While the cancel culture subset may have tried to put a dampener on the proceedings by digging up old tweets he made in 2012 and attempting to tear him down as a racist because he didn’t care for the musical prowess of Nicki Minaj, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu still managed to have the best birthday imaginable after he celebrated turning 32 by seeing the first trailer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s martial arts epic explode online.
As familiar as some aspects of the narrative seem, with Liu’s title hero set to suffer from daddy issues like many of the MCU’s major names before him as he learns to embrace the destiny he once turned his back on, in terms of the visuals and fight choreography, it looks unlike anything we’ve ever seen from the franchise before.
The first footage went down a storm for the most part, but the reactions were a lot more muted in China. In fact, the trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings drew a largely negative approval rating on Marvel Studios’ YouTube accounts in the East, with many comments indicating that a lot of fans aren’t sold on the idea of a blockbuster with such a heavy Chinese influence being made by an American studio and featuring a cast largely comprised of Asian actors either born and/or raised in the United States and Canada.
Liu has now addressed some of the criticisms from overseas, and you can see what he had to say below:
Constantly in a state of wishing I spoke better Chinese but just wanted to say xiexie anyway 🙂 pic.twitter.com/wfU4cCL8IG
— Simu Liu (@SimuLiu) April 26, 2021
The actor’s message has been roughly translated as him saying: “I want to thank all of our Chinese fans for their support and encouragement. To the other people, who are rooting for our failure, I don’t have much to say, just wait and see.” Of course, the MCU is massively popular in China, with the last thirteen installments all earning over $100 million, so it’ll be interesting to see how Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings fares when it releases in September.