Marvel President Kevin Feige addresses Chinese fans' concern on Shang-Chi release date

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is one of the highly-anticipated movies as it is the first-ever Asian superhero film by Marvel. As the fans await the release of the movie, fans from China have been concerned about the movie release as the makers haven’t uncovered the release date yet. Recently, Marvel President, Kevin Feige addressed this issue as it is unclear whether the movie passed the censorship or not. 

Marvel President Kevin Feige on Shang-Chi’s China release 

According to the reports by Variety, Marvel President Kevin Feige recently held a 14-minute long interview along with the veteran Chinese film critic, Raymond Zhou at the US red carpet premiere. While Marvel is hoping the film to be a whopping success, some Chinese viewers have insisted that any movie based on Marvel comics featuring the archetypically stereotyped character Fu Manchu, will turn out to be a racist depiction. In response to this, Kevin Feige explained that the character was just one of the truths about the early comic books but not in the film in any way, shape or form and was not a Marvel character. 

“[Fu Manchu] is not a character we own or would ever want to own. It was changed in the comics many, many, many years ago. We never had any intention of [having him] in this movie,” he said. Later: “Definitively, Fu Manchu is not in this movie, is not Shang-Chi’s father, and again, is not even a Marvel character, and hasn’t been for decades,” he explained further. 

Kevin Feige even reacted to the concern that Shang-Chi was at times portrayed as abandoning the Chinese roots and stated, “That’s certainly one of the elements we’ve changed. All of our comics go back 60, 70, 80 years. Almost everything has happened in almost every comic, and we chose the elements that we like to turn into an MCU feature. So that story is not what this is about.”. Stating further about the character, Shang-Chi, he added that the sense of running away was regarded as one of his flaws and how he will face that and overcome was a part of what the story was all about. 

Later, even Zhou talked about how there was uncomfortable criticism in China about Simu Liu not being attractive or charismatic to carry the role to which Feige responded, “Let all the hard work that the performer does be the proof, and not just the announcement or the Google search when somebody learns their name.”.

IMAGE: SHANG-CHI INSTAGRAM