Shang-Chi Trailer and More of This Week's News for Nerds

Welcome to this week’s PUNCHLIST, where we round up the biggest news in nerd culture. We highlight the tastiest morsel in some detail and then close you out with a link round-up.

Shang-Chi Trailer

Things We Know From The Trailer

First things first: It looks great – both stylistically and visually. We get several unique environments and time periods and lots of close quarters combat. This is something Marvel already does extremely well, but producer Jason Schwartz says, “this is the best action [Marvel has] ever done.” If it lives up to that hype, we’re going to have our minds blown.

Shang-Chi appears to be at odds with his dear old dad, Wenwu, who is asking that he come back and play a part in the family business – the Ten Rings. Wenwu is a brand new character; a kind of smash up between Shang-Chi’s comic dad Fu Manchu and the Mandarin, who was first mentioned in the MCU way back in the first Iron Man and further developed in Iron Man 3.

There appears to be a couple of villains Shang-Chi will battle during the course of the movie. Death Eater is shown both training a young Shang-Chi and in combat against him as an adult. He looks to be positioned as a general of sorts in the Ten Rings; possibly even Wenwu’s right hand man. The man with the glowing sword for a hand is Razor Fist, a martial artist turned mercenary who has a long history of being at odds with Shang-Chi in the comics.

We’re treated to one-on-one martial arts duels (including a little tease at some wuxia-styled, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon combat!) right alongside some larger scale battles that appear to take place in front of temples, so something precious is being defended from ne’er-do-wells. And him singing “A Whole New World” from Aladdin at a karaoke should not be missed!