01x06 - The Making of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

[bunniefuu]

You know,

when I was still struggling as an actor,

I had this job

where I literally dressed up

as Spider-Man

for kids' birthday parties.

And the reason why I'm dressed up

as Spider-Man is 'cause

I was Asian and I couldn't show my face.

There weren't any

Asian superheroes, you know?

So, I could only play

one of those heroes with a full mask.

Um

And it's pretty incredible now that, uh,

you know, not only is Shang-Chi making it

to the big screen, but he has no mask.

His face is, you know,

is just his face and he's out there.

People will inevitably

watch this movie and be like,

"Did he do his own stunts?

Does know martial arts?"

And to those people,

I only have one thing to say.

When they announced Shang-Chi,

I was like really, really excited

and at the same time,

did a bit of research on the character.

I was like,

"Okay, he's a martial arts master

"and he's an Asian guy."

So, I was like,

"Okay, where are they gonna take this?"

The comic was originally

created in the 1970s,

where there was a bit of,

shall we say, a Kung fu craze,

you know, sweeping across America.

It was not the most,

uh, progressive source material

that we've ever had.

And, you know, from day one,

it was something that we knew

right off the bat had to change.

When we looked at the comics,

I think we learned a lot.

Some of that was what not to do.

Shang-Chi in 1973,

was definitely brought to life

by people who are big fans

of Kung fu cinema,

but didn't necessarily understand it

from the inside out.

It was very important that this story

was told primarily by Asian-Americans.

With Dave Callaham as the writer

and with Destin as the director,

we felt like we were in good hands

in making sure

that we honored that experience.

Yeah, the more

you can make it feel heart felt

Then when she says, "Are you"

Destin had already proven himself

to be a very adept filmmaker,

primarily working with amazing actors.

So, we knew that.

What you don't always know is,

are they interested

in stepping into the Marvel process?

Are they interested in taking on something

that is on a much bigger scale

than they've done before?

I showed up and saw these crane

I've never seen

a crane this big in my life,

and there's two of them.

Yeah, the scale's insane.

Growing up,

I didn't really have anyone besides

Bruce Lee, Rufio,

Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat

to dress up on Halloween.

Those are my three options.

To be able to add

not only one character,

but to add

a whole cornucopia of Asian faces,

and just seeing

these young Asian characters

acting like I act and my friends act,

is just something

I've never really seen before.

And it's really exciting

to be a part of it.

I have a lot of experience

writing action movies

and writing comedy-action movies.

At this point, I've been doing it

for 18 years professionally, now.

The thing I was doing was writing

for other people, essentially.

I was imagining, "What would it be like

to be a hot White guy named Chris?"

And then I write that character

going through the world like that.

This was the first opportunity

that I've ever been given

to write a little bit more

of my own story.

The thing that we're really fortunate

with about Shang-Chi

is just that he's pretty obscure.

Not a lot of people have heard of him.

As far as his origin story,

there's nothing quite as iconic as,

for example, Bruce Wayne with Batman

or Spider-Man getting bitten

by the radioactive spider.

What really moved me from the comics

was this really interesting relationship

of a dad who trained his son

to be a k*ller,

and now, his son is back and grown up.

And he has to face him.

That was really exciting to me.

And it was the basis of the pitch

that I gave them.

And it was actually a very personal pitch.

Destin really had this

remarkable story of this son

who felt one way about his father,

and learned to think

another way about his father.

And it was really emotional,

in a way that you go,

"Well, if we can carry that

through the development of a script

"and into this final movie,

this will be everything we've dreamed of."

- What Which one is it?

- It's the Funyuns.

- It's the Funyuns and the cigarette.

- This one?

- It's called Fun

- They're called "Funyuns."

They're like onions, but more fun.

It's our first day of filming.

It's a family scene,

and I think everyone was really

nervous/anxious/excited.

But, um, once we all got on set

and we kind of felt the vibe,

we kind of really chilled out,

and now, we're at it.

So, I hope the rest of the sh**t

goes like this, 'cause this was great.

Draw them up.

I'm Chinese-American.

I was raised here.

I don't feel too much

of a connection to China,

which is a thing that gives me

a sense of shame, to a degree.

I was interested in exploring

what that story could be like

if this is a person

who's spent time in both places.

He has, sort of, the ethics

and the culture of China behind him.

He was raised to care about family.

He was raised to listen to his parents.

But because he spent time

in America and because his time in America

was spent hiding from his past,

he's built up a lot of

defense mechanisms around himself.

Okay. Okay.

He's got a slightly goofy

playfulness over the top of this,

like, hidden part of his character

which we don't really see until later on.

So, we just tried

to give him a very American sensibility

because he actually is, in a way,

kind of hiding from his past.

So, he's, in effect,

wearing a costume when we first meet him.

I don't know

what you're talking about.

Our character

doesn't find his superpower by,

you know, falling into a pit of slime.

He finds it through going inward

and dealing with the things that he's been

avoiding from his past and running from.

That's definitely something

that is rooted

in a lot of beautiful Chinese stories.

You know, it's been a really

in-depth search to try to find

somebody who will capture this character

with all the dimensions that he deserves

and it's going pretty well.

We found him.

- Do you wanna tell us who he is?

- You guys wanna meet him?

Our search was spearheaded,

as always, by the great Sarah Finn,

who's done such a great job

finding many actors

in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Destin and Jonathan and Sarah

saw literally hundreds of people,

that we went through numerous rounds,

and found some wonderful people.

