Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Awesome Hot Toys Figure and the Missing Sequel
Examining a very cool collectible leads to pondering why it's taking so long to actually see Shang-Chi in a movie again.
Though it’s been available for about a year, I recently received the Shang-Chi Hot Toys figure. Though Hot Toys are pretty amazing in general, this is a standout figure, boasting a stellar likeness of Simu Liu and a bunch of accessories that cover pretty much every aspect you’d want to represent the character as seen in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. And it also reminded me of something that’s been bugging me: What in the multiverse is taking so long with a Shang-Chi sequel?
Before that ranting, let’s take more of a look at this fantastic figure. Shang-Chi’s costume is less elaborate than many of his other MCU brethren, mostly due to the plain, loose-fitting pants (this guy needs to be able to kick after all) and his sneakers. But his shirt is actually incredibly detailed and, as is the case with many Hot Toys, the figure allows you to see those details and appreciate them in a way the film itself doesn’t always allow. Side note: I imagine Hot Toys figures have been quite helpful for cosplayers through the years.
Andy Park, who designed the costume for the film, told Coming Soon how he’d wanted the costume to reflect Shang-Chi’s history -- including incorporating the infinite knot symbol, which is important in Chinese culture, and even those aforementioned sneakers, which reflect Shang-Chi’s many years in America.
The figure comes with two versions of the staff he used during the climatic action sequence in the film – a regular one and one that represents the glowing effect seen in battle. Gotta love that Ta Lo magical craftsmanship!
And then there are the Ten Rings themselves, which is where Hot Toys really went above and beyond. There are alternate forearms for the figure where he’s wearing the rings, plus the rings alone as ten individual accessories - which can in turn be fitted into accessories that can be placed on the figure’s arms or even his feet to represent how he was able to control the rings and use their energy. And there’s more than one version of those, including ones that represent the energy in more of an attack/blast action.
It affords you a ton of different ways to display the figure and is notably impressive in terms of the many options and variations available. There’s even one half-set of the rings/energy meant to interact with the Hot Toys Wenwu figure, for when the two were battling for control of the powerful objects.
I have some quibbles about a couple of aspects - the energy accessories are fairly heavy and cumbersome and need to be balanced just so in order to stop them from swinging around when the figure is displayed. And, per usual for when a figure comes with a display stand meant to put them in an elevated position (not truly “flying” for Shang-Chi), it bugs me that they don’t also include an alternate regular post to simply stand him up with.
Overall though, this is a hell of a figure, one that goes all out in ways many wouldn’t have thought to do. And I didn’t even mention it comes with the necklace left to Shang-Chi by his mother. Awww!
So yeah, great figure! Really cool representation of the character. But meanwhile… Why haven’t we seen this guy onscreen again or even gotten specifics about when we would see him again for three years?
After several Covid-caused delays, Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings opened September 2021. In a sign of how weird release patterns were at that point, it opened over Labor Day weekend, something pretty much never done for intended blockbusters. But it paid off with a $94.67 million opening over the holiday. It’s $432 million final worldwide box office may have been lower than the MCU norm had become, but not only was it stronger than the other MCU movies that year (Black Widow and Eternals) that didn’t have Spider-Man in the title, but it also had notably strong legs at the box office week to week - some of the best in the MCU’s history, in fact.
Shang-Chi director/co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton soon signed a new deal with Marvel Studios that included developing a sequel, but then things went oddly dormant, at least publicly. Meanwhile, Cretton would be attached to Avengers 5 (then known as The Kang Dynasty, now TBA), then leave that project, while also developing and directing episodes of the upcoming Wonder Man Disney+ series.
There have been some promising signs for Shang-Chi 2 of late, including Simu Liu reiterating that Cretton will direct it. But it’s very odd how long it’s taking. I’m a huge fan of the MCU and its accomplishments and think people have been overblown in their sky is falling criticism of Phase Four and Five - even while agreeing some criticism is warranted. And one obvious place the current MCU is faltering compared to the earlier years is how uncertain it is when we’ll see new characters next after they’re introduced.
It’s easy to joke about all the characters introduced in mid or post-credit scenes in the past few years (Starfox! Clea! Hercules!) only to have zero indication when we’ll see them again. But with Shang-Chi, it feels even more egregious, given you have a main character in a well reviewed, well received movie likewise in a strange limbo that we never experienced back when we’d meet the likes of Captain America and Thor and be certain they’d be back in the next two or three years.
And that’s all despite Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ending with the lead character recruited by Wong and meeting Bruce Banner and Captain Marvel, indicating big things were ahead soon. It feels very odd and uncharacteristic how they’ve failed to capitalize on Shang-Chi’s popularity and it’s also frustrating. The Master of Kung Fu deserves better.
It seems like, as Shang-Chi was coming out, the focus was on planning for Avengers 5 and 6, plus the over-abundance of new projects, without letting us see many of these new faces more to better develop them - even as many would argue Phase Four could have used an Avengers movie, or some other team-up movie, by the end to better coalesce all the characters being brought in so rapidly in both films and Disney+ series.
I am confident we will eventually get Shang-Chi 2, but it’s time to get some details on it – a release date at least? – given it’s already guaranteed to open far later than it should have. I’d love to have this be a case where I publish this and then Marvel Studios coincidentally nearly immediately gives an update about the film and when it’s happening, making my complaining moot. So go for it, Kevin Feige! Take my bait!
Meanwhile, I’m gonna decide what accessories to include when I pose this Shang-Chi figure on my shelf…
The Hot Toys Shang-Chi figure is available in the US via Sideshow. I was provided a sample by Sideshow.
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