Getting Tony Leung on board for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was a huge coup for Marvel, as the studio’s latest blockbuster marks the legendary actor’s first-ever Hollywood performance. We’ve known that Leung was attached to the project since he was announced to be playing the Mandarin back in summer 2019, and now we’ve got to see the movie, we can see that he was the perfect casting for this bold reimagining of the classic comic book villain.
Despite Leung not being the sort of star we ever expected to see in the MCU, he’s now revealed that he’s something of a Marvel fan himself. In a recent interview, that’s been shared on Reddit, Leung names his two favorite Marvel heroes – and his own on-screen son Shang-Chi isn’t one of them. Leung names Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool as his personal top picks.
It’s fitting that Leung chose Tony Stark as the Mandarin is most closely linked with Iron Man in the comics, being one of the Armored Avenger’s biggest enemies. It was always controversial with fans that the Iron Man trilogy never featured the real Mandarin, only Sir Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery playing the part under the orders of Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3. Now that he’s finally in the franchise, the character – given the real name Wenwu – has been brilliantly retooled as a counterpart to Shang-Chi. Though Iron Man 3 is referenced through the surprise return of Slattery.
Deadpool is more of a left-field choice for Leung to go for, but obviously, Reynolds is headed to the MCU soon as Wade Wilson, with Deadpool 3 being developed right now. At this point, it’s unclear whether we’ve got more from Tony Leung as Wenwu to look forward to, but by the sounds of it, the actor would enjoy sticking around the franchise.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is playing in theaters now.