But nobody that

There is that thing at Marvel,

which is, when you know, you know.

And everybody sort of agrees.

And we hadn't found that yet.

My real name is Shang-Chi.

Shang-chi?

Shang-Chi.

I am just painfully ordinary.

I haven't been

in a single movie before this.

Hi, my name is Simu Liu

and I'm six feet tall.

I never thought

that I would be in the running

because I could think of 20 other guys

who are taller than me,

who are buffer than me,

who are better martial artists than me.

The only thing, really,

that I had to my name was like,

I could maybe do some stunts

and I could tell a joke,

'cause I was on this show in Canada

called Kim's Convenience.

Simu rose to the top of the pack.

His take on the character was really funny

and also had a lot of emotion.

It was clear that there was

this deep well of emotion there.

We knew he was a fan,

how badly he wanted it

and how hard he worked for it.

Picking up the phone

and calling Simu with Destin and Kevin

and telling him he got the part,

it's one of the most fun phone calls

that we get to make.

I watched Endgame

in the movie theater in April of 2019,

still as a fan,

having no idea that three months later,

I would be at Comic Con in front of,

you know, 8,000 fans live being introduced

as one of the next Phase-Four heroes.

It is a huge honor for me to introduce you

to the incredible Simu Liu.

My first reaction

to reading the script, I cried.

I cried because

there is such an intimate relationship

between Shaun

and the characters in his family.

I cried because we got to see

an Asian superhero

saving the world and saving the day.

And it was just such a profound moment

for me as a fan, as an actor,

as an Asian person.

Did you guys

get that, by the way?

Not a damn thing. Okay, that's cool.

The thing that really connects me

to this Shaun character,

is that we're both

people that are in between.

We're both people that struggle

with two different halves of ourselves.

My parents are from China.

I was born in China.

But I feel very much like an outsider

when I visit the country.

And I speak to my relatives

and they make fun of me for my Mandarin.

But in Canada

and in the States as well,

you aren't fully at home there, either.

We felt confident

that even though

it was gonna have

a big action component,

that we wanted to, as we always do,

hire the best actor and get them

as far along as we could with the action,

that the audience would respond

mostly to the performance

and the emotion, and that the action

and martial arts would follow.

Going into a job like this,

I think it's pretty natural that,

you know,

you have all sorts of insecurities.

Destin was really great in, kind of,

grounding me

in what this movie was really about.

Who is Shaun?

What drives him to do

the things that he does?

And in what ways will he find himself

over the course of this movie?

Focusing on that made all the rest of it,

all the Marvel part of it,

not seem so daunting.

This character is the master of Kung Fu.

He has mastered his body.

Probably could scale a building just by

climbing with his bare hands.

I am definitely not that cool, all right?

I have trouble

getting out of bed in the morning

- sometimes, when I'm really sore.

Oh, no.

- More.

- Oh! Panic! At The Disco!

- Oh, God.

- Nine, ten. Okay, okay.

Are you ready?

The moment that I was cast,

we started to have conversations about

what the training regimen would look like.

I always fancied myself

as kind of like a physical guy.

Fifty-three.

Toronto's a bit of a smaller market.

So, I was doing stunts

professionally at one point.

I showed up for the first day of training

and I just got my butt kicked.

They have him on a crazy

training schedule. The poor guy.

Let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's go!

Basically, there's two main components.

Strength and conditioning,

and martial arts.

First, we're making sure

the fundamentals are there.

Like flexibility, strength.

He came in

with a lot of strength and power.

So, we really needed to work

on his flexibility.

- Oh, God. Oh, God!

- One

One

Definitely one of the signs

of a true martial artist

is when they can just drop into splits,

and they have that kind of range of motion

that they trained over months

and months and months.

He has to learn

two different styles of martial arts,

because in our movie, he learns

a very aggressive style from his dad,

and he learns a much more

spiritual flow from his mom.

One main style that we're working

on right now is Tai chi,

which is very, very flowy.

Very, I think,

in harmony with your surroundings.

Another one is Wing Chun,

which is a bit more combative

and then looking

at certain regional styles

like Southern boxing and other things,

to kind of fill in this whole mosaic

of how this character moves.

We took the time to explore a lot.

We explored what his strengths were.

And we also covered

all his weaknesses as well.

Oh, no! What weaknesses?

I have no weaknesses.

- Come at me.

- I have no weaknesses.

- Doing the splits.

- That's not what I told you say!

Get in the splits.

I wanted to do

as much of the stunts as I could.

I mean, I felt like

it's the actor's responsibility

to kind of become a sponge

and to soak in as much as they can.

Definitely wasn't able to do this

when I got here for prep,

but, uh, now, I'm very happy to say

that I could go head to knee.

One, two, let's go! Whoo!

Ah-ha!

Huh? Huh?

A lot of that physical intensity

of the training

that he went through

really mirrored the character.

Talking with Simu,

I think he was using a lot

of that physical training as a mental tool

to tap into the character.

Your dad trained you to be

an assassin when you were seven.

You realize how messed up that is, right?

We really wanted this to be

the opportunity to show off The Mandarin.

The Mandarin is really

a marquee character from the comics,

who we've never been able

to execute on screen.

Names are sacred.

They connect us not only to ourselves,

but to everyone who came before.

Shang-Chi's father is Wenwu,

also known as The Mandarin,

who was portrayed to some degree

in Iron Man Three.

