What makes a good film?
Does a film that represents a neglected community immediately make it ‘good’? Or do we only end up looking at its social impact and thus ignoring its other strengths?
Shang-Chi featuring Simu Liu was hailed as another film that featured Asians in a media landscape that has traditionally emphasised white faces. Heralded as the first Asian-American superhero film in the West, it was also the first film during the Coronavirus period to break the $200 million dollar earning threshold in North America and it has since become the largest Labour Day weekend box office release. Ever.
But this begs the question... Was Shang-Chi… actually good?
I bring on returning superstar Chris to zip around a multitude of topics and much more, such as who is my secret celebrity friend? (1:25), our favourite parts of the film (19:30), aspects that we disliked (27:00), and how would Westernised Asians fare in East Asia in 2022 (1:03:55)?