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WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, in theaters now.
Although a wildly enjoyable ride, 2008’s Iron Man made a huge mistake with its depiction of the Ten Rings. The trilogy then took a leap in the wrong direction later on in Iron Man 3 with its depiction of the Mandarin. And while it’s been several years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has finally found redemption from those mistakes with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
In the context of the ’00s and the U.S’ “War on Terror” narrative, the decision to turn the Ten Rings into a terrorist organization was misguided but understandable. Instead of throwing a superpowered, ring-wielding caricature of Chinese people at audiences, Iron Man replaced one harmful stereotype with another and turned the Ten Rings into a vaguely Middle Eastern terrorist organization whose insignia inexplicably featured Mongolian lettering.
Iron Man 3 brought the Ten Rings back, this time with what appeared to be its head: the Mandarin. Not a villain of Chinese descent, as the name might suggest, but an American who had seemingly adopted regal robes and the Ten Rings symbol to cause chaos and cripple the U.S. government. But it wasn’t even that. The grand twist in the second half of the 2013 film was that the man who appeared to be the Mandarin was really an actor by the name of Trevor Slattery, and the true head of the terrorist organization was Aldrich Killian.
To Marvel Studios’ credit, the short All Hail the King, was a decent attempt at rectifying its mistake and did construct an opening for what audiences can now see in Shang-Chi. The Mandarin was a real figure all along, though his name had been appropriated by Killian in the construction of a villain used to maintain his sinister charade. That much was made clear by Wenwu when he laughed about the situation to Shang-Chi and, by extension, audiences. And his name is, importantly, Wenwu and not the Mandarin. That was one of many ways Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings established its supervillain as the Mandarin while distancing him from that name and its problematic origins, as well as that of Shang-Chi’s actual father in the comics.
In Special Marvel Edition #15, written by Steve Englehart, illustrated by Jim Starlin and Al Milgrom, it’s revealed that Shang-Chi’s father is Fu Manchu, the same racist creation introduced to media by Sax Rohmer in the early 1910s. The character encapsulated the “Yellow Peril” ideology and, unfortunately, influenced Asian characters for decades to come. That includes Stan Lee and Don Heck’s Mandarin, who debuted in Tales of Suspense #50 as an eccentric and secretive Chinese supervillain and continued to bear a resemblance to Fu Manchu for many years afterward.
Both of these characters are important, because, while Fu Manchu — as Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige made clear — is not a Marvel character, he did help pave the way for the Mandarin and the Ten Rings, both of which appear throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe in various forms. None of those forms did anything to aid Asian representation. Director and co-screenwriter Destin Daniel Cretton and Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham, therefore, had a difficult task ahead of them: find a way to undo the past when it came to both Shang-Chi’s roots and the depiction of the Mandarin.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings begins with an introduction to Wenwu, the film’s central antagonist. The Ten Rings are shown to be actual rings that possess immense power, and the supervillain fights with an army at his back, waving a variant of the Ten Rings flag with older Chinese characters adorning it symbolizing a number of different virtues. Later on, when Shang-Chi and Xialing are reunited with their father and treated to an awkward dinner, Wenwu explains his name and the turn of events that brought the name of his ancient organization to light — an American terrorist appropriated the name of the Ten Rings and took on the name of the Mandarin, which Wenwu points out is the name of the orange. It’s a way for the newest characters of the MCU to reclaim both the names and the power taken from Asian people by earlier mistakes.
And to make doubly sure that the MCU redeems itself and isn’t allowed to simply dismiss its past mistakes, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings brings Trevor Slattery back, continuing his story from All Hail the King. He is no longer a threat to the name of the Mandarin and all that it represents. He is essentially a jester used to entertain Wenwu and the members of the Ten Rings — a symbol of what used to be, now disarmed and harmless to the new image that Shang-Chi creates.
The Ten Rings is no longer a terrorist organization, as Shang-Chi showed it to be an ancient power. It can be argued that there are still problematic notions attached since they are both forces that wander and conquer, but Wenwu is no longer a caricature. Instead, his story is an in-depth exploration of culture and family; the Ten Rings don’t represent unwarranted hostility toward a war-torn region anymore — it represents a complex legacy. It’s been a long time since Iron Man 3, but the MCU has finally found some measure of redemption.
To see the MCU make up for its mistakes, Shang-Chi and the Legends of the Ten Rings is in theaters now.
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