You know who I am.

You don't know where I am.

And you'll never see me coming.

What we got was a red herring.

Where's The Mandarin? Where is he?

When we really saw behind the curtain,

we saw that he was just this,

like, kind of dopey actor.

My name is Trevor. Trevor Slattery.

Don't hurt the face! I am an actor.

We wanted Shaun to have a father

of great power in China,

and as it happened,

the character of The Mandarin

had already been teased,

but not utilized in any true way.

Going all the way back to Iron Man one,

we've seen this organization called

The Ten Rings pop up in Marvel movies.

We've seen a little bit

in Iron Man one, in Ant-Man.

Then there was this short film

that was released after Iron Man 3

called All Hail the King

that established that Trevor

had been basically sprung from jail

by the true Mandarin,

who we don't see in the film.

There's somebody who wants to meet you.

- Do I know him?

- No.

But you took his name,

and now he wants it back.

Oh

Nope, sorry,

I still don't get it.

It's such a joy to have

Sir Ben come back as Trev.

The way that he plays him

is just so weird and so endearing.

Every scene just feels so alive

and unlike anything I've seen before.

Live on television.

Sounds familiar, right?

You sh*t a guy on live television?

Yeah. No. Yeah, well, I faked it.

But dramatically speaking,

yes, I did the deed.

This is my third visit to Trevor.

The wonderful thing about Trevor

is that he is an amazing adapter.

He will adapt to anything.

He's a wonderful survivor.

Calm down, mate.

I'm not dead. It's just a performance.

Get down here and play along.

As an actor, a craftsman,

that whole package

and that journey over a few years now,

is to me, immensely attractive.

The Ten Rings were

an element from the comics,

which we felt were in need of an update.

In the comics, there are ten rings

that are worn on the fingers,

and they all have different powers.

The whole idea

was to try to figure out

a new language, a new power set.

They knew that they didn't wanna do

the rings on the finger

like you see in the comic book.

And probably the main reason

is because of Thanos

and the Infinity Saga

that we just had being too similar.

Destin had the idea

that they would actually be

more of the bracelets rings,

like, martial arts training rings.

What those rings

have become in Shang-Chi,

is kind of Hung Gar inflected

iron Kung fu rings

that pop up a lot in Kung fu cinema

that really feel

a little bit truer to the genre.

The Mandarin first found

the actual physical Ten Rings

that the organization became named for.

And built that organization

from the ground up

with the power of those rings.

Suddenly, the Ten Rings thing

goes from an Easter egg

in the very first MCU movie

to the core of what I think

is one of the greatest father-son

relationships in any of our films.

We will rebuild The Ten Rings

to what it once was.

Thinking about this character,

as the father to Shang-Chi,

as a man who is corrupted by these rings

and corrupted by power,

and who at every turn

kind of wanted to do the right thing.

But his greed or his obsessions

would turn him away from that.

That started to unlock

the notion of doing justice to a character

and more justice than have ever been done

in the comics, frankly.

The Mandarin is a brand

that we wanted to peel away

and understand

the person behind that title.

If there was anybody in the world

who will instantly break the cliché

of the mustache-twirling villain,

it would be Tony Leung.

And, cutting. All right.

- That was really nice.

- Right?

That was great.

So, I still cannot believe this.

But I just sh*t a scene with Tony Leung,

and, um. if you are into

Asian cinema at all,

you'll know that

Tony Leung is an absolute legend.

Every time I talk to my parents,

they always lead with the same question.

It's not "How are you doing?"

It's not "Are you sleeping well?"

It's "Did you work with Tony Leung today?"

Perfect.

When I found out

that he was cast in this,

I almost fell out of my chair

'cause for me, that's like

Legitimately one of my favorite actors.

I think this time,

the story is trying to approach

Mandarin in the more

human perspective.

The way that Tony Leung

sees that character,

it's all rooted in Wenwu's pain

and in Wenwu's desperation to be loved

and to show love,

but he does not know how to show it.

I think what Destin

was after was

looking at those Ten Rings

and the power they brought

and the immortality that they brought.

It's kind of a metaphor

for addiction, in a way.

I had the idea

that when it powers on,

the rings would

kind of raise up on the arm.

And then you would see

that it's embedded in there

and it's also just kind of infusing

whatever energy, power

that the rings emit into your whole body.

Wenwu gets drawn to this power.

It's almost like drug.

So, we're try to make

the rings give this sense

that as they're going through his arms,

you get this sense of the veins glowing

as he becomes more powerful with them.

Those rings are also his chains.

They are the thing that keeps The Mandarin

from being the person

that he is meant to be,

that his wife believed he could be.

Ultimately, this is a story

about how this family has kind of

lost each other at the moment

that the glue of that family

who was their mother, was k*lled.

This is not the same father

that was around when he was a boy.

This is a much meaner

and more hardened father

that has been scarred by tragedy.

The gambling den

is a story told in flashback.

What Shang-Chi sees,

is his father is a monster,

and the goodness in his life is gone,

and he's left with this monster.

That's what the scene is about.

The child

and the child's understanding of it.

So, instead of going down

to the end of the room

where Wenwu is b*ating everybody up,

we stayed with the boy.

We saw the boy's face seeing that action,

which we can see in the mirror behind him,

or we can go drift behind him

and see what he sees.

But we always returned to him.

