Still, the movie has found some resonance with Chinese audiences who have managed to see the film. “Those who said it insulted China before were too irresponsible.” “There is nothing wrong with the film and half of its dialogue is in Mandarin Chinese,” wrote a Weibo user. Others, including some who said they had seen the movie, leapt to its defense. Liu responded: “I was referring to Chinese gov’t censorship. In 2016, when he was starring in the television show “Kim’s Convenience,” he wrote on Twitter, “I think countries that try to censor and cover up dissenting ideas rather than face them and deal with them are out of touch with reality.” When a Twitter user replied, “sounds like America,” Mr. A spokeswoman for Disney declined to comment on the remarks.) Liu in which he talked about how his parents left “Third World” China where people “were dying of starvation.” (The video is no longer online. One nationalist account on Weibo, the popular social media platform, posted several screenshots from a previous interview with Mr. Some critics in China have also pointed to Mr. “How can Chinese people be insulted like this,” the Global Times commentary asked, “while at the same time we let you take our money?” And then there was Shang-Chi’s father in the comics: He was named Fu Manchu and caricatured as a power-hungry Asian man, an image that harks back to the stereotypes first pressed upon Asian immigrants a century ago. They saw the main character shirtless and shoeless, spouting “fortune-cookie platitudes in stilted English,” The New York Times noted recently. Readers of Shang-Chi comic books in the 1970s saw Asian faces colored in unnatural oranges and yellows. Global Times, a nationalist tabloid controlled by the Communist Party, published commentary that cited the racist origin of the character. Liu for his previous comments about China, which he left in the mid-1990s, when he was a small child.ĭespite its absence, the film has generated spirited debate on the Chinese internet. While the reasons aren’t clear, “Shang-Chi” may be a victim of the low point in U.S.-China relations.Ĭhina is also pushing back against Western influence, with increasingly vocal nationalists denouncing foreign books and movies and the teaching of English. Perhaps the only place where the movie has not been well received - in fact, it has not been received there at all - is mainland China.ĭisney, which owns Marvel, has yet to receive clearance from Beijing’s regulators to show the film in the vast but heavily censored movie market. The studio’s first Asian superhero movie is a hit, drawing praise and ticket sales in East Asia and other global markets. The cast includes Tony Leung, one of the biggest Chinese-speaking movie stars in history.
Simu Liu, the film’s Canadian lead actor, was born in China. Marvel released “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” with China in mind.