When is ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline? For the majority of the MCU's run, it became an unspoken rule that each movie was set in the year they came out in theaters. This included obvious outliers like ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’, but it was in Phase 3 that the timeline became extra complicated. ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ was set in 2014, ‘Captain Marvel’ took place in 1995, and then ‘Avengers: Endgame’ jumped five years into the future to 2023 - only to see ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ progress the timeline to 2024.
This has put the MCU slightly in the future of the real world, but delays to ‘Phase 4’ and properties set almost immediately after ‘Avengers: Endgame’ has allowed the gap to slowly close. ‘WandaVision’ takes place only a few weeks after Thanos' snap was reversed, and ‘The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’ is set six months after Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes said goodbye to Steve Rogers.
The MCU timeline has continued to shuffle the events in the MCU timeline, with ‘Black Widow’ set directly after the events of ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and the beginning of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, ‘Eternals’ spanning 7,000 years and putting together the Eternals' origins with the aftermath of Thanos' Snap, and Loki set in a place outside of space and time altogether. So where does that leave ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ and its two post-credits scenes?
‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ begins hundreds of years ago with a small origin story for Wenwu, but the bulk of the movie takes place after the events of ‘Avengers: Endgame’; a specific year isn't given, but it's safe to assume it's either in late 2023, similar to ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’. However, there might be some confusion on the specific place of the movie within Phase 4's timeline due to its varying chronology. -We Got This Covered
