Shang-Chi’s Trevor Slattery Isn’t Movie’s Only Connection to Iron Man 3

On the night of the premiere for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Marvel Studios officially confirmed the return of Sir Ben Kingsley, the actor behind “fake Mandarian” Trevor Slattery in Iron Man 3. As it turns out, however, Slattery isn’t the only connection to the Iron Man threequel within the Destin Daniel Cretton feature.

Light spoilers up ahead for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Proceed with caution if you’ve yet to see the movie.

While Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina) were traversing through Macau to find the former’s long-lost sister, they stumbled across an underground fighting ring — the same operation where Wong (Benedict Wong) and Abomination (Tim Roth) came to blows. Prior to seeing those characters, Shang-Chi and Katy walk by some of the lower-level fights taking place.

It’s here the Iron Man 3 connection surfaces: a character laced with Extremis is fighting a Black Widow played by Jade Xu, who last appeared in Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. Conveniently enough, Marvel Studios Kevin Feige confirmed the return of Xu earlier this summer.

“How we arrive at ideas is so hard to trace back to where they began,” Cretton previously said about the choice of fighters at the club. “Abomination was just a result of twenty-to-thirty what-ifs. And then we landed on a pairing that felt really great, but it was also a pairing that made sense to what’s happening in the MCU around the time of our movie. So there are definite links happening that you will pick up on if you’re involved with everything else that’s happening in the MCU.”

Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and produced by Kevin Feige and Jonathan Schwartz, with Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, and Charles Newirth serving as executive producers. David Callaham & Destin Daniel Cretton & Andrew Lanham wrote the screenplay for the film, which is now in theaters.

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