The Hilarious Way That Shang-Chi's Fight Choreographers Planned The Final Battle
"Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" introduces the audiences to the most proficient martial arts master in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as the titular rings that may or may not cause plenty of trouble in the future. One could say that the movie is the first truly great martial arts-themed, MCU-adjacent project (sorry, Netflix's "Iron Fist"). Simu Liu kicks and spins with the best of them as Shang-Chi, and wuxia veterans Tony Leung (who plays Shang-Chi's ruthless father, Wenwu) and Michelle Yeoh (who plays the leader of the guardians of Ta Lo, Ying Nan) bring an extra layer of kung fu credibility in the mix.
By any standards, the fighting choreography in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" is impressive and highly elaborate. However, the way some of the scenes were created was decidedly more low-key than the magnificent end result. For instance, let's take a look at the hilarious way that "Shang-Chi's" fight choreographers planned the final battle of the movie.
The scene was designed with very familiar action figures
Have you ever played with action figures? You know, the kind of play-fighting where the figures just zap around and you make "whoosh" effects with your mouth? Turns out, that's not terribly far from how the high-octane action in the final fight scene of "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" was conceived.
OK, things were presumably a bit more technical than that, but that's where it all started. In a video by the Corridor Crew (via YouTube), the movie's action designers Yung Lee and Chris Cowan discuss the fantastic, high-flying fight scene between Shang-Chi and Wenwu, and Lee revealed that Cowan actually gave the whole thing a dry run using the time-tested action figure method. "He shot the whole scene with a Stan Lee action figure and Captain America, and literally that was handed to him by Marvel," Lee said. "That goes to show, honestly, like even on the big budget movies, going low budget is sometimes super helpful."
Knowing how extremely elaborate the final scene is, visualizing it in this way must have helped the design process greatly. Still, now that you know precisely what action figures they used, good luck getting the image of that exact same fight playing out between the late, great Stan Lee and Chris Evans' Captain America out of your head.