Source: Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty

The star of the upcoming movie Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings, Simu Liu, got one hell of a present on his birthday on Monday (Apr.19), the trailer for the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that will focus on an Asian superhero.

Marvel’s Phase Four is looking very promising despite being unleashed in a very unconventional way.

The trailer for Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings was a pleasant surprise for Marvel movie fans. It tells the story of Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), who was raised and trained to be an assassin in the Ten Rings organization but decides that is not the life he wants and escapes for a normal life in San Francisco.

His past will eventually catch up with him leading him to confront his father, played by Tony Leung, who is the leader of the Ten Rings organization and is described by Entertainment Weekly as “a powerful, ancient figure who trained his son to follow in his criminal footsteps.”

The action-packed trailer for the film directed by Destin Daniel Cretton also stars Awkwafina, who plays Shang-Chi’s best friend Katy, Michelle Yeoh, Fala Chen, Meng’er Zhang, Florian Munteanu, and Ronny Chieng. Unable to hide his understandable excitement about the movie, Liu shared the movie’s poster giving us a perfect look at Shang-Chi’s costume calling the movie “a celebration of our culture and a rallying cry for the forgotten, the unseen, and the overlooked.”

Originally, Phase Four was supposed to be kicked off with Scarlett Johansson’s standalone Black Widow film, which has had its wig pushed back numerous times due to the COVID-19 pandemic before Disney/ Marvel finally decided on a simultaneous release on Disney Plus and in theaters on July 9. With Black Widow in movie purgatory, Disney Plus original shows WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have led the way and are currently proving Marvel’s new original series are just as good as their feature-length films. Before the arrival of Shang-Chi, the God of Mischief, Loki’s self-titled Disney Plus series arrives June 11.

Shang Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings arrive in theaters on Sept. 3 and will be followed by Eternals (Nov. 5) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (Dec. 17).

You can watch the first trailer below.

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Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty