VILLAINS WIKI

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VILLAINS WIKI

Mandarin (Marvel Cinematic

Universe)

FULL NAME Xu Wenwu

ALIAS The Mandarin

Warrior King
Master Khan
The Last Khan
Advisor to the King
The Most Dangerous Man on
Earth

ORIGIN Marvel Cinematic Universe

OCCUPATION Founder and supreme leader of

the Ten Rings
Warlord

POWERS / SKILLS High intelligence

Leadership
Mastery of terrorism
Strategist
Business skills
Manipulation
Vast resources
Exceptional charisma
Master Martial Artist
Wears ten rings that give him
various powers (formerly)
Immortality

HOBBY Sending out his men on missions.

GOALS Further his goals for the Ten Rings

(succeeded).
Capture and reunite with his
children Shang-Chi and Xialing
(succeeded).
Destroy Ta Lo and rescue his wife
from imprisonment.
Kill his son Shang Chi for not
following in his footsteps (both
failed and abandoned).

CRIMES War crimes

Organized crime
Terrorism
Mass murder
Kidnapping
Extortion
Assault
Conspiracy
Blackmail
Arms dealing
False imprisonment
Embezzlement
A!ray
Theft
Incrimination
Trespassing
Attempted arson
Psychological abuse
Crimes against humanity
Attempted global domination

TYPE OF VILLAIN Immortal Warlord

LESS

NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of the

Mandarin from the Marvel Cinematic film series.
The mainstream version can be found here:
Mandarin (Marvel).

“
I told my men they wouldn't be able to kill you if they
tried. Glad I was right.

THE MANDARIN'S MOST FAMOUS QUOTE AS HE

REUNITES WITH HIS SON SHANG-CHI.

“
I gave you ten years to live your life. And where did
that get you? You walked in my shadow. I trained you
so the most dangerous people in the world couldn't
kill you. Son, it's time for you to take your place by my
side.

THE MANDARIN CONVINCING SHANG-CHI TO REJOIN

THE TEN RINGS.

Xu Wenwu (Chinese: ), nicknamed The

Mandarin, is a major antagonist in the Marvel
Cinematic Universe, serving as the unseen overarching
antagonist of both the Iron Man trilogy and the Marvel
one-shot All Hail the King before appearing as the main
antagonist of the 2021 film Shang-Chi and the Legend
of the Ten Rings.

He is an ancient warrior who wields mystical rings that

grant him immortality and a wide assortment of
abilities. He is also the supreme founder of his terrorist
organization, the Ten Rings, as well as the father of both
Xu Shang-Chi and Xu Xialing - conceived by their
mother and Xu Wenwu's late wife Ying Li.

Originally he founded the Ten Rings organization before

embarking on a thousand-year-long crusade to gain as
much power as he could. Though he ended up
abandoning his crusade upon finding love and settling
himself with a family, Wenwu resumed his crusade
following the death of his wife at the hands of his rivals
a!ected by his prior exploits. Between this and his
children's subsequent defection from the Ten Rings,
Wenwu became desperate to bring his family back
together and avenge his late wife - all the while being
influenced by her "voice".

It was also noted that Wenwu expressed resentment

towards Aldrich Killian after the latter appropriated his
legends to create a character known as "The Mandarin",
hiring Trevor Slattery to portray and present the
persona to the world; in response to this, Wenwu
arranged for Slattery to be abducted and taken into the
Ten Rings custody following Killian's death. Wenwu is
dismissive of the "Mandarin" moniker, laughing about
how America was brought to its knees by an orange.

The character is portrayed by Tony Leung Chiu-wai in

his Hollywood debut.

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History

Beginnings

In ancient times, Wenwu finds ten mystical rings and

uses them to fuel his conquests of power. Founding the
Ten Rings organization, he became a myth of legend
among his followers, being described as a "warrior-
king". With the rings granting him immortality, the
Mandarin continued his conquests for a millennia.

In 1996, Wenwu began searching for the realm of Ta Lo,

said to harbor mythical creatures. Maneuvering past a
living maze, he comes across Ying Li, a guardian of the
realm protecting its entrance. While Li managed to
defeat him in a fight, the two quickly fell in love. As he
had found peace, Wenwu decided to shelve the rings
away and settle with his wife, eventually fathering two
children: Xu Shang-Chi and Xu Xialing.

