Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Rings actor Simu Liu says that his titular character is loosely based on kung-fu legend and Enter the Dragon star, Bruce Lee.
Rapper, actor, and filmmaker O'Shea Jackson, otherwise known as Ice Cube, just recently shared a photo of Bruce Lee with a quote saying that "Defeat is a state of mind. No one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality."
Posting the image on Twitter, Ice Cube decided to make a jab at Marvel heroes, saying that while "Marvel is cool," he'd rather much have Bruce Lee, a "Real life super hero."
Responding to the rapper's tweet, Liu revealed that Shang-Chi was actually loosely based on the kung-fu icon.
"What if I told you that there was a character loosely based on him in the comic books?" the Marvel star wrote in response.
While the Marvel hero's personality doesn't really reflect Bruce Lee's visual appearance of Shang-Chi was inspired by the kung fu legend when created by Paul Gulacy. At some point, Stan Lee even wanted Bruce Lee to play the character in a movie.
You can check out the tweets down here:
There's a lot of excitement building up over Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Not only is the movie set to feature Marvel's first Asian superhero, but it's also set to be the very first Marvel comic book movie with mainly an Asian ensemble. There aren't that many details about Shang-Chi just yet but we're hoping that Marvel makes a few announcements about the movie in the months to come.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings premieres May 5, 2021.
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