And we do it in one, so,

we can feel the same horror that he feels.

Wenwu is the tragic character.

Although he is so powerful with the rings,

he is lonely all his life

until he met his wife,

and I think that's the most happiest time

in his one thousand years of life.

I think when people watch

the movie in theaters,

they're just gonna look

at this sequence and think,

"Oh, of course they found

a beautiful waterfall

"in the middle of a forest

that's perfectly lit."

But in actuality, everything from the dirt

that's on the ground right now,

to the leaves,

to every single branch of bamboo

has been carefully designed.

It's one of the most gorgeous sets

that I think we've built for this movie.

It's really bittersweet for me

because I haven't been

born yet at this point.

One of the things

we want to convey,

with all the sets relating to Li,

is that they utilized the five elements,

which is a core idea in Chinese culture.

Fire, metal, water, earth and wood.

In Chinese cosmology,

these are the five foundational elements.

- This looks so good.

- You're not tired of it yet?

So beautiful.

You know, the idea is that all these

things are in harmony in Li's life,

and they're in harmony

in the sets in which Li appears

and that she uses her Tai chi,

which Brad has so nicely choreographed,

which is also about

balance and being at one with nature.

When we first

brought on Brad Allan,

it was so important to all of us,

and Brad included that we treat

all of the martial arts in this movie

with the respect that it deserves

and that Brad would bring on

some really amazing choreographers

from China and Hong Kong

to root all of our choreography

and martial arts styles, that would pay

respect to everything that came before.

It's so rare that you can describe

a fight scene as beautiful and moving.

Peng and Chris did an amazing job

creating a fight sequence

that really tells the story

of a real human connection.

Destin, he actually

have very strong vision.

We would give him lot of different ideas,

a lot of different designs.

Right there,

the rings should be flying already.

So, I think we should cancel this sh*t

and maybe tweak the choreo

of the next sh*t.

He knows

what he needs for his story,

and that was beneficial for us to see

what we can lose

and also keep to make sure

that we're still telling the story

that he wants to tell.

Li's character,

a lot of her movements

and her philosophy is rooted in Tai chi,

which is the opposite of aggression.

It's about taking

somebody's aggressive power and att*cks

and reverting that energy back on them.

The style for Tai chi

is not just the martial arts.

It's also a culture. Also a philosophy.

It's very hard

to put that style into the movie,

especially to the Marvel movie.

We have to figure out a lot of idea,

how we're gonna

combine the style with excitement

and also keep respecting

the original culture and philosophy.

Tai chi, it looks very easy and graceful,

but it's actually

the hardest thing to learn.

Every move has a countermove

on the other side.

So, it took me literally weeks

to even just understand that concept.

Tony made it look so easy.

He learned all his moves

within the first two days,

and it took me weeks to remember all mine.

What I was doing is tiger-claw.

I think it's more like a symbolic thing.

It's a symbol

of the character's state of mind.

It feels like

it represents the aggressiveness

and anger of Wenwu's character.

Ready, and action.

Each character

has their own fight style.

We wanted each person's

character or their emotions,

or the motivations, or the plot

to be carried forward by the fight.

I like it better than this.

Every action sequence

has a different style, flavor.

We've been lucky enough

to work with different designers,

different choreographers, and everyone

has their different sort of flair.

Certainly, we take a lot

of influences from Chinese Kung fu,

but at the same time,

I think it's important to distinguish

between a Kung fu movie

and a Marvel movie.

And I think Shang-Chi is,

at its core, a Marvel movie.

What the martial arts movies

and Marvel movies have in common,

is that they express

character through action.

That's what Destin and this movie

have done a great job of,

is that scenes

that would ordinarily be dialogue-driven,

are action and fight-driven.

And that's a great way

that we've managed to

honor the genre, but also,

make it feel like a Marvel movie.

We're in the middle of our bus sequence,

which is the first time

that Shang-Chi reveals

to his best friend and to the world

that he's actually

an extremely skilled fighter.

Is there maybe a snack

that I may have gotten along the way?

- Or like a boba?

- A snack? Are you snacking?

A boba? Obviously, a boba.

We needed somebody to anchor Shang-Chi,

and to anchor him

in Asian-American culture.

There's no one better

to do that than Nora.

That is the highest

I've ever seen an umbrella.

I've never seen

an umbrella that high before.

Whoa! It's like Lady Liberty,

am I right?

I connect to Katy a lot.

I think anyone that comes

from some kind of immigrant background,

in my case, any dash-American,

will always have that kind of duality

and sense of struggle when it comes

to finding their own identity.

And I think Katy really embodies that.

She's not necessarily

against embracing her culture,

but she does know

that she's more of a stranger to it.

- "Moving on" is an American idea.

- You're American, Mom!

She brings such a fun

and unique angle to Katy.

And what we found right away,

is that we had just

such a natural chemistry working together.

And I think it speaks to just her level

of preparation and her work ethic,

and also just like our shared ability

to just kind of be goofy with each other.

The other day, I made

a U-turn into a parking spot using

Right, get ready for it.

Just my butt cheeks.

The bus scene, it's basically Shang-Chi

being revealed to Katy for the first time.

That's really what

the import of the scene is.

Katy realizes that this meek guy

"You didn't really need my help, did you?"

It was still being sh*t

in the last week we were here.

Yeah, it was the beginning

and end of our entire sh**t.

I called it a road to nowhere.

Just never ends.

Yeah, it was really fun at first,

and then really claustrophobic.

You know, working with

some of the best stunt coordinators,

fight coordinators in the business

and coming up

with this sequence over the past,

- how long has it been, like four months?

- Four months.

- It's been seven. September, right?

- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

October, November, December, Jan Five.

- So, it's been

- Yeah, five.

Okay, Yung can't count.

But it's been a lot of months.

There's a version of this movie

that's very Jackie Chan.

That's kind of prop-based and comedic,

but also very real and practical.

Our stunt coordinator, Brad Allan,

was with Jackie Chan's stunt troop

and brings a lot of

that amazing skill and talent

and a lot of those people who made those

movies so great to this movie as well.

- What's the style of this fight?

- The man with the plan.

- Like, the choreography? What

- The style.

- Do you have any references it comes from?

- Yeah.

This style is come from us,

where we come from. Jackie Chan's stunts.

We're influenced by Jackie Chan.

But no style is a style,

like what Bruce Lee said.

That's then one Shang-Chi style.

That's why we're making Shang-Chi style.

Everything you can name it,

we have something there.

But we don't want to base on one thing.

We want to base

on the character and the situation,

and we create

that makes Shang-Chi outstanding.

My favorite thing,

is this move right here,

where I get to do this.

Run up here.

So, just a bit of that.

What we're going to be doing

in visual effects primarily,

is putting San Francisco

out through the windows.

We've got the lighting,

it's all rigged to emulate the lighting

as you go down through the streets,

but also taking on any wires

and rigs that the stunts people

- Really?

- Yeah, it's all it is to me, it's easy.

Basically, it's all in camera.

One of the things

that Chris constantly says,

is it's always better

to try to do it live.

Enhancing something

that is rooted in reality,

I think, allows an audience to not just

turn their brain off and go,

"That's a computer. That's a computer."

Our role was to build a rig that could

simulate that kind of bus motion.

So, for this particular bus,

we're using a six-axis gimbal.

What the six-axis gimbal gives

us is six degrees of freedom.

So, we get heave, which is up and down.

We get pitch, which is forward and back.

We get roll, which side to side.

We get yaw as well.

So, we get all those motions which

can be programmed into the system

to give the bus pretty much any motion

that would seem real-life.

We had to choreograph the fights according

to the streets of San Francisco,

of their dips, their curves,

rounds or turns,

and put that into the fight.

I was getting carsick in that thing.

You actually did get sick.

When it was turned sideways,

I thought it'd be really fun

to get on to direct,

and I got on,

and my head just started going like

I couldn't do it.

So, what we have here is,

it's a little slide on the roof of the bus

This is one of my favorite stunts

that I've had to do so far.

It basically involves doing this.

Didn't mean to go that far.

All right, here we go!

And, three, two, one, action!

- Cut! You all right?

- Yeah.

What happened? Oh, it broke.

Oh, man, it's all about applying

even pressure, even distribution of heat.

Could be a little bit more convincing.

- And then

- It's not bad.

And then jumping, I could flare my legs

out more further back,

but that's

You did the face adjustment.

I love it. It's fun.

I'm going to the corner,

which is better.

Could I get you to regrip

a little more urgently?

- You know, too much hang time.

- Yeah. Sure.

- You wanna have one more go?

- I would like one more go.

And, three, two, one, action!

Oh, man.

That concludes our time in the bus.

Gotta say, it was

a very love-hate relationship. Um

Lot of good times. Lot of bad times,

like getting hit in the shin, twice.

Do you mind? I'm doing

Just a talking head. Pardon me.

We were able to sh**t

for about eight or nine weeks

before COVID swept around the world

and production shut down.

It became very apparent

we couldn't continue.

We stopped filming,

we sent many people home,

back to their countries.

Some people did stay here.

Destin, our director, stayed here and

continued to do some post-production work

because we did have about

a third of the movie sh*t already.

We sh*t entirely in sequence, so we had,

basically, the beginning of the movie done

and posted over the course

of that time that we were off.

We were able get a lot of visual effects

in the pipeline and in general,

just kind of keep refining the movie

in a way that we don't ever get to do.

It was a very big decision

to shut everything down.

And then it became a weekly,

monthly revisit,

trying to gauge when it actually

could be safe to re-open again.

We knew that we had to put

a lot of protocols in place.

One thing we had going for us on our film

was that we were filming in Australia,

and Australia did have

a very low incidents

relative to United States for sure,

of COVID cases.

When we finally got the green light

to come back,

it was just such an incredible moment.

I can't believe that I'm saying this,

but this is actually

our first day back on set

since the pandemic started,

and it's such a huge moment for all of us.

Yeah, it's honestly

just an indescribable feeling.

Don't know why

I just gave Satan horns.

The Golden Dagger is just this kind

of mix between like, a discotheque

and also like a massive fight club.

I really liked the idea

of the Shanghai ads from the 1930s,

where you had these

beautifully-dressed women

selling cigarettes

or whatever they were selling.

And the aesthetic of that

was the first idea

we had for the graffiti in the nightclub.

And then my amazing graphic design team

just took that idea

and sort of mashed it up

with modern graffiti, Asian graffiti,

Western graffiti,

and we just threw it all in there,

and came up with what I think

is a really great aesthetic

for that nightclub,

it feels very fresh and modern.

Yeah, she started sh**ting

this whole scene pre-pandemic.

