Marvel Studios teased the trailer for the film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on Monday, featuring the cinematic superhero franchise’s first Asian lead.
The character Shang-Chi, played by Canadian actor Simu Liu, is seen in the trailer living in present-day San Francisco as a crusader who was trained from childhood to be an assassin in the Ten Rings organization.
The release of the trailer prompted an online response commenting on the significance of Marvel featuring an Asian protagonist, including a statement from Liu on social media.
“I never saw myself as the hero of my own story growing up. I struggled to find any Asian characters onscreen, and there were fewer still that made me feel truly proud of my heritage,” Liu wrote in an Instagram post about the announcement. “It’s absolutely insane to think that in just over four months, we will have a @MarvelStudios movie featuring an almost ENTIRELY Asian cast, each full of rich nuance and dimensionality.”
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The film is likely Marvel’s largest lineup of Asian roles for a theatrical release, and it also stars Asian American actress Awkwafina in a comical supporting role.
In March, Liu wrote a guest column for Variety on the recent uptick in violent crimes committed against Asian Americans, voicing concern over the safety of his parents and citing data from Stop Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Hate, a nonprofit organization that documented 2,800 reported cases of racism and discrimination between March 19 and Dec. 31 of last year.
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Anti-Asian crimes in the United States rose 150% throughout 2020, and many have speculated that the global spread of the coronavirus, which originated in China, could have fueled the recent uptick of reported crimes. Some, including former President Donald Trump, have referred to the disease as the “China virus” due to its discovery in China.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is set for theatrical release on Sept. 3.
