Ariel Landrum 0:10
Hello, everyone, welcome to the Happiest Pod On Earth. I’m Ariel.

Stefanie Bautista 0:14
And I’m Stef. And we’re both Disney fans. But we’re really so much more than that.

Ariel Landrum 0:18
I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist who uses my clients passions and fandoms to help them grow and heal from trauma.

Stefanie Bautista 0:24
And I’m an educator who uses my passions and fandoms to help my students grow and learn about themselves and the world around them. Here at Happiest Pod, it’s a place where we dissect Disney mediums with a critical lens.

Ariel Landrum 0:36
Why? Because just like we are more than just fans, we expect more from the mediums we consume. So what Disney the media are we dissecting today?

Stefanie Bautista 0:44
Today we are talking about something we were both super excited about. And it is the movie Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings!

Ariel Landrum 0:54
What what what!

Stefanie Bautista 0:57
The song that came in my head is ‘Like a G6’, because I just heard it the other day. And it took me back to like 2010 when Far East movement was like the only Asian representation we had in mainstream media. And it was like, it was like all of my cousins who liked racing and DJing. They like made a big and I was like, “Is this the beginning? Like, this is so weird, but this tracks such a banger like what’s going on? It’s not cheesy.”

Ariel Landrum 1:30
A little fun fact, I had to perform that song at Stef’s wedding. So I can do that. I have a dance move and a breakdown and the rap. Good to go.

Stefanie Bautista 1:41
Who would have thought for you. What’s what a cultural significance it had. And fast forward to 2021 we have a Marvel superhero in a movie that represents Asian culture. Like that’s wild.

Ariel Landrum 1:55
Yes, it’s absolutely crazy. And the fact that this movie came out during a pandemic, and it is it is making box office hits.

Stefanie Bautista 2:04
Yeah, it’s nonstop right now. It is so far the box most the biggest box office success story of the pandemic. And as of yesterday, Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings has grossed $152.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $112 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $264.6 million. That’s major.

Ariel Landrum 2:30
Oh my goodness.

Stefanie Bautista 2:30
That’s major.

Ariel Landrum 2:31
That’s absolutely major. And then if you think about it, because we’re not including Disney+ subscription streams or premieres, because it’s not premiering on Disney+, you can only see it in theaters. At the time, Luca and Soul were the only ones that skipped theaters entirely. And then Disney had released like five movies in theaters and Disney+, with Free Guy actually being the first one that is just theatrical only. But so this is the first Marvel theatrical least set- release only since the pandemic.

Stefanie Bautista 3:06
And there was a whole controversy about how I don’t know if it was Disney or some executive tweeted that it was like an experiment and Simu Liu came out on Twitter and was like, “We are not an experiment.” Like, “Don’t talk that way about something that’s so culturally significant to us.” And although they might have been talking about the release as an experiment, I think that totally downplayed what Shang-Chi means to us in the AAPI community and, you know, I, I thought that it was right for him to kind of speak up against that because we were we don’t want people to focus on the way it’s being released. But we want people to focus on the content and the storytelling itself.

Ariel Landrum 3:47
Yes. Yes. The really, really interesting thing about this movie is it does make me also think of the live action Milan in the style that the story is portrayed and the filmmaking it’s very reminiscent of Wushu. Close to ‘woo-saw’.

Stefanie Bautista 4:09
Some people say ‘woo-shoo’.

Ariel Landrum 4:10
Yeah.

Stefanie Bautista 4:10
Some people say, ‘woo-shoo’ or ‘woo-saw’.

Ariel Landrum 4:12
And that is a traditional form of specifically popular Chinese fiction that contains like a very specific formula. The elements include usually honorable warriors, powerful swordsman or swordswomen, powerful swords, and a lot of magical and mythical beasts. And before the movie had come out, of course, you know people do somewhat spoilery spoilers which we will also say you have not seen this movie do not listen to this podcast. Do not listen to it. Yup.

