We are only a couple of weeks removed from the massive Marvel Studios panel at San Diego Comic-Con, where ten new projects were officially announced as part of Phase 4. Of course, one of those projects is none other than “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” The film not only was announced, but we got casting info which includes Simu Liu as the title character, joined by Awkwafina and Tony Leung, who is playing The Mandarin. And it’s that last character that seems to have many fans talking.
One of the people talking about the inclusion of The Mandarin is none other than “Iron Man 3” writer Drew Pearce. In the aforementioned film, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was introduced to multiple versions of The Mandarin. Ben Kingsley played Trevor Slattery, an actor that was hired to portray the terrorist in videos, and Guy Pearce played Aldrich Killian, the person who was seemingly the brains behind the fake Mandarin. However, later we learned that neither was actually The Mandarin, and the villain is still out there somewhere.
Pearce spoke with CinemaBlend and discussed how Marvel Studios can take that introduction and give the MCU the true Mandarin, without actually offending Asian folks with horrible stereotypes like the comic book version was guilty of decades prior.
“You know, and there are modern interpretations of The Mandarin that I think can work in the context of, particularly of a Marvel movie that has a much more grounded basis in Asian culture and has, frankly, Asian filmmakers and other Asian actors in its ensemble, and driving the story,” said the filmmaker.
He continued, “In our ‘Iron Man’ movie, as you and everyone else knows, it was my feeling that if we did The Mandarin in many of the forms that he is most commonly known as, we were playing into the racial stereotypes that generated the character in the beginning. Yellow peril, you know. … That idea was what inspired our take on the Mandarin.”
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All that being said, Pearce doesn’t have much concrete knowledge about the route that Marvel Studios is taking with the character, other than the fact that the studio is doing it right and will give fans the version of the character that they’ve been hoping for.
“I’ve also spoken to some of my friends at Marvel and of course I don’t know exactly what happens, but there’s a strong sense that everything will be revealed and nothing is being retconned,” said Pearce. “And that, at the end of the day, is all we can ask for. That, and the fact that, you know, they clearly think it’s going to be — he’s going to be the best adversary. And I trust in Marvel. In Marvel, we trust.”
As mentioned, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is part of Marvel’s Phase 4 and will be released on February 12, 2021. The film is written by David Callaham and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton.