Shang-Chi's Bus Fight Was Much Harder Than You Realized

The latest episode of VFX Artists React from Corridor Crew explores the challenges of the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings bus fight scene. Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin's titular character spent two decades awaiting a solo film as numerous directors and studios were attached until Marvel Studios elected to develop it for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film stars Simu Liu as Xu Shang-Chi as he is forced to confront his past with the reemergence of the clandestine Ten Rings organization, headed by his father Xu Wenwu, also known to some as The Mandarin.

Liu was joined in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings by Awkwafina, Meng'er Zhang Xu Xialing, Tony Leung, Ben Kingsley reprising his Iron Man 3 role, Florian Munteanu, Michelle Yeoh and Benedict Wong. The MCU film became a smash hit upon release, scoring high acclaim from critics and netting the highest audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for the franchise with a 98 percent approval rating. It also has set numerous box office records in just a month of release, becoming the largest Labor Day opening weekend with over $94 million grossed and the first film of the pandemic era to cross the $200 million domestic box office milestone.

The group at Corridor Crew has debuted the latest episode of Visual Effects Artist React highlighting Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings with the film's Additional Visual Effects Supervisor Joe Farrell. The video gives a deeper insight into the construction of the well-promoted bus fight sequence in the film including its Jackie Chan influences, the amount of buses used for filming and the blue screen elements of the scene. Check out the explanation below:

Click here to watch the video

Alongside the scaffolding fight, the bus sequence in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has been one of the most talked about and promoted scenes in the film for its ingenuity and callbacks to the various forms of martial arts seen in genre films. As noted by Farrell in the video, the kinetic Zui Quan fighting style popularized by Jackie Chan in his career played a large factor into choreographing the sequence, utilizing the help of stunt supervisor Andy Le and the team of supervising stunt coordinator Brad Allan, the latter of whom passed just prior to the film's release. Both had worked with Chan throughout their career, with Allan in particular being known as the protégé to the iconic martial artist and actor.

In addition to the practical nature of the scene, the level of detail put into the VFX in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' bus fight is impressive. Post-production on a big budget film such as the MCU title is well-known for the extensive time needed to get all CGI looking as best as possible, but Farrell's revelation the five-and-a-half minute bus scene took him a year and a half to work on is shocking when taking the film's 132-minute runtime into account. Fans will soon be able to revisit the bus scene from the comfort of home when Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings hits Disney+ and digital platforms on November 12 followed by 4K Ultra-HD, Blu-ray and DVD on November 30.

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Source: Corridor Crew