It’s really hard to miss the multiple nods to the films of Jackie Chan in Marvel’s Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Rings. Between hiring the late Brad Allan as the film’s stunt coordinator, a protege, and member of Chan’s stunt team. Not to mention hiring Chan’s Police Story 3 co-stars Michelle Yeoh and Yuen Wah in key support roles.
Marvel is officially moving forward with Shang-Chi 2 and we might have an idea who they might be gunning for after landing iconic Hong Kong actor Tony Leung as the charming and compelling antagonist, Wenwu.
During a recent chat with Cinema Blend, director, and co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton revealed that he’d be pleased-as-punch if he and Marvel were able to wrangle martial arts legend Jackie Chan for sequels.
“If we could ever get Jackie [Chan] into a movie that would be a lifelong dream of mine. Yeah. Let’s put it out there.”
I’d personally love to see Jackie Chan play Shen Kuei, aka, Cat having crossed paths with Shang-Chi in the comics. It would also allow Chan to play another complex character playing both antagonistical rival and potential ally.
Shen Kuei is a man based in Hong Kong who dealt in espionage and counterespionage and who became known as Cat because of his cunning, stealth, and mysteriousness.
Destin is set to direct and write the sequel, but other than the button scene teasing the origin of the Ten Rings being explored we don’t know what direction the second film will go along with what characters they’ll attempt to use. However, seeing The Makluans (an alien race of giant dragons) and The Xian (god-like beings from The Seven Cities of Heaven) is likely extremely good.
The filmmaker also teased wanting to use a specific location in the first film but stopped short of revealing where that would be.
“There was one setting that we were not able to do in this movie, but I won’t say what it is because I really hope that we get to do it again in another film.”
Meanwhile, fans are crossing their fingers that the Shang-Chi franchise might be a good place to reboot the Iron Fist characters/mythology for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as the film studio is seemingly rolling out new versions of the Netflix characters in projects like Hawkeye with Vincent D’Onofrio back as The Kingpin.
It’s worth mentioning that Iron Fist actress Jessica Henwick was asked to audition (not reprise the Colleen Wing role) for an unnamed part in Shang-Chi, only to make The Matrix Resurrections instead.
We’re still waiting for Disney to give Shang-Chi 2 an official release date.
SOURCE: CINEMA BLEND
THE RONIN 