on their fathers' sides), which is a bit questionable because this movie is about Asian father/son relationships so that is also a bit questionable lol. Also, the director said in an interview that he only called on his own Asian-American experiences because those felt more authentic to him and didn't consider other Asian-American perspectives which is.. pretty bad imo lollll. Regardless, I still really enjoyed the movie (honestly probably one of my top Marvel movies as of right now) but I'm glad that I'm aware of these other aspects of the movie's production.
Review by RosieBlockedParent2021-09-11T02:53:10Z
I went in with kind of low expectations, but still hopeful after seeing a lot of positive reviews. However, I surprisingly really enjoyed this movie! I thought it was going to be a cheesy movie that touched on cheesy Chinese/Asian-American subjects, and in some ways it did, but it did not feel super cringey to me at all. I felt like it had everything -- family drama, great action/fighting scenes, cool CGI, training montage, martial arts, Chinese, a smattering of familiar Marvel characters, car chase, and humor. I also really liked how much Chinese language was integrated into the movie in a natural way, unlike the Mulan live action movie, which felt so weird to have all the characters to be speaking English the entire time. One issue I had is that some of the themes felt unresolved by the end of the movie (I would have liked to see what happened with the father, instead of them just leaving him dead on the side of cliff lol). I also felt like Simu Liu had like, an NPC expression for most of the movie lmfao I could NOT tell what kind of feelings he was trying to convey in his face. However, I felt like the supporting cast (especially Tony Leung) totally killed it. Someone I know pointed out that the movie was written and directed by two people who are Wasian (white on their fathers' sides), which is a bit questionable because this movie is about Asian father/son relationships so that is also a bit questionable lol. Also, the director said in an interview that he only called on his own Asian-American experiences because those felt more authentic to him and didn't consider other Asian-American perspectives which is.. pretty bad imo lollll. Regardless, I still really enjoyed the movie (honestly probably one of my top Marvel movies as of right now) but I'm glad that I'm aware of these other aspects of the movie's production.