Once upon a time, a Chinese warlord (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) came upon the eponymous Ten Rings: a set of bracelets, worn on the arms, which can be moved by telekinesis, allowing Hand Blasts, Explosive Propulsion, Parrying Bullets, and more. Their martial power, along with the immortality they endowed, allowed the warlord to become a One-Man Army, conquering whatever he felt like and forming an underground organization, the Ten Rings, which helped shape history. But one day, the warlord ran out of things to conquer. He set his sighs on the land of Ta Lo, a realm said to harbor mythical beasts. However, he was stopped by its protector, Ying Li (Fala Chen), whose divinely-inspired martial arts (and airbending) allowed her to best the unstoppable warlord.
"And that," Ying Li says, as the flashback ends, "is how I met your father." She gives her son a jade pendant, claiming it will always lead him home.
In 2023, "Shaun" (Simu Liu) works as a valet in San Francisco alongside his Heterosexual Life-Partner Katy (Awkwafina), whom he has been friends with since high school. Both are being pressured — by their friends, by Katy's family — to pick better jobs and make more of themselves, but both secretly relish their no-expectations lifestyle. However, all this is interrupted as they take the MUNI
to work: Shaun is accosted by several Mandarin-speaking mooks, who want his jade pendant — the same one Ying Li gave her son back in the How We Got Here segment. When Shaun won't relinquish it, a fight breaks out, and Shaun shows heretofore-unprecedented martial arts prowess — astonishing not just every other person on the bus but Katy as well. Serial Escalation being what it is, the mooks are led by the aptly-named "Razorfist" (Florian Munteanu), who has a machete for an arm; his attacks damage the bus. Katy is barely able to bring it to a stop, while Shaun organizes the civilian evacuation. Everybody lives... but Razorfist has the pendant.
Shaun charges back to his apartment (which, in true San Francisco fashion, appears to merely be someone's garage) and prepares to depart for Macau. Katy, furious that there's so much her best friend hid from her, but unwilling to let him wade into danger alone, goes with him. En route, Shaun explains the truth: He is indeed the son of the Chinese warlord and Ying Li. When he was seven, though, his mother died, and his father began to train Shaun as the ultimate weapon, a perfect assassin. But when his father sent him out on his first hit, at 14, he couldn't do it; he fled to San Francisco and disguised himself as an ordinary high-schooler. Since then, he has received a postcard from his sister, Xialing, postmarked Macau; he is scared that his father wants her pendant as well. He also admits his real name: Shang-Chi.
- Katy: ...You changed your name from Shang to Shaun? I wonder how your father found you. ... It’s like, "Hi, my name's Gina. I'm gonna go into hiding. My new name's Gyna."
Shang-Chi and Katy follow the postcard to an underground fight club in Macau, where "Bus Boy" is instantly recognized (someone live-streamed the fight; there's been some three million YouTube views). Shang-Chi wants to know where his sister Xu Xialing is, but he suddenly finds himself the star attraction, undergoing a grudge match against the woman who runs the fight club itself — his sister, Xu Xialing (Meng'er Zhang). While Shang-Chi protests he doesn't want to fight her, Xialing still harbors a grudge over his running away — "I'll be back in three days," were his exact words; it's been 10 years — and beats him up. Afterwards, though, when she deigns to speak to him, he explains that he came because she sent him the postcard. Xialing, who has built everything from the ground up — even teaching herself kung fu despite her father's refusal to train her — retorts that she never sent any such postcard.
The realization that it's a trap comes simultaneously with more Ten Rings mooks led by Razorfist. Xialing gets a bit more revenge by pretending to leave Shang-Chi and Katy to die, but ultimately the three join forces to escape — only to have another mook steal the pendant. Shang-Chi succeeds in tracking the mook down, but almost instantly is apprehended by his father. The Chinese Warlord takes them all back to his compound in China.
Over dinner, the Chinese Warlord introduces himself: his name is Xu Wenwu, and he has lived for over a thousand years. Such was the repute of his organization that a bunch of terrorists actually impersonated it... but since they had no idea who the Chinese Warlord actually was, they invented a new name for their "leader," "The Mandarin." "[Aldrich Killian] gave his figurehead the name of a chicken dish. And it worked! America was terrified. Of an orange." He explains that he ruled the Ten Rings until the day he met Ying Li; she was forced to give up residency in Ta Lo and the airbending powers conferred thereby, but in return he put away his ten rings, and for the better part of a decade, they lived Happily Ever After. Now, he says, he has brought his children back so that their pendants can unlock a magical map which will allow him to find Ta Lo: he claims he has heard Li's voice, and that she is begging them to free her from some sort of magical gate. He plans to begin with an open hand, but if the citizens of Ta Lo resist... they will face the closed fist of the Ten Rings.
When Shang-Chi and Xialing protest this idea, Wenwu has them imprisoned.
