With 24 films already released in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that have made billions at the box office, the world's most popular franchise shows no signs of slowing down in its latest action-packed epic, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
After successfully moving away from the Infinity Saga in shows like WandaVision, Loki, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and the recent release of Black Widow, Stage 4 of the MCU is about to embrace the mystic and multiverse in equal measure.
However, as Marvel has cleverly done before, they've hired one of the best new directors around for their first film with an Asian lead.
Having directed features like Just Mercy and Short Term 12, Destin Daniel Cretton has already established himself as a filmmaker with a unique voice and considerable style but in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, it's his flair for action that really shines.
Gone are the Infinity Stones, weapons of mass destruction, destruction of entire cities, aerial fights involving massive spaceships and superheroes with spectacular powers (for the most part).
Shang Chi is a welcome departure for the MCU not just in terms of storytelling, but action too.
The punches are brutal, the fights are believable and the hand-to-hand action really resonates.
While clearly being influenced by Asian cinema and action films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House Of Flying Daggers, Hero and countless Jackie Chan features, Shang-Chi also takes inspiration from the likes of Speed, Skyfall, The Matrix, Spider-Man 2 and The Raid.
In fact, the hand-to-hand combat in one particular fight on a bus is so good that it's bound to be mentioned in the conversation of 'the greatest action scene in Marvel history.'
Speaking with the Irish Mirror, the film's Destin Daniel Cretton says that his intention was always to use the action sequences as a reason to propel the characters forward while showing a hero that can't rely on any superpowers.
"One of the fun things about this movie is for a big majority of the movie, Shang Chi does not have any superpowers. It is hand to hand combat. We were able to work with a really brilliant stunt team led by Brad Allan and to me, their biggest gift is not just giving these badass martial arts moments, but it's physical storytelling.
"That was something that we really went back and forth on from scripts to choreography. We were always interacting because when they were developing things, we were figuring out what the setups and the payoffs were.
"Brad and I are both big Buster Keaton fans so the physical setup and payoffs of a scene for me helped to ground an action sequence, so it's not just explosions, kicks and punches. I think that that bus fight sequence is one of my favourites because there are so many plot points happening non-stop, it's like the stakes keep rising, rising and rising. It's a lot of fun."
In terms of plot, Shang Chi is a unique origin story that introduces Simu Liu as the titular hero, whom we meet living in San Francisco and working as a parking valet.
When a group of assassins takes a pendant that his mother gave him when he was young, Shang-Chi and his best friend Katy (Awkwafina) leave their safe lives and journey to Macau, to warn Shang-Chi’s sister Xialing (Meng'er Zhang) that danger is coming for her as well.
As the film unfolds, Shang-Chi must confront the past he thought he left behind but that's not as easy as it sounds because he's drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organisation led by his estranged father.
In many ways, it's a better 'introduction movie' than Ant-Man, Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel because the action is tighter and as the lead character, Simu Liu is very likeable.
Given the amount of Easter Eggs and throwbacks in any Marvel film, there are also plenty of nods to previous features in the MCU because as fans will know, the shadowy Ten Rings organisation has been an underlying element of the franchise since 2008, when it surfaced to kidnap Tony Stark in the first Iron Man film.
The person leading the Ten Rings organisation was deceptively introduced in Iron Man 3 also, in the form of The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) but that was all a ruse.
In this film, audiences will learn the history of the real person who leads the Ten Rings—Xu Wenwu, Shang-Chi’s father and see the actual power of the Ten Rings themselves.
The trailer has already shown us glimpses of Dr Strange's ally Wong (Benedict Wong) and The Hulk's nemesis The Abomination (Tim Roth) featuring, so how hard is it to reference previous films, create a brand new world and lay the groundwork for what's to come in Stage 4 of the MCU?
"Working on a movie of this size and with this particular studio is so collaborative that it's hard to pinpoint where ideas came from, where they were birthed and in what meeting they came out of or who said it," said Cretton.
"I feel so lucky to have been surrounded by a DP like Bill Pope, a production designer like Su Chen, Bran Allan and Kim - who also worked on The Matrix!
"They're all these legendary creatives who were all in rooms together as we're developing these worlds and what it's going to look like, feel like, what the references will be taken from.
"Ideas are just flying, they're just flying through the air and every once in a while, one comes out and gets thrown into the movie. I'm just saying, 'oh, that's great. That's great, it fits right into the puzzle.'
"We're writing the movie as this is happening! I'm in the room with them and they're all throwing out ideas of how they want to shoot it or what it could look like. It's my job to grab the things that I know will fit well into the puzzle and it's really fun.
"Initially, when I was deciding if I was going to do a movie of this size, I just thought I'd be surrounded by so much pressure but it actually was the opposite. I was surrounded by so many professionals who are so at the top of their game that I was not sensing any ego, I feel like they didn't need ego. It was like I was in a sandbox with all these legends who are so secure in their craft that they're just constantly playing and it was really fun."
Shang Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings is released in Irish cinemas on September 3.
