Simu Liu, star of 'Shang-Chi,' on the Asian Marvel superhero and the lessons he’s learned: “I'm trying to take everything that my parents gave me and take the next step forward for my children, so that they may feel more included and more equal.”
Liu, star of "Shang-Chi," said the team aimed to respectfully celebrate the Asian diaspora while drawing on source material written by “two white men ... at the height of the kung fu craze.
Liu, who’s just weeks off filming the finale of the trailblazing Asian Canadian sitcom “Kim’s Convenience” and currently promoting awith No Kid Hungry, explained the team wasn’t afraid to depart from any elements of the source material. It was a worthy trade-off, he said, if it meant adding depth to an Asian story, something the community has been demanding amid dangerous pandemic stereotypes that have sometimes translated into violence.
“We saw David Carradine, who is not of Asian descent, playing an Asian man on the show ‘Kung Fu’ that originally should have, and was developed for, Bruce Lee,” Liu said of the '70s series in which Carradine was cast as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk. “To have that be the legacy that quote-unquote inspired ‘Shang-Chi’ in the beginning obviously doesn't put us doesn't put us off to a great start.
“I grew up loving Jackie Chan and Jet Li and certainly Bruce Lee,” Liu said. “But as I got older, I started to question: Is that all we have? Is that all that the world sees in us — that that is the only value that we have, particularly in the entertainment industry?” It also helps, Liu said, that some questionable elements from the source material, like the shape-shifting dragon-like being puzzlingly named “Fin Fang Foom,” do not make an appearance in the movie.
Liu carried some of that behavior with him when he began acting, taking on more stunt roles as a means to survive as an Asian face in entertainment. Broadening the lens in which people see the Asian community was not top of mind. But after getting involved in projects like “Kim’s Convenience,” things have changed.
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