my initial thoughts after watching this film were all over the place cause i was hopped up on excitement and pride and all of the feelings, so it's a couple days later and i still wanna go and see this movie six more times in theatre. every time i try and describe how good this movie was or how it made me feel i just get excited again and all the eloquent words i had planned to say fly out of my head. i'll preface that i know next to nothing about martial arts or fighting in general, but visually all of the fight scenes were amazing. the first fight scene with wen wu and ying li was beautiful. and then seeing shang qi bring the two fighting styles that his mother and father taught him in order to defeat his father was a monumental moment. i would pay extra to watch the final fight scene between shang qi and wen wu, watching shang qi slowly take control of the rings only to disregard them, desperate for his father to stop. aside from the fight scenes the characters and emotions in this film were astounding, tiny leung's portrayal of wen wu from this power hungry tyrant to a caring husband to a grief stricken warrior was mesmerising. meng'er zhang was fascinating to watch on screen and is definitely up there on the list of best marvel women. her determination to be better than ever man to deny her is empowering and her costumes are great, definitely would dress up as her for halloween if i had a reason to. katy is a great character she works as the character relief, a place holder for the audience to align themselves with, but also she was an interesting character to see develop. and finally shang qi, mr simu liu himself. from wongfu productions, asian bachelorette 2, to being a guest on jknews, to a freaking marvel movie. it was beyond fascinating to watch this character be introduced and then developed, words can't describe the pride i feel watching this film and to see simu liu front lining the whole this is incredible. this damaged character who didn't let his trauma define him and the way he treated people, a character that defied who is was made to be and instead lived with kindness and respect and humility. to see his inner struggle of giving into who he was taught to be by the two most influential people in his life and how to balance the two teachings. then to see him liberate himself, with help from ying nan, by combining the two parts of himself into one. and then to see him become a better fighter than his father. words can't describe. to see the differing ways that they each use the rings, with wen wu's harsh whip like lashings opposing shang qi's rings moving fluidly. then to see shang qi gain control of all of the rings, i had to physically cover my mouth to stop my self from being loud. this film is fascinating on so many levels and i thing the only thing i regret about this film is not being able to connect to it on a deeper level as a result of my own distance to my culture. i will definitely be watching this again whether it be in cinema and or i'll be waiting the rest of the 45 days to watch it on disney+. i could talk about the disadvantages this film has had to deal with, from the lack of marketing in marvel's part, to the bias this film was already receiving being released in a time where asians are already being heavily discriminated against, but then i would be here all day. overall this film ticked all the boxes and more and is absolutely in my top 3 marvel films.