50 Fun Facts About Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Who plays Shang-Chi?

Simu Liu screen-tested in New York on a Sunday, was cast on the Tuesday and walked on stage at San Diego Comic-Con that Saturday, calling it 'the craziest, craziest dream'.

Which Hong Kong screen legend plays Shang-Chi's father Xu Wenwu, in his first Hollywood film?

Tony Leung asked whether he would have to fight and was told the rings' effects would do it for him; he ended up with a string of fight scenes and two weeks to prepare for them.

Which song do Shang-Chi and Katy drag Wong out to sing at karaoke as the film ends?

Hotel California: the director wanted the sorcerer pulled into drunken karaoke with the pair from early on, but said he wasn't sure the sing-along would work until they shot it.

What alias does Shang-Chi live under in San Francisco?

Shaun: he hides his past even from Katy, and only on the flight to find his sister does he tell her his real name and the life he ran away from.

What job do Shang-Chi and his best friend Katy do in San Francisco?

Parking valets: the pair take a guest's car for a joyride, and Katy's nerve at the wheel pays off when she has to steer a runaway bus while the fight rages behind her.

Who plays Katy, Shang-Chi's best friend?

Awkwafina was the first actor cast, so she ran the chemistry reads with the men competing for the title role, and admits she worried about getting fired in the process.

What do the Ten Rings steal from Shang-Chi during the bus fight?

A pendant his mother gave him: his sister holds its twin, and their father uses the pair to conjure a map made of water that shows the way to their mother's village.

In which city does Shang-Chi find his sister Xialing running a secret fight club?

Macau: Xialing set up the Golden Daggers Club there after escaping her father, having taught herself to fight in secret because he would train only her brother.

At the end of Shang-Chi, Wong whisks the heroes through a portal to which sorcerers' stronghold?

Kamar-Taj: its sorcerers felt the rings' power from there when Shang-Chi used them, and their study of the rings finds they are sending a signal to something unknown.

Which Iron Man 3 character reappears as a prisoner of the Ten Rings, held for impersonating Wenwu?

Trevor Slattery was brought in to be killed, but the washed-up actor launched into Shakespeare and was kept alive for years as the Ten Rings' court jester.

What kind of mythical creature is Morris in Shang-Chi?

A hundun, a faceless chaos god of Chinese myth: the director spotted a drawing of one on the production's wall, and named the creature after his own 15-year-old dachshund.

Which comedian plays Jon Jon, the announcer at Xialing's fight club in Shang-Chi?

Ronny Chieng: when Katy admits her Chinese is poor, his Jon Jon tells her not to worry, because he speaks 'ABC', American-born Chinese.

Which soul-consuming entity is sealed behind a gate in Ta Lo's realm?

The Dweller-in-Darkness mimics the voice of Shang-Chi's dead mother, so that Wenwu will smash the gate open with the rings to set her free.

What kind of creature is Shang-Chi's Great Protector?

A Chinese dragon: the Great Protector helped seal the gate long ago, and in the final battle it revives the drowning Shang-Chi and carries him up from the lake to fight.

How does Wenwu die at the end of Shang-Chi?

Saving his son from a monster: Wenwu rescues Shang-Chi from the creature he himself set loose, and hands him the ten rings before it takes his soul.

Which two Avengers join Wong in Shang-Chi's mid-credits scene?

Bruce Banner and Carol Danvers were written in as the experts on science and outer space, yet both admit they are stumped about where the rings came from.

What happens in Shang-Chi's post-credits scene?

Xialing takes over the Ten Rings: her brother thinks she has gone back to dismantle it, but she takes their father's throne and has women training beside the men.

Which villain from The Incredible Hulk fights Wong in a cage match in Shang-Chi?

Abomination: Tim Roth returned to voice him 13 years after the character's only earlier film, in a cameo added to set up the pair's storyline in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Which actress plays Ying Nan, Shang-Chi's aunt and a guardian of Ta Lo?

Michelle Yeoh arrived on set saying it made no sense that her character never had a moment with Xialing, so a scene was written in which she urges her niece out of the shadows.

Which Creed II actor plays Razor Fist, the Ten Rings enforcer with a blade for a right hand?

Florian Munteanu, a German-Romanian heavyweight boxer, made his feature debut as Viktor Drago in Creed II, and that film's success got him noticed by Marvel.

Jessica Henwick skipped a Xialing screen test to chase which 2021 sequel?

The Matrix Resurrections: the studios made her pick one test, and she chose Bugs partly because playing Xialing would have put her Iron Fist character, Colleen Wing, to bed.

Who was Shang-Chi's father in the original Marvel comics of the 1970s?

Fu Manchu: by the time of the film Marvel no longer had the rights to Sax Rohmer's pulp villain and didn't want them, so Wenwu was invented to take his place.

How does Wenwu wear the ten rings in Shang-Chi, unlike in the comics?

As bangles on the wrists: producer Jonathan Schwartz said the comics' finger rings 'were going to look a little goofy in practice'.

What colour do the ten rings glow when Shang-Chi, not his father, controls them?

Orange: the rings glow blue for Wenwu and orange for his son, a split the effects team settled on after scrapping a version in which each power had its own colour.

Which country's government complained that the Ten Rings logo in Iron Man 3 used its traditional script?

Mongolia: its culture minister wrote to Marvel that the logo tied her country's heritage to terrorists, so Shang-Chi's version uses Chinese seal script; she has since said she regrets complaining.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton compared Shang-Chi to which Matt Damon character?