In order to try and fill the place out,

we decided to employ these lovely actors,

which are mannequins.

And the mannequins are here

and being spaced around

and placed all over the place

to try to fill the space out, to make it

feel like we have all these people.

Xu Xialing!

Shang-Chi needed to be surrounded

by two strong female characters

who represented

the two worlds that he's from.

Meng'er represents the modern,

Chinese female experience.

We did a big search, and it was

very important to us to find an actor

who was from China, who grew up there,

and who speaks

Mandarin as their primary language.

Meng'er is easily the goofiest

of the bunch.

She's just such a light and a spark

and always finds a way to make us laugh.

She is always the first person

at the snack table.

Simu is just like my brother.

Yeah. He sometimes annoys me,

sometimes takes care of me.

But most of the time, he annoys me.

Fight me, brother. Fight me. Fight me.

Gonna call my agent.

He can't. He can't fight me.

Jokes aside, he brings genuine sibling

connection with me,

on and off set.

The fight between Shang-Chi and Xialing,

we just wanted it to feel like a brother

and sister arguing,

but doing it through

a physical expression.

Three, two, one, go!

I have three sisters and two brothers.

So, I know what it feels like

to be in that seemingly very aggressive,

emotional fight,

but knowing that

you're still in a safe place

'cause there's no way you would

actually hurt the other person.

It's fun and brutal,

but it's also just watching two siblings

work through their crap together.

Cut!

I forgot that part. I forgot that part.

- Zhang, are you okay?

- Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine.

What's been

extremely gratifying for me

is seeing Meng'er from the moment

that she arrived to now.

Because I've watched literally

like a fighter come out of a child.

Another big action sequence

is a scaffolding fight.

Which is outside the building,

like, 20 floors high.

Oh, hell no. Screw you!

I'm not doing this.

When you actually put the people

in the straight wall

And it's very difficult.

So, we build a wall, 45 degree.

Special effects department that

built this set on this incredible rig,

which leans

the entire set back 45 degrees,

so that the stunts department,

they're able to work with this set

either in a vertical position

or a 45 degree position.

So, I'm here with one

of my stunt doubles, Sunny.

Sunny, he's one of the people that puts

his life on the line everyday.

And really just gives a 100%

of his mind, his body,

and his soul to his craft.

Three, two, one, action!

The stunt team

I mean there's stuff that they do

that I would not do

for any amount of money.

Every actor wants to go in front

of a talk show and say,

how they did their own stunts

and the reality is,

these people are professionals,

they've been training their whole lives,

they train every single day.

I would be disrespecting their efforts

if I said that I did all my stunts,

'cause it's not true.

Simu was actually really keen

on doing a lot of it.

He's always bummed when

the doubles sometimes go in

and you could see Simu actually

being legitimately down sometimes.

He's like, "I really want to do this."

Like, so it just shows

how much he wants it.

And how, I guess, just excited

he is to get in front and do this stuff.

Let me try one more

'cause I feel like we're close.

Yeah, and then if we can't get it,

then, we'll be back.

All right.

Is what he said about

your mom's village true?

She used to tell us stories

about Ta Lo when we were kids.

Ta Lo was just

such an incredible set,

it really felt like we were completely

somewhere else.

Sue and her team built

an entire village for us to sh**t on.

It's mind-blowing what her

and her team put together.

It's transformative.

When we're saying we're going to set,

we just say we're going to Ta Lo.

It's very important to build the sets

practically as much as possible.

And in the village in particular,

we decided to build all of these buildings

the way they might have been built,

we really studied

the Chinese architecture,

and we erected them in a way

that would make sense.

We had to come in here

and do quite a bit of grading

in order to build all of our buildings.

And, as you can see, each of them

has a little stone foundation,

some bigger than others.

We wanted the temple in the middle

because the notion of the ancestors

and this long line of protectors

was a big part of what Destin

wanted to convey in that,

a person is made of where they come from.

The level of detail

as you go around the village,

as you see the individual houses

and the temple

I mean, it's just absolutely phenomenal.

They built houses,

full houses with toilets in them.

Maybe not toilets here

'cause I don't know if that's the vibe,

but the point is that they're putting

in full plumbing and it's incredible.

To walk into the weaponry

and pick up a tool

and know that somebody went through

the trouble of making this tool

that is specific to cutting Dragon Scale.

All of those details may not make

it to the final big screen,

but they will in what it does

to an actor and their performances.

Even the floor on one house that the

interior of which is possibly never seen,

is deep green tiles.

A lazier filmmaker would say,

"It doesn't matter.

The audience won't see it,"

the actor sees it

and it feeds the actor's energy.

It places the actor

in this beautiful village.

And wherever the eye looked,

we are fed by this wonderful ambience.

Because Ta Lo is kind of this, like,

supernatural, interdimensional place,

we had a lot of creative liberties

to introduce creatures

that were not of this world.

We have many that are influenced

by ancient Chinese folklore and culture.

Things like the nine-tailed foxes,

fire birds, and the Ch'i-lin.

It's a horse-like, dragon-like,

deer-like creature,

and I have one tattooed on my back

and have for years.

Now, there's one in the movie,

and it's like,

"That's awesome."

That's super cool.

That's a weird horse.

What's it looking at me for?

The Fu dogs, which looks sort

of like lion, sort of like dogs.

There's always two

on both sides of an entrance.

They're very built into Chinese mythology.

To be able to finally see

what one looks like is amazing.

