It's been clear from the start that Marvel Studios would need to make some changes to The Mandarin when he debuted in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (hence why he's now Wenwu), and one major difference is that he's not actually wearing the Ten Rings on his fingers! Instead, they're more akin to gauntlets that can be found on his forearms.
It's far from the end of the world, of course, but producer Jonathan Schwartz has finally explained the thinking behind this change. Admitting that the similarity to Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet was one of the reasons, he added: "We sort of felt like the finger rings were going to look a little goofy in practice. And a little bit of leaning into the genre elements. How do we make that come together?"
"One day we were watching a movie in the writer’s room; me, Destin, and Dave, called The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which starts with a kung fu training montage, using many weapons, one of which had these Hung Gar Iron Rings, which are a traditional Kung Fu weapon," Schwartz continued. "You may remember them from Kung Fu Hustle, where they’re very prominent. Destin looked at those rings and said ‘we should just do that for the Rings.’ And he was 100% right, and it was unique and so cool, it just felt like sort of the right thing to snap the movie into focus."
It's clear that a lot of thought was put into this alteration to the source material, so it's hard to fault Marvel Studios for deciding to shake things up a little. Ben Kingsley's "Mandarin" donned Ten Rings, of course, but they didn't have powers, and he was later revealed to be a fraud and pawn of A.I.M.
What the future holds in store for the Ten Rings beyond this movie remains to be seen, but we have seen Shang-Chi wielding them in the final battle, so perhaps they're a permanent part of his arsenal?
Shang-Chi and the Legends of the Ten Rings is set to be released in theaters this Friday.