Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

The MCU needs to avoid setting up a romance between Shang-Chi and his best friend Katy. Starring Simu Liu as the titular hero, Shang-Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings is unlike any other movie in the MCU to date. Made by director Dustin Daniel Cretton, it feels like something of a love-letter to Chinese culture and mythology, an impressive feat as the film also almost perfectly balances humor and family drama.

Awkwafina’s role in Shang-Chi as the martial artist’s best friend Katy Chen was a particular highlight. Although Phase 1 films had often had a sharp wit, the success of The Avengers led Marvel to make humor a core part of their brand. While this is sometimes appropriate, in action-comedies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, there have been other occasions where the studio has let things go a little too far: the perfect example being Thor: Ragnarok, with even Taika Waititi admitting some of the jokes have “no business being in cinema, let alone in a Thor film.” Fortunately, although Katy served as the comedy relief in Shang-Chi, it wasn’t at the expense of characterization. She felt like a refreshingly three-dimensional character in her own right, a bold and resourceful woman who even played a major part in the final third-act victory. Naturally, some have wondered whether there’ll be a future romance between Katy and Shang-Chi, especially given that members of Katy’s family are keen on the idea.

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Ironically, the pressure from family members is one major reason Marvel would be wise to resist the idea. It’s actually quite unusual to see healthy male-female friendships on the big screen that don’t turn into romance, especially in the MCU, where any secondary female character is basically a love-interest: think Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, Steve Rogers and both Peggy and Sharon Carter, and Spider-Man and Liz and MJ. By now it feels formulaic, and, consequently, there’s something very refreshing about the close friendship between Katy and Shang-Chi. It doesn’t help that the “best friends become lovers” trope is frankly overused in romantic fiction in general, again not exactly a particularly healthy message in popular culture.

Awkwafina’s Katy has never been one to let herself be put in a box, and, as such, relegating her to a love-interest role would be the opposite of character development. She would feel like Shang-Chi’s “plus one,” rather than an impressive and capable woman in her own right. Worse still, Marvel’s poor handling of romance plots in the past has led to many seeing those characters as essentially disposable: witness the ease with which Betty Ross was written out of the Hulk’s life, Thor’s dismissive attitude to Jane Foster in Thor: Ragnarok, or Captain America: Civil War‘s poor handling of Pepper Potts’ absence. Katy deserves a lot better than that. She is as much an audience surrogate as anything else, a “viewpoint character” who is introduced to this strange new world, needs to have things explained to her, finds her feet in it in order to play a key role. That’s crucial, especially if Shang-Chi 2 becomes even wilder than the first film.

It’s important to note that Shang-Chi and Katy have had plenty of time to hook up prior to the film. The two have been best friends for a decade, and they’ve been subjected to a lot of pressure from Katy’s family – pressure they’ve resisted. Marvel should respect that, allowing the relationship between Katy and Shang-Chi to remain one of close friendship, as the two struggle to navigate the already-strange brave new world they’ve entered into in Shang-Chi.

Key Release Dates
See also  5 Reasons The Matrix Has Aged Poorly (& 5 Reasons It's Timeless)
  • Eternals (2021)Release date: Nov 05, 2021
  • Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)Release date: May 06, 2022
  • Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)Release date: Jul 08, 2022
  • Black Panther: Wakanda Forever/Black Panther 2 (2022)Release date: Nov 11, 2022
  • The Marvels/Captain Marvel 2 (2023)Release date: Feb 17, 2023
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)Release date: Jul 28, 2023
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)Release date: May 05, 2023
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About The Author


Thomas Bacon
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Tom Bacon is one of Screen Rant’s staff writers, as well as a Peer Mentor for new writers and a member of the Care Team, offering support and a listening ear to members of the Comics group. A lifelong fan of major franchises including Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Marvel, Tom is delighted his childhood is back – and this time it’s cool. You can find him on Twitter @TomABacon.

A graduate of Edge Hill University, Tom remains strongly connected with his alma mater as a volunteer chaplain. He’s heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will swiftly learn he’s into British politics too.

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