Awkwafina

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for the first four verses of “Poupée Poupée” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 88.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I had to spend more time than usual on my journal because of all the movies and shows I watched yesterday. I was running late going to the supermarket.

            I went to No Frills where for the first time several weeks they had firm grapes. I bought five bags of grapes, two half-pints of blueberries, a bag of potatoes, two strawberry-rhubarb pies because they were on sale at $5 each for two, Comet, I looked for Murphy's Wood Soap but they are either out or no longer sell it, I got a pack of toilet paper, a container of skyr, two containers of Greek yogourt, maple syrup, scotch bonnet sauce, and a can of coffee. 

            I had a toasted Montreal-style bagel with five-year-old cheddar for lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Spadina. I weighed 87.6 kilos when I got home. 

            I imported the four videos of fluorescent lights that I'd downloaded and edited them all down to about a minute of footage. I only need a few seconds and I might take pieces from each one to insert in the video I'm making for my song “Instructions For Electroshock Therapy.” 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood In A Bug.” 

            I had three strips of bacon, an egg sunny side up, a toasted Montreal style bagel, and a beer while watching “Shang Chi: The Legend of the Ten Rings.”

            There was immediately a problem because the first several minutes of the movie were entirely in Chinese with no subtitles. When I downloaded the torrent I'd unchecked the box for the subtitles because I hadn't expected them to be important. After the movie was over I went back to the torrent and prioritized the subtitles, then they were automatically in the movie. I watched the beginning again. 

            The story begins with a flashback as Shang Chi's mother is telling him the story of how the Ten Rings gave Shang Chi's father Xu Wenwu immortality and godlike powers 1000 years ago. He rules an army called The Ten Rings and working from the shadows they have influence over every government in the world. This character is somewhat similar to the original father of Shang Chi in the comic books. That character was Fu Manchu and he was based on the character created by Sax Rohmer in the extremely popular Fu Manchu novels of the early 20th Century. But Marvel comics lost the rights to Fu Manchu and had to reboot the character of Shang Chi with a different though similar father. He's also somewhat based on another Marvel character called The Mandarin who also seems to have been based on Fu Manchu. The Mandarin also had ten rings but his rings were on his fingers and they were not magic but scientific in their powers. The Mandarin started out as an enemy of Iron Man. 

            Xu Wenwu has everything but he still wants more and he's heard of a legendary magical village that exists in another dimension the portal to which only appears at certain times. Xu Wenwu travels to Ta Lo where he is stopped by its beautiful guardian Ying Li. They fight and their battle becomes like a mating dance as they fall in love. She defeats him but he wins her heart and since her village rejects him because he is a bad guy, she forsakes the village and leaves with him. But in doing so she loses her powers which are drawn from the heart of the great dragon that protects Ta Lo. She has two children, Shang Chi and Xialing. Xu Wenwu gives up on his criminal activities but he still has many enemies. A group of them kill Ying Li. After taking revenge Wenwu returns to his criminal activities and trains Shang Chi to be an assassin. After killing the man who killed his mother Shang Chi leaves his father and seeks a life in San Francisco, making friends with the fun loving, somewhat irresponsible, but faithful Katy. They've been friends for ten years and they both have jobs at the same place as parking valets.

            One day on their way to work they are riding the bus when some thugs gang up on Shang because they want the emerald pendant he is wearing. Suddenly Shang Chi shows himself to be a master of Kung Fu and his best friend Katy is shocked because she thought he couldn't fight. The biggest thug has only half a right arm but then it suddenly extends into a sword with energy powers. On one of the lunges aimed at Shang Chi but dodged by him the sword goes through the floor of the bus and severs the brake line. The bus is now out of control on the steep hills of San Francisco. The driver gets injured and falls unconscious and so Katy has to take over driving while Shang Chi fights. He beats them but they get away with his pendant. 

            Shang then tells his story to Katy and also reveals that he has a sister in China who also has a pendant like his. The men that attacked him work for his father and so he has to go to Macau to warn her that she is in danger. Katy insists on coming along. Shang's sister runs a cage fighting club in Macau. 

            They see a fight between Dr Strange's colleague Wong and a monster from another dimension similar in size to the Hulk. The monster hits Wong and then Wong tells him he wants to show him how that punch feels. Wong puts up a dimensional portal to receive the next punch and another one from which the monster's punch thrusts out and hits the monster, thus causing him to knock himself out. We see later in the dressing room that Wong and the monster are friends and that their fight was a scam put on for money. 

            Someone had filmed Shang Chi's fight on the bus and now it has gone viral so everyone in the club has seen him fight. He is told by the announcer that if he fights in the cage he will help him find his sister. But it turns out Xialing is his opponent. She beats him and then the Army of the Ten Rings attacks. Wenwu arrives and takes Shang, Xialing, and Katy to his compound. Wenwu reveals he's been hearing the voice of Ying Li telling him she is imprisoned in Ta Lo. He says he wants to go there and rescue her if he has to destroy the village. Shang saw his mother die and so he refuses to help his father. Wenwu imprisons them. They meet the actor Trevor Slattery who Wenwu imprisoned as punishment for having pretended to be him as the Mandarin in the events of Iron Man 3. Slattery has made friends with a creature called a hundun that is from Ta Lo. He calls the creature Morris and it basically looks like a pig with no head but rather a butt at each end of its body and it also has nearly useless wings. Slattery understands Morris's squeaky speech and he tells Shang that Morris can guide them to Ta Lo. And so they go there ahead of Wenwu where they meet Ying Li's sister Ying Nan who welcomes them with open arms. She is the leader and protector of the people of Ta Lo. She assures Shang that his mother is dead and that the voice that speaks to Wenwu is the Dweller in Darkness who lives behind a dimensional wall and is trying to use Wenwu to break out. 

            Wenwu arrives with his army. Shang, Xialing and Katy help the people fight them. Shang fights Wenwu but is defeated and submerged in the lake where he meets the Protector. Wenwu breaks through to the dimensional wall and hears what he thinks is the voice of Ying Li calling to him. He breaks open the wall and the Dweller in Darkness emerges. Shang Chi emerges from the lake riding the Protector who is more of a serpentine dragon with several sets of small wings along its body. The Dweller in Darkness is a flying dragon with one set of bat wings. It kills Wenwu and Wenwu gives the ten rings to Shang Chi. There is a battle between the two dragons with Shang and Xialing helping. But there are also hundreds of smaller flying creatures that everyone else must fight. Katy discovers to her surprise that she is an expert archer. Shang Chi defeats the Dweller in Darkness. 

            Back in San Francisco Shang and Katy are in a bar when Wong appears through a dimensional portal and asks them to step through. On the other side is the Mystic Arts headquarters in Tibet. There are also holograms of Bruce Banner and Captain Marvel. They examine the ten rings and determine that they are acting as a beacon. This scene seems to be a welcoming of Shang as a super hero. Wong tells Shang and Katy that their lives are about to change forever and so they'd better go home and get some rest. They say, “We could do that ... Ooor ...” In the next scene Shang, Katy and Wong are all singing Hotel California in a karaoke bar. 

            Xialing takes over her father's Ten Rings Army. This fits with the original story in which the daughter of Fu Manchu was also evil like her father. 

            It was nice to see Michelle Yeoh as Ying Nan. I haven't seen her since her great character Philippa Georgiou left Star Trek Discovery. 

            Katy was played by Awkwafina, who is a comedian, actor and rapper. In 2012 her rap song “My Vag” became a hit on YouTube. She starred in The Farewell for which she became the first Asian woman to win a Golden Globe. She is the star of the sitcom Awkwafina is Nora From Queens.