Stefanie Bautista 4:42
Pause right now listen to our good friend Billy and his podcast spoiler free on The Movie Grader, or I’m sure there’s other GT podcasts that you can listen to that might be spoiler free, but we are not it so please pause. Because there are going to be many spoilers ahead.

Ariel Landrum 5:00
Yes, so my spoiler was actually a spoiler but it kinda was like I knew there would be mythical creatures, but there were a lot of pictures online being shared with the creatures and they’re like very close representation to Pokemon.

Stefanie Bautista 5:14
Oh yeah, I did not see those spoilers but the way I like screamed and gasp because my favorite Pokemon, fun fact is Vulpix. And of course Vulpix evolves into Nine-Tails.

Ariel Landrum 5:19
Yes.

Stefanie Bautista 5:27
However knowing that I’ve watched many anime and other like, of course Wushu films and I’m like a little bit educated in Asian history and mythological history. We know that the Nine-Tails is a mythological creature that goes way way way back before Pokemon.

Ariel Landrum 5:43
Yeah.

Stefanie Bautista 5:43
I just think the way that they did it look so much like a Nine-Tails…

Ariel Landrum 5:47
Yeah!

Stefanie Bautista 5:47
That you couldn’t not think, “Oh my gosh, are we getting the crossover I never needed right now is like somebody’s gonna pull out poke ball?” No. And then you saw and then you saw the lion. And you’re like, “Okay, this is where tradition. This is what I was expecting.”

Ariel Landrum 6:02
And and specifically the ‘Aloha.’

Stefanie Bautista 6:04
Oh yeah.

Ariel Landrum 6:05
Yeah, that that Nine-Tails.

Stefanie Bautista 6:07
Yeah, yeah, the Alola Nine-Tails for sure.

Ariel Landrum 6:09
Yeah, yeah. Aloha? Alola!

Stefanie Bautista 6:12
ding ding ding We have one everybody!

Ariel Landrum 6:15
Ah, I tried so hard.

Stefanie Bautista 6:19
I get it. But yeah, you’re right. I think now that you mentioned Mulan, although I did like, I didn’t hate the film. But I didn’t love it for those that for that specific reason. It didn’t remind me of Wushu film. It didn’t remind me of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon didn’t remind me of Ip Man. It didn’t remind me of the level of martial arts I’m used to seeing in these Asian films. I feel like it fell short. The scenery was beautiful. I think the location was absolutely breathtaking. But Shang-Chi the way they did it and the flow of where the martial arts were placed, how intricate it was and the angles it just made me feel like I wasn’t watching a Marvel movie in those moments.

Ariel Landrum 7:06
Yeah, my only disappointment with that film had to be the fact that there was no singing.

Stefanie Bautista 7:12
It holds a special place in my heart for sure for sure.

Ariel Landrum 7:16
But if you think of like the the comparing the two films in regards to the martial arts, it was really only the main character that had these you know, fantastical performative choreography. Everybody else seemed to be you know, fighting with martial arts, but it wasn’t an in a way that that looked like the the sudden magic, I guess you would say that the the whole entire film would take or the variety. Whereas this film through like, from the beginning, all the way to the you know, the big boss fight scene, we saw a variety of martial art styles. And we including a lot that involved more fluid motion versus hard stances and low to the ground, which is the the kind of the work that we’re introduced with the specific villain or main character. These sort of powerful hits. But if you study martial arts in general, there are so many style styling disappearances, that have been taught by, you know, different monks, that it made sense that an older tradition or an older, more magical one involved fluid motion. Really replicating like the wind and being able to always stay within balance.

Stefanie Bautista 8:35
Lots of elements of Tai Chi, I know Fala Chen, who plays Ying Li the mom. Sahng-Chi’s mom, she studied Tai Chi for the role, because she does Tai Chi in one of the scenes with the young kids. And that’s like one of the ways that she’s able to connect with her village of Ta Lo is through those simple movements of Tai Chi and like, that was just so beautiful to see.

Ariel Landrum 8:58
And seeing the imagery of a mother teachi