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How Marvel’s Iron Man 3 tried but failed to please Chinese viewers, from Fan Bingbing’s pointless cameo to brazen product placement
- A special cut of the superhero film shown only in China includes scenes so carelessly put together it feels like a fan edit
- Before the movie starts, a new opener asks: “What does Iron Man rely on to revitalise his energy?” before answering: “Gu Li Duo!” – a Chinese milk drink
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Fittingly for a film about an arrogant all-American hero forged in the fire of war, Iron Man 3’s foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired.
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Released in 2013 and directed by Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), the third outing for the Avengers’ MVP as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe pits inventor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) against a terrorist called The Mandarin.
It’s an ironic choice of villain given that Marvel Studios originally intended the film to be a Sino-US co-production, before deciding against it to retain full creative control. Instead, Marvel set upon a route of appeasement that threatened to do quite the opposite.
In the comics, the Mandarin is explicitly East Asian – indeed, in 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings he is played by Hong Kong star Tony Leung Chiu-wai.
Here, however – spoiler alert – he’s the work of two different men, neither of whom are East Asian: Sir Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce.
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