I have a lovely companion, Morris,

who's a pet and a companion

and a guide and a mentor.

My animus.

- Oh, oh!

- What is that?

- What's what? What's what?

- That. That. That.

This is Morris.

Morris is based on a Hundun,

which is a mythological character

thought to be sort of the

God of Chaos and Confusion.

We use this stuffy for our

sort of what we call a proxy,

which gives the actors a prop,

so that they can be physically holding

something and reacting to it.

At one point, we actually asked Sir Ben,

if it was okay

if we change this for something else,

and he said, "No, no,

I've grown quite fond of Morris."

I built a rapport with Davi,

who operates Morris.

I said, "Davi, you are my puppeteer.

"You are my fellow actor.

We must build a rapport."

So, I was not working

with an abstract lump of green.

I was working with a creature

because Davi was so sensitive

in the scene to,

"What would Morris do in this scene?"

He'd probably jump up,

he'd probably want a little tickle,

or he'd probably be scared,

or he'd probably want

to wake his master up.

Perfect. So, a green screen, and visual

effects do not have to be deadly.

You were everything to her.

She knew that one day

you would find your way here

and asked me to prepare

something for your arrival.

I knew that I was gonna get a suit.

Every superhero has a suit.

Our first day with the suit.

Which is really exciting.

Shang-Chi's hero costume

was a Marvel illustration by Andy Park.

He's definitely starting to leave behind

some of his American culture

and clothing looks and getting

slowly closer to his true self.

The main thing as a character designer

that I'm trying to do,

is bring a story into his look.

For Shang-Chi,

his story is really about his family.

His mother comes from Ta Lo,

so from the great protector,

I wanted to incorporate dragon scales,

dragon skin.

When it came to the triangle motif,

I had the idea of incorporating

the infinite knot or the endless knot.

It's a symbol that has been used

throughout various cultures

for thousands of years.

And certainly, in Chinese culture.

It symbolizes the endless cycle of life

and death and rebirth,

which is definitely applicable

to the story of Shang-Chi.

When he ran away,

he came to America.

So, even though he's given the suit,

I wanted one element to be his.

So, that's why you saw him

with his Air Jordans.

He's also a product of his father.

So, at the end of the film, he receives

the Ten Rings, which completes his look.

You see his mom, you see his dad,

you see when he was living in America

and his shoes.

So, it tells the full story

of his whole journey.

Of course, there is nowhere

to go buy dragon skin.

And, so, for us,

that means carving all the scales,

and then molding hundreds and thousands

and thousands of scales.

And in fact, each suit has about

14,000 tiny individual scales,

glued on to it, by hand, by our team.

To be honest, it was very emotional,

trying it on for the first time.

I understood the weight and the gravity

and the significance of what that meant,

you know, and understanding

just how precious few people

experience that kind of feeling.

How do you feel? How do you feel wearing

the suit for the first time?

Right? That's how I feel.

We're in the bamboo practice dome,

where Shaun's character

in the movie basically learns

this whole new style of martial arts

from his aunt.

Watching Michelle kick Simu's butt

was really fun.

It was very surreal sh**ting

that scene with Michelle

because I've been such a die-hard fan

of hers for so long

and to be able to meet her

and work with her

and find out how lovely she is,

how silly she is,

how weird she is,

and how much fun she is,

was really a huge highlight for all of us.

In terms of Asian representation and

especially female Asian representation,

Michelle has always played

nothing but strong women,

and growing up watching someone like that,

it impacts who you want to become

and how you see yourself,

especially when there are not a lot of us.

Working with Michelle, who's so good.

'Cause when you're doing Tai chai

with two people, it's like a dance,

you know, and you flow only

as well as the other person flows.

She's so just steady and graceful

in all of her movements.

I feel like a bit of a schlub next to her,

but thankfully, that's kind of the cadence

of the fight to begin with.

So, I think I played my part very well.

Yes!

It's a fun character to play.

Aunties are always fun.

My character helps him understand

that you have to know who you are,

and the only way you know

and love who you are,

is by accepting the whole package.

This is our big

final battle sequence basically,

where the Ten Rings organization

faces off against the forces of Ta Lo.

This is a crazy assembly

of martial arts masters.

Guang Bo, who we meet

in the mystic village of Ta Lo,

he's played by this amazing actor,

Yuen Wah, a martial arts legend,

who doubled for Bruce Lee,

who brings this great

wealth of knowledge to the movie.

Here we go. Ready, and action.

It's always a challenge,

trying to

make it look real

without someone getting hurt.

We have some battles

with a lot of weapons.

And like every movie,

when you put 'em that close

and then sticks that are six-foot-long,

swinging 'em around,

there were big challenges.

We have to train everybody.

There's special skill extras,

they all martial arts background.

Action. Ready, and, action!

It gets very complicated,

'cause sometimes,

we have to do our foreground.

The actor fights

with the different parts of a background.

So, they actually work the hardest

because they fought the sun,

fighting all day long.

That wasn't easy.

So, here's a story, right.

I show up to work, and they're like,

"Listen, your stunt double

is gonna get put in a wire rig

"and then flung out 40 feet out that way."

"And you're not going to do it."

And I was like, "The hell I'm not."

"Put me in that harness right now."

Three, two, one, action!

And, cut!

It's pretty cool.

Simu is brave and bold.

There's no doubt he works very, very hard.

He's always, like, ready.

"Let me do this. Let me do that."

