Marvel Studios Casts Simu Liu as Shang-Chi

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has officially found its next hero. During Saturday’s panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Studios revealed that Simu Liu has been cast in the titular role of Shang-Chi.

“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.” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said during the panel. “We found him.”

Raised to become a deadly assassin, Shang-Chi’s life gets turned upside down when he finds out the nefarious details surrounding his father. Shang-Chi then sets out to right his father’s wrongs, becoming Marvel’s “Master of Kung Fu” and serving as a member of Heroes for Hire and the Avengers.

A Shang-Chi movie has been rumored to be in the works at Marvel for quite some time, with Short Term 12‘s Destin Daniel Cretton lined up to direct. The film will be Marvel Studios’ first movie centered around an Asian superhero.

“I think every movie that we do is a risk.” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said earlier this year. “We only want to do movies that people seem to think are risks. Doing the story of an Asian-American hero of Chinese heritage is something that is very intriguing to us. It will be really different and special. I hope audiences around the world respond to it in the same way they did to Steve Rogers… whether they have [an] American flag or not. It’s about the individual storyline, spectacle and adventure that come with Marvel Studios movies.”

“I didn’t know that it was coming,” Jim Starlin, who co-created the character with Steven Engelhart, admitted to ComicBook.com earlier this year. “They only announced it a couple of weeks before the Endgame came out, and my wife and I were in South Africa, sort of trying to avoid most publicity stuff and so I’d never heard about it until I came back and some reporter I was talking to, I guess it was Monday, told me about it.”

“With Shang-Chi, I’m really curious because the trick is with that is to get a hook on it that will take it away from the millions of other kung fu movies that have been produced beforehand,” Starlin added. “You know, we don’t want just another Bruce Lee movie, we want something different, something really entertaining. I’d be curious and can’t wait to see what kind of hook that they get to take him in that direction a little bit different than where he’s been before.”

What do you think of Marvel’s casting for Shang-Chi? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!