Before Seeing Shang-Chi, Heres Everything You Need to Know From the Marvel Cinematic

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is something of an anomaly within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in that when the title character makes his debut in theaters on Sept. 3, it will be with zero preamble from the world thats been established by Marvels previous 24 features and four TV series on Disney

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is something of an anomaly within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in that when the title character makes his debut in theaters on Sept. 3, it will be with zero preamble from the world that’s been established by Marvel’s previous 24 features and four TV series on Disney Plus. Even Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel got nominal shout-outs before they showed up in their solo movies, but, as “Shang-Chi” makes clear from the outset, Simu Liu’s eponymous master of kung fu has been living a life of deliberate anonymity while Marvel’s superheroes have been saving the universe.

However, while the character may be an unknown within the MCU, it turns out the world around him — especially the nefarious Ten Rings organization — has been hiding in plain sight since the earliest films released by Marvel Studios.

Here’s everything you need to know within the MCU before seeing “Shang-Chi” — warning, this story contains SPOILERS for several Marvel titles, though not for “Shang-Chi.”

  • Iron Man (2008)

    The MCU movie that started it all opens with Robert Downey Jr.’s genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist getting kidnapped in Afghanistan by the Ten Rings, presented here as a terrorist group. They tell Stark they’ll free him if he builds them weapons; instead, Stark builds his first Iron Man suit, and the modern age of superhero cinema begins.

    Despite the pointed location, the film goes to many lengths to distance the Ten Rings from being a direct parallel to Al-Qaeda — and hint at its future in the MCU as a global criminal organization. The leader of this iteration of the Ten Rings, Raza (Faran Tahir), is bald and clean shaven — pretty much the opposite of Osama bin Laden’s appearance. Ten Rings members speak a host of different languages, including Hungarian and Russian. And as Variety reported, the organization’s symbol in the movie uses traditional Mongolian script. (It was later changed to Chinese lettering.)

    The film’s real villain, Tony Stark’s business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), ultimately paralyzes Raza and takes out his compatriots — we never see Raza die, but it’s implied he’s killed, too, leaving the Ten Rings (or, at least, this particular cell) without a leader.

    Where you can watch it: Stream on Disney Plus; or digital rental and purchase

  • The Incredible Hulk (2008)

    The trailer for “Shang-Chi” already revealed the film contains a surprising shoutout to the second MCU movie — a co-production with Universal Pictures that is not on Disney Plus and is widely regarded as one of Marvel Studios’ weakest films. As Gen. “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) pursues Bruce Banner (Edward Norton, who was later replaced by Mark Ruffalo in the “Avengers” movies) to obtain his Hulk-ified blood, he employs the services of Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), a British special forces soldier who covets the Hulk’s power and agrees to experimental injections to enhance his physical abilities.

    Those injections, mixed with a transfusion of Banner’s blood, eventually transform Emil into the Abomination, an aptly named monstrosity who lays waste to Harlem before Bruce ultimately subdues — but doesn’t kill — him.

    While Hurt has reprised his role as Ross in several films, most recently in July’s “Black Widow,” the MCU hasn’t mentioned Blonsky or the Abomination again — until now. (He’s also due to show up in the upcoming Disney Plus series “She-Hulk,” but “Shang-Chi” gets the first crack at him.)

    Where you can watch it: Digital rental and purchase

  • Iron Man 3 (2013)

    After the events of “The Avengers,” the Ten Rings showed up again, this time led by the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) as it deployed a series of mysterious terrorist bombings across the U.S. Except, it didn’t; it was all a ploy by corrupt Big Tech company A.I.M. to cover up the accidental deaths of soldiers injected with an experimental drug that had the tendency to make them explode. The Mandarin was really a louche British actor named Trevor Slattery (hilariously played by Kingsley), who was hired to play an amalgamation of various American boogeymen.

    Behind the scenes, this was Marvel hoping to have its cake and eat it, too, deploying a historic comic book villain while avoiding — and, in effect, satirizing — that character’s wildly racist tropes as a Fu Manchu-style stereotype.

    So when Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige announced in 2019 that legendary Hong Kong actor Tony Leung (“In the Mood for Love,” “Hero”) had been cast in “Shang-Chi” as “the real Mandarin,” it presented an intriguing question: Had Marvel figured out a way to embrace the character of the Mandarin anew without turning him into a meta-joke?

    Where you can watch it: Stream on Disney Plus; or digital rental and purchase

  • Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King (2013)

    Originally released as a bonus feature on the DVD/Blu-ray of 2013’s “Thor: The Dark World,” this short film details what happened to Slattery after his capture in “Iron Man 3” — and it confirms that the Ten Rings remains very much alive in the MCU.

    It turns out that, inside Seagate Prison, Slattery is a celebrity, with his own posh holding cell replete with a live-in “butler”/bodyguard (Lester Speight). The short, written and directed by “Iron Man 3” co-writer Drew Pearce, is framed as an interview with a journalist played by Scoot McNairy, but he eventually reveals himself to be an agent of the Ten Rings sent to capture Slattery to bring him before the real Mandarin, who we’re told is none too pleased about the appropriation of his name. The short ends with Slattery cluelessly staring down the barrel of a gun, oblivious to the possible horrors that await him.

    Where you can watch it: Stream on Disney Plus

  • Doctor Strange (2016)

    In June, Feige confirmed that the sorcerer Wong (Benedict Wong) — introduced in “Doctor Strange” as the officious guardian of the sacred texts of Kamar-Taj, where Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme receives his training — will show up to battle the Abomination, as teased in the “Shang-Chi” trailer.

    It’s also worth revisiting this film, however, to take stock of how Marvel approached the Ancient One. In the comics, the character is Tibetan, but director Scott Derrickson and his filmmaking team elected instead to cast Tilda Swinton in the role, as a Celtic mystic of unknown age. At the time, the intention was meant once again to sidestep Orientalist stereotyping prevalent in the original comics, and Swinton is self-evidently great in the role. But casting her ended up just trading 20th century racism for 21st century whitewashing.

    Feige even referenced this decision, and the criticism Marvel received for it, as guiding their thinking for “Shang-Chi.”

    “We thought we were being so smart and so cutting-edge,” he told Men’s Health in May. “We’re not going to do the cliché of the wizened, old, wise Asian man. But it was a wake-up call to say, ‘Well, wait a minute, is there any other way to figure it out? Is there any other way to both not fall into the cliché and cast an Asian actor?’ And the answer to that, of course, is yes.”

    Where you can watch it: Stream on Disney Plus; or digital rental and purchase

  • Avengers: Endgame (2019)

    As with every project in the MCU after “Endgame,” “Shang-Chi” must contend with the “Blip,” when the Avengers brought back half the population of the universe with a snap of the Hulk’s fingers. Unlike some post-“Endgame” titles, however, don’t expect the Blip to take center stage for “Shang-Chi’s” story.

    Where you can watch it: Stream on Disney Plus; or digital rental and purchase

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