Millennium director

Hey, Wu Yuan was right.

Kevin Feige on the other end of the phone paused for a moment and said in surprise: "Director Daniel, do you know Shang-Chi too?"

"Of course, I am quite knowledgeable about Marvel comics." Wu Yuan said calmly.

He did study Marvel comics. After all, we should learn from the barbarians to defeat the barbarians. Not only him, but the entire era of light and shadow has been studying Marvel in recent years. Not only their movie universe, but also the comic universe is also a key research object.

However, Wu Yuan knew that "Shang-Chi" was not because he studied Marvel comics in this life, but because he was deeply impressed by the original time and space "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings".

If you want to choose a movie with very entangled public opinion for the Chinese Marvel audience, then Marvel's first Chinese superhero movie "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" will definitely be on the list.

The source of the controversy over "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" is really not the fault of the "glass heart" of the Chinese audience.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is adapted from Marvel Comics. In the comics, Shang-Chi's father is Mandarin, who is the incarnation of the famous historical stereotype "Fu Manchu".

Let's put it this way, at least in the era when Shang-Chi was born, the story of this comic hero was more or less "insulting China" and full of various Western stereotypes and discrimination issues against Chinese people.

However, this is not the point of the contradiction in public opinion for this movie.

The real focus is actually after the casting of the actors is made public.

The appearance of the male and female protagonists chosen by the movie is really too bad.

Looking at the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Marvel superheroes who are not handsome include Ant-Man, Spider-Man, Dr. Banner, etc., but it is absolutely not said that their actors are ugly.

But Shang-Chi is different. The male and female protagonists selected are ugly one after another, and are even full of Westerners' discriminatory impressions against Chinese people.

The squinting eyes of the male protagonist Liu Simu are so classic, even so, he can only be regarded as a passerby, barely not ugly, and can be regarded as an ordinary person.

But the appearance of the heroine Awkwafina is fat, short and ugly, which almost represents all the malicious impressions of Westerners on Oriental women!

Awkwafina is more like the heroine in a male superhero movie, and almost all Marvel movies featuring male superheroes choose actresses with good looks and good figures!

Doctor Strange's girlfriend, Iron Man's Pepper Potts, Dr. Banner's girlfriend, even Hawkeye's wife who only appeared once or twice, and MJ in the new Spider-Man, are all beauties in their respective fields!

There is also the Wasp Evangeline Lilly, the heroine of Ant-Man, Natalie Portman in Thor, the black actress Zoe Saldana, the heroine of Guardians of the Galaxy, and even Nebula Karen Gillan, whose makeup is so beautiful that it is hard to tell whether she is beautiful or ugly, and Pom Klementieff, the mantis girl. After removing the special effects costumes, they are all first-class beauties.

Perhaps the only heroine that Marvel has criticized is the casting of "Black Panther", but considering that Black Panther is a black actress, they can also be regarded as beauties in the black community.

Among Marvel superheroes, only the only real "big heroine" Captain Marvel Brie Larson has a relatively ordinary appearance and is called "Aunt Marvel".

But in comparison, Awkwafina is not just ugly, and even deliberately ugly. Wu Yuan really doesn't believe that Marvel didn't choose such an actress to play the "vase" in the superhero movie.

Is there no beautiful Asian actor in Hollywood?

There are too many!

When Marvel was filming "Agency of S.H.I.E.L.D.", the shockwave girl Wang Keying was very beautiful, and she was a mixed-race of Chinese and American!

How come Marvel's aesthetics has declined to such a level a few years later?

As for the male actors, Liu Simu is a classic banana person, and many "insulting China" deeds have been exposed.

It is quite normal that such a cast and a bad Marvel story will be resisted and unacceptable by the audience in mainland China.

Although, after the release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the story was indeed changed a lot, and the historical problems were denied from the root. The original Mandarin was a character deliberately vilified by the West because of its fear of civil and military affairs, which was due to people's ignorance and prejudice against the East.

This treatment perfectly solved the mess of the Mandarin in Iron Man 3. The Mandarin played by Tony Leung was also changed to a civil and military man, and the patricide plot in the original comics was also changed to the father and son finally reconciled and joined forces to fight the final boss.

The heroine in the play is the role of Ned in Spider-Man. She is an ordinary friend of the male protagonist, which is equivalent to the comedy atmosphere. It seems to explain why they did not find a big beauty, but an ugly one, because this is a comedy role.

It seems that from the effect of the film, Marvel has indeed solved most of the controversial issues and completely cut off the story of Shang-Chi in the movie from the Shang-Chi story in the comics.

Moreover, the martial arts design of this movie was done by the Cheng family team, which may be the best movie in Marvel history.

At the same time, one-third of the film is in Mandarin, which shows the image of traditional Chinese culture, although it is somewhat deviated, but it pays a lot of tribute and is not disrespectful.

However, all these seemingly perfect solutions cannot explain the core problem, that is, why did Marvel choose Simu Liu to play the leading actor, especially after he was exposed for insulting China, why did they still use him firmly?

Even when he was just confirmed to get the role, various past remarks were dug up, and many foreigners on the Internet were disgusted and disgusted with him, but Marvel still had no explanation or wavering.

Even if the handsome Tony Leung was introduced in the end, this problem was not solved at all.

Chinese actor Yoson An, the male lead of "Mulan", and handsome Chinese actor Ludi Lin, who appeared in "Aquaman", are all very handsome Chinese actors in Hollywood. They are qualified to play Shang-Chi, and their images are also very positive and sunny, which fully meets the positioning of Marvel superheroes.

Even if the actress wants to choose a humorous style, she does not need to use her ugly image as a selling point. Isn't this another stereotype, just like the fat man in "Spider-Man" and Han in "2 Broke Girls", it seems that the funny role must be so ugly.

In Wu Yuan's view, he is directing a movie that tells a Chinese story and is released on a large scale overseas. The image of the male and female protagonists is not to say how positive it is, but it must not be too negative, maliciously ugly, this is the bottom line!

No matter how others shoot him, if he is allowed to shoot, the image of the Chinese character in the movie can be ordinary, but not ugly, and the actor's butt cannot be crooked, and cannot be a person with a bad record!

Just like Cheng Long is unwilling to take the role of the villain in Hollywood, thinking that as a representative of Chinese people in the world, his image cannot be damaged, Wu Yuan is also unwilling to shoot a movie where the main actor has some meaning of smearing Chinese people.

Even if the plot and content of the final film are not bad, leaving aside the two main actors, it seems that the plot also respects and pays tribute to China, but the actor's butt is not clean, but he is not replaced, which shows that Marvel's butt is still a little crooked.

So, after a long silence, he took the initiative to ask Kevin Feige: "Mr. Kevin Feige, if you want me to make this movie."

"I need 100% freedom to choose the cast, the right to finalize and modify the script, and the final editing rights."

"You know, I am a Chinese, and you know how stereotyped and discriminatory the original comic story of Shang-Chi is."

"If you want me to make Shang-Chi, you must give me enough rights to let me see a movie that truly treats Chinese people equally, respectfully and without any malice."

"Of course, this will also be a movie that meets the needs of Marvel Studios. You know, I am professional in making such commercial blockbusters."

"So, what do you think?" (End of this chapter)