Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings: A Parents Guide

Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings is now available to stream on Disney+.  But is Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings appropriate for younger kids?  I’m answering that question and more in my spoiler free Shang-Chi parents guide.  With a PG-13 rating that includes language, violence and thematic elements, here’s what parents need to know about Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings.

Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings: A Parents Guide

Get ready to welcome Shang-Chi to the MCU!  The latest movie to be released in Phase 4 of the MCU, this movie is basically an origin story for Shaun aka Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), a parking attendant living in California who sings karaoke with his bestie Katy (Awkwafina) in his spare time.  But as the audience quickly learns, there’s more to Shang-Chi than what he pretends to be.  That’s because he’s the son of Wenwu (played by Tony Leung), an ancient warlord who derives his powers from the mysterious ten rings.  An MCU movie that delves more into martial arts, here’s what parents need to know about the Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings age rating.

What is Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings Rated? 

Shang-Chi is rated PG-13, which means that some material is not suitable for children under the age of 13.  For example, it might contain language, violence, nudity, and/or sensuality.  Here, the movie doesn’t contain any sexual content like nudity.  However, it does contain a lot of violence, more than its fair share of language, and thematic elements.  More about all that below.

Language

Sigh.  I feel like a broken record.  As I’ve written several times, profanity usually doesn’t bother me as long as it’s in small doses.  However, I was really surprised by the number of curse words I counted in Black Widow.  I was hoping Marvel would tone it down a bit with the profanity, but it looks like it’s going in the opposite direction.  While it’s not as bad as the profanity in Black Widow, this particular movie does contain its fair share of bad language.  Characters say words like “a**h*le,” “b**c*,” “s**t,” “h*ll,” and “b**-a**.”  

Violence

This is where the movie earns its PG-13 rating.  Because this is a martial arts movie, you can expect a lot of action/fight scenes.  One of the best action sequences in this movie happens early - on a bus.  This scene reminded me of one of my favorite movies of all time - Speed.  That is, if Keanu Reeves took his Matrix movies onto the bus with him.  Hmm, maybe this could be further developed in a future MCU movie.  

In any case, in Shang-Chi, characters are stabbed, killed and thrown to their deaths from tall buildings.  There are also flying soul sucking monsters that - well, suck souls from people’s bodies in fairly graphic fashion.  Because of that, some parents might find these scenes difficult for younger kids.  As a result, you’ll definitely want to use your discretion.  

Nevertheless, several of the martial arts sequences are also very graceful and reminded me of the ballet.  

Thematic Elements

Did I mention that there are soul sucking monsters in this movie??  There’s also a man beating people to death in a restaurant in front of his young son and a 14 year old trained to be an assassin.  Not to mention witnessing his mom’s death.  With that being said, it’s not graphic (although it’s weird to even type that out).  There are some comedic moments that try to lighten the mood, like a faceless winged creature.  

Overall Thoughts

There are definitely scary elements in this movie, especially the scenes involving the soul sucking monsters.  My (almost 9 year old) son didn’t necessarily get scared by those scenes since he loves movies like Godzilla.  

The movie itself is also over 2 hours long.  As a result, this is a long movie to sit through, especially for younger kids.  There are also subtitles throughout the movie which can also be challenging for younger kids.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed this new addition to the MCU.  There are some surprises thanks to cameos and you don’t have to wait until the end credits to see at least one interesting callback.  Speaking of end credits, there are 2 post credit scenes that you’ll want to stick around for.

About Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings

Marvel Studios’ “Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings” stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, who must confront the past he thought he left behind when he is drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization. The film also stars Awkwafina as Shang-Chi’s friend Katy, with Michelle Yeoh as Ying Nan, and Tony Leung as Xu Wenwu, Shang-Chi’s father; as well as Meng’er Zhang, Fala Chen, Florian Munteanu, Benedict Wong, Yuen Wah, Ronny Chieng, Zach Cherry, and Dallas Liu.