PABLO HONEY’s review published on Letterboxd:
This movie has the best Marvel action scenes, a solid story, a cool villain, nice female representation in action, and a corner that feels relevant to the bigger MCU, something Eternals wasn't able to achieve even though everybody was betting their lifes it would be Marvel's big revolution and an Oscar contender LMFAO. Some things feel out of place and corny, but nothing that can make this worth less than a 7 out of 10. Do i find Simu Liu annoying and forced? Yes! This man is CRAZY, his twitter account is pure chernobyl, he is like a hot topic Perez Hilton. He is so loud and so wrong 99% of the times. Do i think he was a miscasting? KINDA, i mean he sells the role, he seems dedicated and a lot of people seems to like him, but at the same time i don't feel that he is in the right place as Shang-Chi. Zhang Yixing, Song Weilong, Xiao Zhan, Kentaro Sakaguchi etc were all RIGHT THERE. Marvel was just lazy, didn't want to hire an asian actor whom first language wasn't english. I laugh so hard when i remember China and Japan breaking their silence just to roast Simu as the messiest-looking asian man and a terrible choice to represent Asia as the first asian lead on this franchise, and he was so offended by people having an opinion that he went to instagram and made a whole text defending his looks and his limited acting skills. LMFAOOOO!!! Marvel decided to chose the most annoying and unlikeable asian actor to play Shang-Chi, not only that, they also casted Awkwafina, who is... ew. And yet, the movie WORKED FOR ME. Props to them! Would i cast a different actor to play Shang? Yes, i would cast one who has good media training, who is humble, who has good PR, a look more accurate to the comics version of the character, and someone who is not out there defending crazy ass stuff without knowing what he is signing himself to. But he is what we get and i'm gonna run away with it as if i like him and Awkwafina. I trust Destin Cretton to make a great trilogy, and Xu Xialing became an instant favorite of mine, so i hope to see more of her. I want her to be a BAD BITCH, i don't want sweet heroine lady, i want CRIME GIRLBOSS. She is the moment. And she has her daddy and mommy pretty genes, something Shang-Chi wasn't blessed with.