But the Mandarin's past transgressions would come

back to haunt him. Members of the Iron Gang who held
a grudge against him had murdered Li, leaving Wenwu
and his children distraught. He decided to exact
revenge on the killers, retrieving his rings and brutally
massacres the Iron Gang in front of Shang-Chi to teach
him about the importance of repaying a blood debt.
Training his son to become an assassin, Wenwu sends
him to locate and kill the Iron Gang Leader, which was
carried out successfully.

However, Shang-Chi never came back home, having

fled from the Ten Rings. Xialing, who was left
abandoned at home, decided to defect as well years
later. With his wife dead and children gone, Wenwu was
alone once more. However, he used his vast resources
to easily track down his children, but respected their
decision to leave the Ten Rings and instead kept a close
eye on them in their self-imposed exile.

Iron Man series

The Mandarin doesn't appear, nor is mentioned in Iron

Man, but he sets his plot in furthering the goals of the
Ten Rings by arranging Raza and a couple of terrorists
to kidnap Tony Stark and hold him for ransom in an
attempt to gain advanced weapons for their own goals
(thanks to a deal with Obadiah Stane). However, Stark
escaped captivity by using his new advanced armor to
defeat Stane and the terrorists.

The Mandarin doesn't appear, nor is mentioned in Iron

Man 2, but it is implied that he sent one of his agents to
aid Ivan Vanko to kill Stark at the Prix de Monaco. To
that end, the agent gave Vanko a pass to enter the race
for the opportunity. However, Stark foiled this with his
armor again before using his new armor (along with
Rhodes') to defeat Vanko.

The Mandarin is mentioned in Iron Man 3, where Aldrich

Killian hired a drunken actor named Trevor Slattery to
impersonate the Mandarin as part of Killian's true plan
of using Extremis experiments as purposeful attacks on
the U.S. government. Needless to say, Stark managed
to avoid this by purposely self-destructing all of his
armor to destroy the Extremis soldiers, allowing Pepper
to defeat Killian for good.

All Hail the King

The Mandarin serves as the unseen overarching

antagonist of the short film, as he is very upset at
Slattery (who is currently in Seagate Prison) for
(unintentionally) stealing his name and making a
mockery of his beliefs. As such, he sends Jackson
Norriss to break Slattery out of prison and bring him
over in person.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Locating Shang-Chi in San Francisco, Wenwu sent his

men to capture him for his pendant, which was given to
him by his mother. Although Shang-Chi escaped, Razor
Fist managed to snatch his pendant.

Wenwu later tracked Xialing down in Macau, finding

Shang-Chi and his friend Katy Chen with her. The three
were taken to the Ten Rings' Headquarters, as Wenwu
attempted to give his children a warm welcome home.
He told them that he had been hearing the voice of
Ying Li telling him to come save her, leading him to
believe that she was imprisoned in Ta Lo. Using the
penchants from both of his children, he discovers an
open path to Ta Lo. But when Wenwu revealed his
intention to burn the village down after finding his wife,
Shang-Chi and Xialing refused to follow him, leading
him to lock them and Katy up in a cell. He later
witnessed them escape from the compound, taking
fellow prisoner Trevor Slattery with them.

The undisturbed path to Ta Lo only opens up once a

year, and Wenwu uses this opportunity to funnel his
men into the realm. He finds Shang-Chi and Xialing
already there, intent on stopping him from fulfilling his
quest. During the ensuing battle between the Ten Rings
and the Ta Lo guardians, Wenwu approaches Li's shrine
alone and pays his respects before he is confronted by
his son. They fight with Wenwu quickly proving to be the
superior fighter as he easily countered anything his son
throws at him and knocks him down repeatedly. Even
with Shang-Chi managing to temporarily pummel him,
the unfazed Wenwu responds by breaking his sta! and
punching him into the lake to knock him down.
Remaining determined to fulfill his quest, Wenwu
launches himself to a sealed-o! cavern and begins to
attack the barrier, believing that Li was on the other
side.

Unbeknownst to him, the "voices" he had been

receiving from his late wife were actually those of the
Dweller-In-Darkness, which had lured Wenwu to the
realm so that he could be its liberator. As soul-stealing
creatures emerge from the cavern, Shang-Chi re-
emerges to fight his father, having been saved by the
Great Protector. Father and son duel one last time,
Shang-Chi mastering the fighting style of Ta Lo and
using it to finally match Wenwu. Their fight intensifies as
Shang-Chi gains control of some of the rings and uses
them against Wenwu. After a prolonged standstill,
Wenwu manages to blast his son with the Ten Rings,
only for his son to completely steal them from him.
Before their fight can continue any further, Shang-Chi
tosses the Ten Rings back to him, ending the fight in a
standstill.

