By all accounts, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has been one of Hollywood’s most triumphant success stories in a long time. “There was a 22-year-old young man who posted a picture of him and his dad going to watch the movie and he just said, ‘Thank you for healing my relationship with my father,’” Cretton laughed, calling to mind the film’s deep family themes — and complicated relationship between Shang-Chi and his omnipotent father Wenwu (Tony Leung) — that have resonated with many first-generation viewers. “It’s nice, because it is a family movie about a family coming together. And it’s nice to see families going together to watch the movie.”
“I got a DM from a cousin of mine,” Callaham recalled. “She sent me a very gushing DM saying how proud she was to know a person involved in the movie and that it’s the first time she felt proud to be Asian when she watched the movie, which really messed me up — in a good way.”