Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (In theaters and streaming on Fandango, Sept, 3)
This 25th addition to Marvel’s movie universe, creates a new group of heroes attached to the comic book’s Asian supervillian, Mandarin. Known as Xu Wenwu, here he is portrayed by the venerable Tony Leung. Wenwu is connected to the Ten Rings, bracelets he wears that imbue him with special powers. Simu Liu appears as Wenwu’s son, Shaun, or in Chinese, Shang-Chi. Trained to by his father to be an assassin, Shaun’s San Francisco existence is normal until he’s hunted down for the valuable amulets that Shaun and his sister, Xialing (Meng’er Zhang), possess.
The harrowing action pits Shaun and his sister against the Ten Rings organization. Awkwafina plays Katy, Shaun’s wisecracking bestie, also drawn into the action. Powers from their amulets aside, Shaun and his sister are expert Kung-Fu fighters. Co-written and directed by Daniel Cretton, this Disney Marvel offering smartly casts Michelle Yeoh as Shaun and Xialing’s mentor, Ying Nan. One downside is that half of the dialog is Mandarin with English subtitles, challenging viewers to read while following the action. (Lisa Miller)
We Need to Do Something (Limited in Theaters and Streaming on AppleTV, Sept. 3)
When an impending tornado traps a dysfunctional family in one bathroom, their disagreements turn to terror once the storm has passed. Unable to open the door or otherwise escape, terrible noises outside indicate something has gone very wrong. From a novella by Max Booth III, who penned this screenplay, we meet alcoholic father Robert (Pat Healy), embittered mother Diane (Vinessa Shaw), pink-haired, self-involved teen Melissa (Sierra McCormick), and her younger, essentially innocent brother, (John James Cronin). Told from Melissa’s viewpoint, she’s annoyed by her unreasonable parents, but feels utterly crushed that her cell phone gets no signal. Finally able to crack open the door, the family experience gruesome, perhaps supernatural, events. Critics split equally regarding an enigmatic ending that leave the viewer to reach their own conclusion. (Lisa Miller)
You Will Die at Twenty (Film Movement DVD)
Sakina brings her newborn son to the imam for his naming, and he will be called Muzamil. But at the climax of the ecstatic drumming and chanting of the Afro-dervish ceremony, one of the participants falls dead. The coincidence is deemed as a curse against the newborn. He will die at age 20, the villagers say, and the imam can only add, “Everything is fated. God’s command is inevitable.”
You Will Die at Twenty is a double rarity—a great contemporary art film and a movie from a country seldom seen at film festivals, Sudan. The feature-length debut by director Amjad Abu Alala is visually and compositionally accomplished, believably cast and gracefully edited as it moves 20 years toward what the villagers—and Muzamil—assume as inevitable. The land is harsh, giving life to its inhabitants only grudgingly, and many of the men (including Muzamil’s father) must work abroad to send money home. Modernity remains at arm’s length but appears in the form of Sulaiman, a worldly cineaste who returns to the village of his birth after a career in documentary filmmaking.
As a child Muzamil is treated cruely by the other kids, but eventually finds purpose at the mosque studying the Quoran. You Will Die at Twenty respects the conflicting currents of faith and reason. Sulaiman is a flawed man but gies Muzamil a glimpse of the wider world. (David Luhrssen)
