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Simu Liu as Shang-Chi,
a skilled martial artist who was trained at a young age to be an assassin by his father Wenwu (Tony Leung). [credit: YouTube/Marvel Studios ]
Marvel’s official trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is here, giving us a bit more of the title character’s backstory. It also serves up glimpses of classic villains the Mandarin and Abomination and a supporting (yet crucial) character from 2016’s Doctor Strange.
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, this is the first Marvel film to feature an Asian lead—Simu Liu, best known for his role as Jung Kim on the sitcom Kim’s Convenience—as well as a predominantly Asian/Asian diaspora cast and crew. Marvel continues to keep plot details tightly under wraps, except to state that the main character gets drawn into the clandestine Ten Rings organization and must confront his past. “Shang-Chi’s main problem in his life is rooted in not knowing who he really is,” Cretton has said. “He has to learn how to own every part of himself. If he doesn’t allow himself to look at all of it—the good, the bad, the light and the dark—and to own it all, he won’t be able to reach his full potential.”
The “ten rings” of the title refers to the Marvel Comics supervillain Mandarin’s Ten Rings of Power (worn on the fingers in the comics, shown as arm bracelets in footage from the Marvel film), each with a different feature: ice blasts, flames, or mind-control, for instance. As we’ve reported previously, Marvel created an entirely new character, Wenwu, who has gone by many names over the years, including the Mandarin, who made an appearance in Iron Man 3—or rather, Ben Kingsley played Trevor Slattery, an imposter posing as the Mandarin.
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