You know business as usual has resumed at cinemas when Marvel films start overlapping each other. Chloé Zhao’s ambitious Eternals might be hogging all the attention now, but Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is still lingering in cinemas ages after its September opening – and this week it has finally landed on Disney+.
For anyone largely uninvested in superhero cinema, Shang-Chi is one of the Marvel machine’s more pleasurable products in a while, in large part because it crosses genre streams a little. Its tale of an apparent San Francisco everyman (Simu Liu) whose secret kung fu mastery comes to the fore when his shadowed past – and immortal warlord father – beckons is more or less in the superhero origin-story mould. There’s more excitement, however, in its fusion of standard-issue Marvel action with the moves of wuxia cinema, the genre of Chinese storytelling that translates as “martial heroes”. It’s all elegantly choreographed and bolstered by some genuine star power. Stuntman turned actor Liu is sparky enough, but it’s really the marvellous Tony Leung, as his seductively villainous dad, who classes things up no end.
Indeed, it’s Leung’s presence in particular that makes you wish that Destin Daniel Cretton’s film could break free of the Marvel factory and be the full-scale martial arts saga it clearly yearns to be. It’s notable how proceedings sag every time there’s an obligatory callback to some other chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Still, I hope that Shang-Chi acts as a kind of gateway for younger viewers into more adventurous, international realms of wuxia cinema – beginning, perhaps, with Leung’s own biggest hit in the genre, Zhang Yimou’s almost absurdly beautiful Hero (2002; Amazon), in which the balletic fight staging only barely distracts you from all the ravishing autumn foliage and swirling scarlet fabric in the frame. The plot? Only scarcely less trite than Shang-Chi, to be honest, though the film is a case study in the impact made when an individual artist, rather than a corporation, drives a generic script.
I dedicated a column a couple of years ago to Zhang and his gorgeous exploits in this genre – notably the soaringly romantic, sapling-fresh House of Flying Daggers (2004; Google Play) and the strangely underrated, charcoal-painted Shadow (2018; now on Netflix). It’s notable, however, that China’s leading auteur only started dabbling in wuxia after the astonishing commercial crossover of Ang Lee’s rapturous, rollicking Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000; Netflix), a film that once, in what feels like another, pre-Marvel world altogether, made well over £150m worldwide.
Those wishing to delve further back into wuxia, however, may be frustrated by the selection available online. You currently have to revert to DVD and Blu-ray to watch genre standard-bearer King Hu’s A Touch of Zen (1971), for example, or the collected works of trailblazing stylist Tsui Hark. Happily, Chang Cheh’s hugely influential, western-inflected and riotously enjoyable 1967 classic One-Armed Swordsman (Apple TV) is streamable, as are two essential works by Hu: the severe, beautifully composed Dragon Gate Inn (1967; Amazon) and the female-led landmark Come Drink With Me (1966; Amazon), with an incandescent Cheng Pei-pei as fierce swordswoman Golden Swallow.
The greatest of them all, however, might be Wong Kar-wai’s elliptical, elaborately conceived and damn near swoon-inducing Ashes of Time (1994; Arrow), the film that proved that the all-action spectacle of martial arts could mesh with the contemplative nature of art cinema. Wong’s next stab at the genre, The Grandmaster (2013; BFI Player), looked majestic but wasn’t quite as transcendent; it was more the rich, cryptic poetry of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin (2015; BFI Player) that carried the Ashes of Time baton into the 21st century. It’s many, many miles from Marvel to here, but Shang-Chi is a good place to start.
Also new to streaming and DVD
Zola
(Amazon/Apple TV)
“The first film ever adapted from a viral Twitter thread” sounds like a gimmicky sell, but Janicza Bravo’s witty, unruly stripper road movie has more than novelty going for it. It’s also a perceptive, unnerving study of the chasm between real and online living, vivaciously performed and filmed with experimental brio.
The Colour Room
(Sky Cinema)
The life of the innovative British ceramicist Clarice Cliff isn’t the stuff of high drama, and makes for an unmemorable if pleasantly mellow biopic – chiefly a vehicle for plucky Bridgerton star Phoebe Dynevor to spread her wings a bit. Cliff acolytes will find more of interest, particularly in the film’s visual echoes of her distinctive primary-coloured aesthetic.
Prisoners of the Ghostland
(Elysian)
“Bananas” is Nicolas Cage’s default setting these days, so there’s nothing particularly surprising about him collaborating with maximalist Japanese auteur Sion Sono for the director’s first English-language feature. A broad-brush fantasy in which the criminal underworld meets the spiritual netherworld, it’s fun and exhausting in equal measure.
All or Nothing and Vera Drake
(StudioCanal)
Two early-2000s Mike Leigh films get a rerelease on DVD/Blu-ray and digital platforms. While Vera Drake’s reputation is assured, it’s pleasing to see the bruising, undervalued All or Nothing getting a 4K restoration as polished as its deftly woven, emotionally confrontational working-class drama is varnish-free.
This article was amended on Tuesday 16 November. The Assassin was directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien not Tsai Ming-liang, as originally stated. This has now been corrected
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