Film guide · 2021
The whole film, start to finish, told scene by scene in words. Read this and you'll know everything that happens.
Contains every spoiler, up to the ending.
Long ago, Wenwu found ten mysterious rings, the Ten Rings, which gave him long life and the power to shape nations.
In 1996, searching for the legendary village of Ta Lo, Wenwu fights its guardian Ying Li and falls for her. He sets aside the rings, and they have two children, Shang-Chi and Xialing.
But Ying Li is killed by Wenwu's old enemies. He puts the rings back on and puts young Shang-Chi through brutal training. At 14, Shang-Chi is sent on a mission of revenge, and disappears.
The present. Shang-Chi goes by Shaun and works as a hotel valet with his best friend Katy, living carefree.
One morning on a bus, Ten Rings agents attack. Shaun fights back with stunning kung fu, to Katy's amazement, but they take the pendant his mother gave him.
Shaun tells Katy his real name and past. Realizing his sister, who has a matching pendant, is in danger, he heads to Macau.
At a secret fight club atop a Macau tower, Shang-Chi ends up fighting his sister Xialing, who runs the club.
The Ten Rings attack, and a fierce fight breaks out on scaffolding high outside the tower.
Wenwu appears and takes Shang-Chi, Xialing and Katy away.
Wenwu tells his children their mother is trapped behind a gate in Ta Lo and is calling to him. The two pendants form a map to the village.
When they refuse to help, they're locked up with Trevor, the actor who once played the Mandarin, and Morris, a strange faceless creature.
They break out, and Morris guides them through a shifting forest to Ta Lo.
Ta Lo is home to creatures of legend. Their aunt, Ying Nan, welcomes them.
Ying Nan explains that a soul-eating creature is sealed behind the gate. The voice Wenwu hears is the creature imitating Ying Li to trick him.
Shang-Chi and Xialing learn their mother's fighting style. Katy learns archery.
Wenwu leads his army into the village. Shang-Chi fights his father and is thrown into the lake.
From the depths, the village's guardian dragon rises and saves him. Shang-Chi awakens to a style that combines his mother's and father's techniques.
The gate opens and the creature emerges. Wenwu dies saving his son from it, passing the rings to Shang-Chi.
Shang-Chi teams up with the dragon, helped by Katy's arrow, and destroys the creature.
Wong summons Shang-Chi and Katy to examine the rings with Bruce Banner and a hologram of Carol. The rings are sending out a signal somewhere.
Xialing takes over her father's organization as the new leader of the Ten Rings.