And I'm like, "Just sit down, dude."

Just to reiterate, in this scene,

I have to fight off three demons

and then catch my sister

who's being snatched

by a tentacled beast in midair.

Ready? And pull!

Yeah, there wasn't a whole lot

of acting going on.

And you're being dragged out two ways.

We are heading into our last week.

We're on mile 24

of the, uh

Of the marathon.

You can feel the fatigue

and the weariness all around set,

but, uh, everyone's still pulling through.

How do you feel, Alex?

I didn't know that.

Now, I sound like an idiot.

I honestly don't know

what I expected going in.

It's my first feature film of any sort.

Let alone a feature film of this size

and magnitude.

Whoa! Oh

Then do your move.

Yeah, that's how you saddle.

Move? What the

I think it's just how much of a grind

everything is, has come as a surprise.

All right, once again.

It is such a dream to be here

every day and to be working,

as my first film,

but also as one of the only films that are

able to sh**t around the world right now.

But it really

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard.

There's a lot of fighting,

a lot of fighting.

I kind of wish Shang-Chi was a master

of nonviolent de-escalation sometimes.

You were there when they came for her,

and you did nothing.

You stood at a window

and watched her die!

When we see Shaun face off against

his father for the first time,

he's emotionally all over the place.

He's letting his anger

get the better of him.

And he's just really just being controlled

by his emotions,

rather than controlling them.

You trained your son to be a k*ller.

Is this what you wanted?

For Shaun, his maternal half

and his paternal half

represent very different parts

of his personality,

and he doesn't really feel like

he belongs in either which world.

He's got a thousand years

of sin and destruction

living somewhere inside

of him from his dad,

and he has this peaceful

but powerful opposite to that,

also living in him, from his mom.

His journey is not as simple as just

rejecting Dad and bringing in Mom.

It's him recognizing

that both of them are in him,

and both of them

are neither good nor evil.

They are just a part of him,

and that's what he has to work with.

Once he recognizes that,

that's when we see him blasting

out of the water on a dragon.

You can see when he makes

his first pose,

that he's in a place

that he's never quite been before.

He's very grounded and at peace.

He's still got to stop his father, but he

doesn't do it from a place of anger.

He's doing it from a place of love.

I think we made

that action sequence very beautifully.

I think that the relationship

and the story

is very interesting inside the fight.

Yeah, you see things that Li does

while fighting Wu,

you start seeing more

of his mother start come through

Shaun towards the end,

which culminates to,

I guess, sort of a perfect merge

of father and mother within Shaun.

Shaun and Wenwu

are trying to find each other again,

rather than just being

about who's stronger than the other,

whose martial arts are better. It's like,

this is a family that's trying

to find its way back together.

And I think that's

really beautiful for a fight.

It's really been incredible

to watch Simu sink into this character

and take complete ownership over it.

Over the course of this year,

I've watched him

in a lot of ways, go on the journey

that Shang-Chi goes on.

Shang-Chi starts out in this movie

completely out of his element

and learns over the course

of this journey,

how to own himself,

how to be happy with himself,

and look in the mirror

and be proud of what he sees.

And I've watched Simu really

tap into that character.

It was a very inspiring

and moving experience for me to witness.

And cutting.

Finishing picture to our Meng'er

and our lead man, Simu.

Finishing picture.

Finally!

I was a kid who was born

halfway around the world,

who immigrated

when he was very young

and had parents that never even dreamed of

allowing their son to go into

show business.

It just feels like I was plucked out of my

life and sent on this wild, wild ride.

And I'm still trying to figure out,

"How did I get picked?"

I have no words.

This is the most

incredible thing for me.

Guys, this is as much

as a Cinderella story for me

as you could ever find in the universe.

I mean, a year ago, I was just some guy

and now, for some reason, I'm a superhero,

and you guys all helped

make that dream come true.

And I honestly am so blown away

by all of your work.

I know that it probably

doesn't hold a lot of water

when I say that you're the best film crew

that I've ever worked with

but you're the best film crew

that I will ever work with,

so, there you go.

You know, as a movie fan,

I grew up on American movies

and I've never seen characters

like myself on-screen,

it's incredibly meaningful.

It's incredibly important.

I've grown up

looking at the Marvel Comics

and know a bit about the Marvel world.

And I've never seen a superhero

that looks something like me.

And I'm really pleased

because it truly is the right time

for our little boys

and girls to go and say,

"Oh, look, we're superheroes, too."

When you see a superhero,

you see yourself.

I think that's the really important

thing that movies like this does for kids.

It allows them to feel the possibility,

and it's only going to add to that

and hopefully, will continue to open

the door for more movies like this.

I hope Shang-Chi is another step.

If Shang-Chi is the end,

then we have failed.

I could not be more proud of the way that

this movie has allowed us to bring up

more representation, both,

in front of and behind the camera.

And I think the world just is hungry

for movies that reflect who we are

and all of our colors.

I think Shang-Chi has

a very bright future within the MCU.

When I look forward to super teams

and crossovers,

Shaun feels like this huge,

untapped reservoir

of great possibilities

from Simu and beyond.

And that's our show. So, thank you for

tuning in to watch this documentary.

I hope you learned something

about the magic of filmmaking,

or something about Marvel

or cinema or anything.

But it's been my pleasure

to spend the last little while with you

and I can't wait for you to see the movie.

Take care.

I don't think

this will make the documentary.