A good but not as great as a classic film which keeps the balance of action and emotions at the center of it while sprinkling a surprisingly sparse comedy. The middle half drags a little but also feels necessary, the final over-use of action reminds you of usual MCU flicks and feels a little too different from what happened before. The first act is easily the best and the movie always moves in its shadows and the bus scene even after being heavily teased is easily the best action piece of the movie. Tony Leung is great in this (and has a better depth than most MCU villains) alongside Awkafina who just delivers in each and every line. Simu Liu is good as well but having seen him in Kim's Convenience I felt there wasn't much given to him other than possibly look pretty (and shirtless) in most of the movie, his finale costume is just passable and the final resolution with big action pieces felt like Shang (and Simu) was a side-actor in his own movie.

Its still tons of fun, brisk and the second half is your usual MCU fluff, the first half though tries to break from MCU formula but never really lands the ending.

B+

Sparrow is mostly right although his grade is too low. Loved Awkwafina in this. Will post more later.

Might be the best Marvel original. Only part I didn't like was the CGI battle at the end, but luckily its short and transitions quickly into the more interesting dragon fight. But the bus scene has gotta be one of the best scenes of the year and in the whole MCU. Awkwafina plays herself but it works here. Definitely better than expected, and happily surprised the trailers spoiled so little.

Enjoyed it, although I was really feeling the first hour but it kinda didn't hold up for the 2nd half.

First two thirds are good. Then it falls off a cliff.

Bottom three Marvel.

Marvel third act syndrome strikes again?

There is a solid half hour of excisable cliche material, that if you removed it, would make this one of the best Marvel films.

I think boiling it down to "Marvel's third act problems" is an oversimplification. The final fight between Shang-Chi and his father (one of the better villains) is packed full of emotion, and wonder. It's a huge moment when all ten rings turn gold, and the look on pop's face when he realizes he was wrong and should have been spending his "destoy the world" time with his kids is heartbreaking. That being said, there is also a training montage, a hundred flashback memories and when the two dragons started to fight I had a tough time telling what was happening. They also seemed to cut away from any fight that was starting to get good to focus on something else. However, I do think it ends very well with the diner scene and post-credits karaoke with Wong (though I don't get why Banner is back to normal or why Carol has long hair again.)

Everything up to their arrival in the village is very strong though. The bus scene is very worthy of all the praise its receiving. I had assumed that was gonna be the moment where Shawn gets his ass kicked and then realizes he has to become stronger for his friends and family. But nope, he is already a certified badass, and both the stunt work and camera carry it from there. The skyscraper fight is also very cool. Awkwafine is hilarious, every one of her lines is perfectly delivered without really affecting the stakes of any given situation. Trevor is a bit out of place, and lessens the tension of the finale sometimes, but he is also funny enough to make up for it, and an important link to the rest of the MCU. And as mentioned before, Papa Shang-Chi is a terrific performance and one of the stronger villains in not only the mcu, but all comic book adaptations.

So for me, this grades about the same as Black Widow, an A, slightly inflated by my love of the franchise. But it is solidly in the middle of the overall rankings while it could have reached top ten if a few things had been done differently at the end.

Wow! An A from B+ is such a "higher" grade.

B-/C+

This is what Black Panther could have been without the sure direction of Coogler. 

Pros
-Awkwafina
-creature and world design
-Mandarin’s scenes (although I didn’t like that he felt he needed to apologize for IM3)
-Lucy Liu 

Cons

-tired gender trope
- confusing fight scenes at times and me personally, I find martial arts fights to be repetitive
-disjointed and confusing climactic scene of him fighting the Final dragon Boss 
-villain was not that evil. He was motivated by love of his wife. 

Loved it! A+ seeing it again today

D

Ugh. Worst off MCU by far.

Indeed burn in hell.

This was actually good for the first hour but man the second hour dragged and by the final battle I couldn't wait for it to be over. It dragged and felt so uninspired. But I really dug the first few fight sequences (the bus scene and the scene on the side of the building were both awesome setpieces) and really liked the entire cast. Awkwafina and Simu Liu were both fantastic. I'd say it's mid-tier Marvel for me. B/B-

Thought this was great. One of the better Marvel origin films.

Grade: A-/B+

Saw it on D+ yesterday and I thought it was ok. I liked 1st half, Tony Leung/Awkwafina/lady who played mother were very good. I thought Simu Liu lacked emotional heft in serious scenes. 1st action scene on the bus was great but rest had too much crappy CGI. Especially the climax. With Simu Liu in bad books in china, I doubt we will even see him in next avengers movies. This seems better fit for D+ than theatrical.

One of the best MCU films, in my opinion. Certainly so among the solo films. Gets very CGI heavy near the end, sure, but it's a DRAGON versus a Dark Dimensional Demon, so it's cool! And for the genre as a whole, it largely delivers with likeable/strong characters (including the MCU's best antagonist yet with satisfactory character depth), entertaining/action-packed scenes, balanced amount of drama/comedy elements, and solid pacing. A-.

And lilmac, Lucy Liu isn't in this film. I'm assuming you meant Michelle Yeoh.

Very underwhelming. It starts OK, but the story doesn't materialize into anything exciting and Simu is perhaps the least charismatic lead in the MCU so far, Tony Leung is pretty good as the father though. There are some nice bits and pieces scattered throughout the film, but as a whole it doesn't offer me any perspective that wants me to see more of Marvel's third phase. Some of the Chinese mythology in it is interesting, but it lacks humor and cool action set pieces and ranks near the bottom of all Marvel films for me.

C

Watched this again and liked it even more. There's really only like ten minutes of screen time that are a problem and everything else is gold. So exciting and so funny.

What could have made the ending so much better though; instead of giant cgi dragons, the demon and protector are both just man-shaped (or women) and they have an awesome hand-to-hand fight.

Yes human/human combat would better than CGI dragons

They had the dad and Shang chi fight as humans.

I liked the dragons, I didn’t like the rest of the animals. Felt like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

I'm not familiar about the animal with Trevor, but all the others were instantly recognizable mythological Chinese animals. Now, they certainly looked and moved as heavily CGI creations, but their appearance were pretty traditional.