Why ’Iron Man 3’s Mandarin Is Actually Good
The arrival of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings gives us a new version of the iconic Marvel villain the Mandarin. In Shang-Chi, it’s an alias used by Tony Leung’s character, Wenwu, who is the leader of the Ten Rings. Of course, this is not the first Mandarin in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was first introduced in Iron Man 3, where two different men adopt the title. The first, played by Ben Kingsley, looks and sounds vaguely like the character from the comics — but is later revealed to be an imposter, an actor who has been paid to act like a terrorist to further the goals of the “real” Mandarin, which turns out to be Guy Pearce’s character, Aldrich Killian.
The decision to introduce a fake Mandarin remains one of the most controversial twists in all of the MCU; to this day many fans hate Iron Man 3 even though it’s an interesting and entertaining movie simply because it “ruins” the Mandarin character. But actually, even before this new Mandarin in Shang-Chi, the Iron Man 3 version had some interesting things to say. In our latest Marvel video, we compare the different Mandarins, and show why the guy from Iron Man 3 actually had a point about a lot of stuff:
If you liked that video on the Mandarin from Iron Man 3 and why he was right all along (about certain things) check out more of our videos below, including our breakdown of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ ending, a full list of all the Marvel Easter eggs in the movie, and our video on the big Abomination fight. Plus, there’s tons more over at ScreenCrush’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to catch all our future episodes. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is now playing in theaters.