Moments later, the Dweller-In-Darkness escapes from

the cavern and Wenwu, realizing too late what he had
unleashed, only manages to save his son and is left
trapped at the creature's mercy. Knowing his time has
come and remembering the happy life he had with his
family, especially Shang-Chi, he passes on the rings to
his son and gives him one last encouraging small
somber smile before dying. Shang-Chi uses the rings to
kill the Dweller along with his allies but is left mourning
over the death of his father, wishing he find peace after
freeing his soul and bidding him farewell in a vigil after
the battle. With his thousand-year-long reign coming to
an end, leadership of the Ten Rings was assumed by
Xialing.

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Personality

A ruthless and calculating warlord, Wenwu led the Ten

Rings with an iron fist for several centuries,
participating in several world-changing events and
threatening his subordinates with death if they did not
accomplish his orders, like when one of his agents
failed in obtaining the War Machine Armor. He was
power-hungry enough that even with the Ten Rings
already giving him legendary powers, he still sought to
increase his power. Having his own style of leadership,
Wenwu has demonstrated that he does not like to be
imitated, being willing to punish those who had dared
to impersonate him for their purposes. When the
Mandarin fiasco engineered by Aldrich Killian
incriminated the Ten Rings from Extremis-caused
explosions and had Trevor Slattery posing as the
Mandarin himself, Wenwu resented them enough even
after Killian died to the point of sending one of his most
loyal agents to the Seagate Penitentiary in order to
abduct Slattery.

However, despite his diabolical mindset and

ruthlessness, Wenwu actually had a much more human
side to himself. When he attacked Ta Lo to gain its
mythical beasts, he instead fell in love with the
guardian, Ying Li, married her and had two children with
her, cherishing his family to the extent that he willingly
forsake the Ten Rings and intended to grow old with his
family. It was only when Ying Li was killed by the Iron
Gang, his enemies, that he became the Mandarin once
more. He also truly loved his children, having been a
doting parent before the tragedy, and even afterwards,
he still took them with him into the Ten Rings and
trained them to survive. Despite being rougher and
mistreating them at times, he still cared for Shang-Chi
whenever he got injured, and in his own way, he was
trying to keep Xialing out of the lifestyle of the Ten
Rings by only giving her personal training. He kept his
word of letting Shang-Chi get revenge for Ying Li and
sent him to destroy the Iron Gang, even though he
could have done it himself, in an attempt to give him
closure, and when his children left him, Wenwu still kept
close tabs on them and allowed them to live their life as
they wished until he finally decided to retrieve them.

Even when they opposed him, Wenwu refused to harm

or kill them and simply imprisoned them, and when he
and his son fight, he held back the entire time to not kill
him, even expressing pride as Shang-Chi displayed his
skill. His attack on Ta Lo was simply to reunite his wife
and reassemble his family, and when he was dying,
rather than trying to save himself, he selflessly
sacrificed himself for his son and gave him the Ten
Rings to finish the Dweller-in-Darkness. In his last
moments, he remembers the happy family life he had,
showing how much he truly loved his family.

Wenwu also displayed a more forgiving and light-

hearted side to himself. In addition to being much
warmer around his children and forgiving their
transgressions against him, he forgave his subordinate
when they told him they had managed to scan the War
Machine armor for weaknesses. He even spared Trevor
Slattery despite his previous anger over him stealing his
identity out of amusement over his antics, and instead
treated him of his drug addiction, placed him in a cell
with makeup studio and allowed him to come out and
regularly perform as a court jester.

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Gallery

Promotional

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Wenwu in regal wear.

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Quotes

“
Throughout my life, the Ten Rings gave our family
power. If you want them to be yours one day, you
have to show me you're strong enough to carry them.

MANDARIN TO A YOUNG SHANG-CHI.

“
Be careful how you speak to me, boy.

MANDARIN THREATENING SHANG-CHI.

Trivia

Initially, Aldrich Killian was intended to be the

Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the Mandarin,
according to Shane Black. However, Kevin Feige