Down in the dungeon, Shang-Chi and Katy hear odd noises. It turns out to be Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley). Xu Wenwu kidnapped him with the intent to execute him (impersonating him and all that), but found Trevor's acting entertaining. During his imprisonment, Slattery has befriended Morris, a hundun who hails from Ta Lo; the furry footstool offers to lead them there. To that end, Xialing shows them to the Absurdly Spacious Sewer under the compound, and they steal Razorfist's BMW, and Katy drives them through the supernatural bamboo forest protecting Ta Lo. They emerge outside the village in a land populated with many mythological Chinese beasts — not just hundun but guardian lions, qilin and nine-tailed fox — where their aunt, Ying Nan (Michelle Yeoh), greets them.
Nan explains that the village is indeed guarding a gate to another dimension, but what lives in there is the Dweller-In-Darkness, a soul-eating monstrosity that wants to swallow the world. It was sealed in there by the Great Protector, who lends its dragon-scales to the village's weapons and armor. The Dweller-In-Darkness cannot break free from its side, so it has taken Ying Li's voice in the hope of luring Xu Wenwu — and, more importantly, the power of his ten rings — to Ta Lo. She gives Xu Xialing a rope dart and encourages her to train openly; Katy picks up archery alongside other Ta Lo trainees; and Shang-Chi approaches Nan to learn how the only person who ever fought Xu Wenwu to a standstill — Ying Li — managed to do so. He has been trained by his father, but now he needs the legacy of his mother.
- Ying Nan: You are a product of all who came before you. The legacy of your family, the good and the bad, it is all a part of who you are.
The night before the battle, Katy visits with Shang-Chi. He relates more flashbacks to his own training: his mother did not meet some untimely natural end but rather was killed by Xu Wenwu's rivals, the Iron Gang, in revenge; she stood to Hold the Line while Shang-Chi and Xialing hid. Wenwu embarked on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge: he put the ten rings back on again and began to hunt down wife's killers. The last of them was the target that the 14-year-old Shang-Chi was sent to assassinate. Today, over a decade later, Shang-Chi admits that he actually did slay the man he was sent to kill... And now he plans to do the same to his father.
The next morning, the Ten Rings arrive at Ta Lo. The villagers try to fend off the Ten Rings mooks. Shang-Chi stands in Wenwu's way, but Wenwu is disdainful of anyone who stood by and let his Lost Lenore be hurt. (Shang-Chi was seven at the time.) Wenwu makes it to the gate and, with the Super-Strength of the ten rings, begins to punch his way through. This allows some of the Dweller's mooks to get through; they begin to steal souls from Ten Rings and Ta Lo villagers alike, and Razorfist orders an Enemy Mine situation to defend against the greater threat. Shang-Chi, who attempted to stop his father, got flung into the lake for his trouble; below, he meets the Great Protector, who is ready to join the fight. With Shang-Chi on its back, it easily smashes through the Dwellermooks, but every time Wenwu punches the gate, more of them escape. Xialing takes over the rule of Dragon Rider while Shang-Chi descends to the gate to stop his father, and — drawing upon what he learned from his mother and aunt — takes control of five, and then all ten, of the ten rings... before giving them back, showing his belief that violence and revenge is not the way.
- Wenwu: I have to save her. She's calling to me.
Shang-Chi: I wish that were true. Dad, please. Your family needs you.
But it's too late: the gate, weakened by Wenwu's assault, collapses, and the Dweller-In-Darkness bursts free. (In an instant, Wenwu sees that everything he was told about being hoodwinked was true.) It seizes Wenwu... And, in his last act, Wenwu passes the ten rings to Shang-Chi. Xu Wenwu dies.
Shang-Chi leaps aboard the Great Protector, and he, Xialing and the dragon set out to take on the Dweller-In-Darkness. The battle is going poorly; Dwellermooks are throwing souls down the Dweller's throat to strengthen it. The leader of the archers instructs his people, Katy included, to aim for the Dweller's throat, but is himself immediately de-souled. Shang-Chi and Xialing are left clutching onto the Great Protector's mane as the Dweller attempts to eat its soul.
A single arrow pierces the Dweller's throat, crippling it and turning the tide of battle. Katy stares, barely believing the shot she made.
With the Dweller crippled, Shang-Chi takes the offensive, sending the ten rings deep into the demon's belly. He uses them as a blender, shredding the beast from the inside out. The day is saved.
The remaining citizens of Ta Lo hold a memorial for the fallen, including Xu Wenwu and Ying Li. Katy and "Shaun" return to San Francisco, where they regale their friends with the story of their adventures. They are interrupted by Wong (Benedict Wong), the Sorcerer Supreme, who has come to confer with them. Neither Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) nor Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), back in human form, can determine the rings' origin, but they are sending out a homing beacon. Wong officially welcomes Shang-Chi to the Avengers... While, halfway across the world, Xu Xialing takes over the Ten Rings, sitting in her father's seat.
