With The Falcon and the Winter Soldier coming to an epic close this past weekend, I was worried about what my new Marvel obsession would be since we won’t have anything new till June when Loki comes out. But low and behold Marvel releases the trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Here is a video with the correct pronunciation of Shang-Chi.
Let us talk about how good this trailer was. First, the trailer being so on beat with the music. It was such a hype song and such a hype trailer. I am so excited. There were epic fight scenes, set up like a Mortal Kombat fight.
In the trailer, we see a lot of symbols for the Ten Rings. Through a little bit of research, I found that these Ten Rings have the same graphic as in the Iron Man movies with the Mandarin who capture Tony Stark and attack him in the first and third Iron Man movies.
Wenwu, Shang Chi’s father, is also named the Mandarin. The Mandarin is portrayed by Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3. I am interested to see where they go with this new Mandarin. Reading through the Collider article as listed above, the Mandarin in the comic has a racist portrayal, but Marvel Studios is trying to rework the character into something more complex and trying to avoid stereotypes. I hate to praise them for doing the bare minimum when creating this character, but I am hyped for this.
I am so excited about the diversity of the MCU cast this movie is bringing. According to Collider, this movie has a 98% Asian cast.
Simu Liu is the lead character, Shang Chi. Awkwafina is Katy who has a very funny bus driving moment in the trailer, which I am so glad her comedy will be in this movie. Michelle Yeoh from Crazy Rich Asians is in the cast. She was excellent in Crazy Rich Asians, so I am excited to see her portray her character in this movie.
I think this movie is going to change the representation of Asians in the media. This will be the first Asian superhero. This is a pretty big moment.
The trailer is coming out at a hot time for the #StopAsianHate movement. This movement was due to an increase in Asian-American hate crimes during the last year. It was horrifying for me to see the hate crimes. I hope that this movie helps with the movement.
I know that a movie itself cannot change people’s prejudice, but I hope that it can create a world where all races are seen as superheroes, not just white males. I hope that this can help kids feel more comfortable in their skin, no matter what their race is.
On a less serious note, I am very excited to see Simu Liu in a Marvel movie. Simu Liu is hot. Like, not just “oh yeah he is an actor, so he is good looking” type of hot. No, this man is hot, like competing with Bucky Barnes for my attention kind of hot. The moment I saw the trailer, I followed him on Instagram and there are some pretty mouthwatering posts on there. He is going to be my newest obsession. I apologized to anyone who has to see my Instagram story posts.
I am excited for the way Marvel is getting into racial matters and combating stereotypes. Speaking about the Black experience as a superhero in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to now an almost entirely Asian cast, Marvel is doing some really exciting things that are making me happy to be a Marvel fan.