Good Will Hunting (1997)
Remember that action movie starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as childhood friends who become involved in violent altercations? Wait, that’s the (fake) sequel, Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season (from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). The original and real Good Will Hunting is not a movie you’d expect to find in the DNA of a martial-arts-driven Marvel superhero adventure. You’d assume something else starring Damon, like The Bourne Identity (2002), maybe.
But in the Fandango interview, Cretton cites this Oscar-winning drama as an influence:
“One of the very loose inspirations for tone and character was ‘Good Will Hunting,’ which may be a surprise. Will Hunting is a character that I think has a lot of similarities to Shang-Chi, just in that they have a big secret and they have a lot of baggage that they have to learn to deal with in order to step into their fully realized shoes.”
This is about the main character’s life at the start of the movie. Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), like Damon’s titular character in Good Will Hunting, is not living up to his potential. He’s a brilliant talent who doesn’t see the point of doing the work or using his brains and skills in laborious enterprises. So, like Will Hunting, he’s a slacker, an underachiever, a happy-go-lucky anybody. Of course, in Shang-Chi’s case, it’s also about him not wanting to call attention to himself since he’s hiding from his father.
The situation also applies to Katy (Awkwafina), though not nearly on the same level. Still, she represents — and Shang-Chi does so as an extreme case — the common reality where kids are pushed to their potential toward great schools, degrees, and jobs, and many wind up just wanting to do their own thing in the end. While I do relate personally (my profession does not match my education nor my expectations), it’s particularly acknowledged as a familiar reality for Asians and Asian Americans.
Good Will Hunting is streaming on Starz.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Wuxia films go back as early as the 1920s in Chinese cinema, but Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the most well-known. It was the fantastical martial arts genre’s full-on entry into the mainstream. That makes the Best Picture nominee a perfect example for Cretton to name (“of course,” he says in referencing it). For audiences to recognize. Also, it’s another movie on this list starring Michelle Yeoh. She seems to be a terrific link between true martial arts cinema and Hollywood’s appropriations.
As is Tony Leung, who appears in another awesome modern wuxia film that crossed over into the mainstream: Zhang Yimou’s spectacular historical epic Hero (2002). He plays one of a handful of assassins, alongside Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, and Donnie Yen. So you can see him doing more genuine fighting here than in his Shang-Chi role. From there, you can go back and discover earlier films. Though the really old ones, such as the very long The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple (1928), are either lost or unavailable.
Essentials of the genre that you have to seek out include Dragon Inn (1967), One-Armed Swordsman (1967), A Touch of Zen (1971), and the early John Woo movie Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1979). Also: Butterfly and Sword (1993), which stars both Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh. And if you’re a new Tony Leung fan thanks to Shang-Chi, you’ll want to go through all of his collaborations with filmmaker Wong Kar Wai, including a wuxia film: Ashes of Time (1994). If you want to get the kids into wuxia easily at some point, the Kung-Fu Panda animated features (2008-2016) are good for that.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is streaming on Starz.
Hero is streaming on HBO Max.
Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
“I can not give enough props to Kung Fu Hustle, which is one of my favorites,” Cretton shares in the Fandango interview. Yeah, that poster in Shang-Chi’s bedroom wasn’t just a random prop (nor was the one for The Warriors). He also acknowledges the movie’s “fun, zany tone” in the CNN interview. And producer Jonathan Schwartz mentions the same king of iron rings of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin that inspired Shang-Chi as also appearing in this movie.
Jackie Chan may have been influenced by silent comedians for some comical fight choreography, but Kung Fu Hustle (and other Stephen Chow movies) expands on the idea of combining slapstick and martial arts for an absolutely madcap adventure. It’s more cartoonish but doesn’t lose the thrill of the action you want either. Both Kung Fu Hustle and Shang-Chi have an actor in common, too: Yuen Wah.
Kung Fu Hustle is streaming on PlutoTV.
Drakmar: A Vassal’s Journey (2006)
Most people would use this list as an opportunity to recommend Destin Daniel Cretton’s breakthrough indie film, Short Term 12 (2013). But I’ve chosen an early film by Cretton (co-directed with Lowell Frank) to include in the obligatory documentary spot. Drakmar: A Vassal’s Journey doesn’t star Shang-Chi cameo Brie Larson, who plays Captain Marvel in the MCU, like his previous three features (Short Term 12, The Glass Castle, and Just Mercy) do. It does appeal more to comic-con types, however, than his other films do. In fact, the doc, which is about a teen LARPer, won an award at San Diego Comic-Con in 2006.
Lust, Caution (2007)
I know, I’m skipping a whole lot of excellent options for spotlighting Tony Leung. In addition to the few movies I’ve mentioned here and there on this list, his essentials also include Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City of Sadness (1989), John Woo’s Hard Boiled (1992), Anh Hung Tran’s Cyclo (1997), the original Infernal Affairs (2002), and again, many by Wong Kar Wai. Plus, another Ang Lee film, Lust, Caution.
This is one of the few other movies in which, like with Shang-Chi, Leung had the distinction of playing a bad guy. That was one of the things that drew him to the project. He plays a cruel leader within the puppet government of China during World War II. It’s definitely one of his best performances, and it does an even better job than Shang-Chi of taking his charming persona that has won audiences over worldwide and using it for evil. Even when he’s a villain, Leung is irresistible.
Lust, Caution is available from your favorite digital video store.
IP Man (2008)
The most recent martial arts movies that Cretton has cited as an influence on Shang-Chi are those in the IP Man franchise. The series stars Donnie Yen as real-life martial arts grandmaster IP Man, who famously trained Bruce Lee. The original IP Man spawned three sequels plus a spin-off. You should also check out Wong Kar Wai’s own IP Man biopic, titled The Grandmaster, which stars none other than Tony Leung as the Wing Chun legend.
All of the IP Man movies as well as The Grandmaster are streaming on Netflix.
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