WATCH: Marvel Releases Much Anticipated, Action-Packed Trailer for Their First Asian Superhero Movie Shang-Chi

Marvel Studios has finally released the trailer for their much-anticipated movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings — and it is just as action-packed and thrilling as expected.

The film, based on Marvel Comics character Shang-Chi and starring Asian-Canadian actor Simu Liu, is the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie to focus on an Asian superhero.

Destin Daniel Cretton, who helmed the 2019 legal drama Just Mercy, is set to direct the film, while Awkwafina and Michelle Yeoh will star alongside Liu.

“When that announcement came out, I just went instantly back to my childhood,” Cretton, who was born in Hawaii and is of Japanese descent, told Entertainment Weekly of his film. “[Growing up] all I had was Spider-Man. Because he had the mask on, I could dress up like Spider-Man for Halloween. I had a handful of other characters that looked like me on screen, but there were maybe two or three that I could choose from, and superheroes were not a part of that.”

Marvel released the trailer on Monday, which also happened to be Liu’s birthday, giving viewers a look into Shang-Chi’s backstory and his intensive training, along with ancecdotes regarding his personal life.

Shang-Chi is introduced to viewers as a martial artist who had been trained to be an assassin by the Ten Rings terror organization since he was a child.

Shang-Chi later attempts to have a normal life working as a valet in San Francisco, and insists that he will not join his father Wenwu, played by Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, after getting to live his life for “ten years.”

“The most exciting thing about stepping into this character was that his backstory has never been told before,” Liu said to Entertainment Weekly of the role. “We know so many different versions of Batman’s origin story, how his parents were murdered when he was very young. We know Peter Parker, who was bitten by a radioactive spider, and he loses his uncle. Shang-Chi’s story is very much unknown to most of the world, so we had a lot of freedom and creative liberty to make it the way that we wanted to.”

Awkwafina also makes a hilarious appearance in the trailer, chaotically crashing a bus full of passengers after Shang-Chi defends them from what the viewer can only assume is a team of bad guys.

“We make a good team!” she says with a smile after crashing the bus, smoke rising from the vehicle.

The trailer comes amid a recent surge in anti-Asian violence, and, according to the Hollywood Reporter, was made a priority in 2018 following the success of Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians.

Marvel has previously faced criticism for their attempts at portraying Asian themes or characters, as the studio’s 2017 Netflix series Iron Fist was accused of focusing on a White character who learns Asian fighting traditions.

Doctor Strange’s The Ancient One, was also played by White actress Tilda Swinton, prompting accusations of whitewashing, as the character is a Tibetan man in the comics.

Watch above, via YouTube.