Will Hunting: the director named Good Will Hunting as a loose inspiration, because both men carry a big secret and baggage they must face before they can become who they are.

In which city was most of Shang-Chi shot, at Fox Studios Australia?

Sydney: Australia's government put up AU$24 million in one-off funding to land the shoot, and Marvel based Thor: Love and Thunder in the same city.

The actor who plays Shang-Chi was best known before for which sitcom?

Kim's Convenience: let go from an accounting job at Deloitte, he turned to acting and spent five seasons as Jung, the shopkeeper's estranged son.

Members of which action star's stunt team coordinated Shang-Chi's fight sequences?

Jackie Chan's stunt team: supervising coordinator Brad Allan, a protege of the star, died weeks before the film opened, and it is dedicated to him.

In Shang-Chi's bus fight, what does the hero take off, spin around and put back on mid-brawl?

His jacket: the director calls it one of his favourite stunts, slipped in by the stunt team as a nod to the comic fighting style of the Hong Kong star who trained them.

Thanks to the ten rings, about how long has Wenwu been alive when Shang-Chi's story begins?

About 1,000 years: the rings stop him ageing, so he spends a millennium toppling kingdoms and governments before a guardian of Ta Lo finally beats him in a fight, in 1996.

Why, says Shang-Chi's director, does the runaway bus carry a made-up logo, not Muni's?

No brand wanted the association: the director said nobody wants to be connected to a runaway bus whose brakes fail, so the real bus bodies were relabelled 'SFT', for San Francisco Transit.

Which anime attack inspired the final duel between Shang-Chi and Wenwu?

The Kamehameha from Dragon Ball Z: the director showed a clip of Goku firing one when he pitched for the job, and modelled the father-and-son tug of war with the rings on it.

Which weapon does Xialing train with in Ta Lo before the final battle of Shang-Chi?

A rope dart: Meng'er Zhang learned it for this, her first film role, along with MMA and tai chi; her character has to teach herself, because Wenwu will train only his son.

Meng'er Zhang had which part of Xialing's look removed as a 'rebellious Asian girl' cliché?

A red streak in her hair: a month into the shoot she read a Teen Vogue article on the trope and asked for it to go, so effects artists erased it from everything already filmed.

Shang-Chi's opening narration is delivered entirely in which language?

Mandarin: unusually for a Marvel film, it goes a long stretch before any English is heard, and Meng'er Zhang, a native speaker, coached her castmates in the language.

Where was Shang-Chi's score recorded with a 70-piece orchestra?

Abbey Road Studios, London: composer Joel P. West spent months studying Chinese music first, then set tanggu drums and other traditional instruments against the orchestra.

Which Asian-American music collective produced Shang-Chi's soundtrack album?

88rising: founder Sean Miyashiro's collective used the film's San Francisco setting to tell a story about growing up Asian American, from life at home to first love.

Which German carmaker was Shang-Chi's global car sponsor?

BMW: Iron Man's alter ego drove Audis from his first film to Avengers: Endgame, but Shang-Chi's sponsor put its M8 and electric iX3 on screen instead.

Which box-office record did Shang-Chi set when it reached US cinemas?

Biggest Labor Day weekend opening ever: Disney's chief had called its cinemas-only release 'an interesting experiment', and it answered with $94.67 million in four days.

Whose 2021 film alone beat Shang-Chi's US and Canadian gross?

Spider-Man: No Way Home opened on December 17 and by New Year's Eve had earned more than twice the $224.5 million Shang-Chi took at home all autumn.

Which major market never gave Shang-Chi a theatrical release?

China: a release there was already in doubt when 2017 remarks by the film's star about his parents' life under Communist rule resurfaced on Chinese social media, and it never came.

Unlike Shang-Chi, which Marvel film reached Disney+ on the same day it opened in cinemas?

Black Widow: its same-day streaming release led Scarlett Johansson to sue Disney for breach of contract, five weeks before Shang-Chi began 45 days in cinemas only.

Before the pandemic delays, Marvel had timed Shang-Chi's release for which holiday?

Chinese New Year: the shoot stopped in March 2020 when the director isolated to await a COVID test, which proved negative, and the release slipped three times, to September 2021.

Which director joined a planned Shang-Chi film as producer in 2004, long before Marvel made its own?

Ang Lee, who had just directed Hulk, was to produce The Hands of Shang-Chi with Crouching Tiger fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping directing, but it stalled and the rights went back to Marvel.

Which martial-arts icon was the visual model for Shang-Chi in Marvel's 1970s comics?

Bruce Lee: artist Paul Gulacy, who took over the comic after the star's death, said he was trying to 'bring Bruce Lee back in a sense'.

Shang-Chi earned its only Oscar nomination in which category?

Best Visual Effects: its tricks included a deepfake-style AI technique that put the lead actors' faces on their stunt doubles in the fights, but the Oscar went to Dune.

Which masked Ten Rings assassin trained the young Shang-Chi?

Death Dealer: the masked trainer has his soul taken as soon as the gate is breached, the shock that makes the Ten Rings fight alongside the villagers they came to attack.

Marvel created Shang-Chi in 1973 after failing to get the comic rights to which TV series?

Kung Fu: without the hit series, writer Steve Englehart and artist Jim Starlin invented a martial-arts hero of their own, a master criminal's son who rebels against his father.

Which of Wenwu's enemies murder Shang-Chi's mother, Ying Li?

The Iron Gang: Wenwu puts the rings back on to wipe them out, and years later sends the teenage Shang-Chi to kill their leader, the mission that makes him run away to America.