Disney dropped the first teaser trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on Monday, debuting a new look at Simu Liu's martial arts master.
The upcoming superhero blockbuster is Marvel's first film centering on an Asian superhero, and the trailer serves as fans' first introduction to Shang-Chi: At first, he seems like a typical twentysomething living in San Francisco, working as a valet by day and doing karaoke with friends (like Awkwafina 's Katy) by night.
But as the trailer soon reveals, Shang-Chi has a far more complicated past: As a child, his father, Wenwu (Tony Leung), trained him to become one of the most skilled assassins in the world. He's since tried to leave that life behind, only to get sucked back in by his father's villainous legacy.
"There are many iterations of Shang-Chi throughout the comics, but there was always a core relationship between him and his father that was extremely complicated - and that was something I really related to," director Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12) tells EW. "That was a big part of what I pitched: using the movie to explore the psychology of a kid who was trained to be a killer when he was young. Now that he has broken out of that, how does he learn to redefine himself in the world and find the balance of what his relationship with his father should be?"
Shang-Chi also continues a storyline that's been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since the very beginning: Wenwu has ties to the Ten Rings, the notorious terrorist organization first mentioned in 2008's Iron Man.
Shang-Chi also stars Michelle Yeoh and Ronny Chieng, and it'll hit theaters Sept. 3. Watch the trailer above and see the first poster below.
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