Black Panther was really a landmark moment for Marvel Studios, even more, I feel, than Captain Marvel, the first female-led Marvel movie. Black Panther had an almost completely non-white cast, leads, villains and was set in the futuristic African city of Wakanda.
The success of Black Panther certainly allows Marvel to flex their diversity muscles, and perhaps the next movie to make the most of this will be Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The movie seems set to feature a cast of mostly Asian talent and stars the likes of Simu Liu as Shang Chi, Tony Chiu-Wai Leung as The Mandarin, and Awkwafina in an undisclosed role. Recently, director Destin Daniel Cretton spoke with The Observer, and talked about how great it feels to be able to create an Asian superhero movie, something he himself never had as a kid.
“It’s really exciting to me to be able to fill a movie like that with a bunch of Asian faces and be able to see of sides of these character than what we have seen before. Growing up, I didn’t have a super hero that looked like me and it’s really exciting to give a new generation something I did not have. I couldn’t be more excited.”
I think it is exciting, and I am looking forward to Shang-Chi, especially Tony Leung as The Mandarin, the real Mandarin. It feels like the perfect movie to bring this classic Marvel villain in, because it won’t feel like the typical Asian stereotype villain when it is within a film that also has Asian heroes. I hope The Mandarin goes on to have a recurring role of sorts and isn’t just a one film and dead villain. Shang-Chi will surely carry on, and it would be cool to see The Mandarin as the ultimate nemesis to the martial-arts Master.
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What do you think of Cretton’s comments and the emerging diversity in the MCU? Leave any thoughts you have in the usual spot below.
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SOURCE: The Observer