Entertainment Weekly has shared some new details about Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, specifically in regards to how "The Mandarin" will be portrayed in the Marvel Studios movie.
We first met the character in 2013's Iron Man 3, only for it to be revealed that actor Trevor Slattery was actually posing as the leader of the Ten Rings at the behest of A.I.M.'s Aldrich Killian.
While the first trailer has made it clear that the magical Ten Rings will be portrayed in a vastly different way to the comic books, all we really know about this Mandarin - played by Tony Leung and renamed Wenwu - is that he's Shang-Chi's father and the leader of a criminal/terrorist organisation.
"This is not a 'Luke, I am your father' twist," Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige says. "He knows who his father is, and he's decided to leave that world behind before he's pulled back into it."
Director Destin Daniel Cretton adds, "A character like Wenwu could have easily been a one-dimensional villain with no heart. Tony opened this character up [so] this is an antagonist who has a deep ability to love."
The site goes so far as to describe Wenwu as a newly created character for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (there's no one with that name in the source material), and while we first heard of the Ten Rings way back in Iron Man, Feige says that the villain has "gone by many names," including The Mandarin.
"I think people hear 'the Mandarin' and expect a very specific kind of thing, and that may not be the thing they're getting," producer Jonathan Schwartz explains. "They're hopefully getting a more complex and layered take on the character than that name would lead you to."
That's certainly not a bad thing, though it's going to be interesting to see how Marvel Studios uses Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to tie this movie together with Iron Man, Iron Man 3, and even that "All Hail the King" One-Shot that revealed Wenwu wanted to get his hands on Slattery.