We’ve previously been told that Iron Man 3 would not be featuring The Mandarin as a villain, but recent casting updates from a Hong Kong newspaper seem to confirm that the film will center around Ben Kingsley as Iron Man’s greatest foe.
According to CBM, the report states that Chinese actor/singer Andy Lau has joined the cast of Iron Man 3 as an old colleague of Tony Stark’s and Chinese actresses Fan Bingbing and Yang Mi will join him as his wife and assistant respectively. What’s interesting is who the newspaper claims Lau will help Stark overcome.
We couldn’t find copies of the Hong Kong based newspaper Apple Daily to confirm these reports, so please accept the following with at least three teaspoons of salt.
In order not to hurt the feelings of Western and Chinese audience, the story will not focus so much on the villain’s background as not to display the Chinese as evil. [The production] had already got approval from the State Administration of Radio Film and Television in order to be shot, all contents that harms Chinese image had been “removed”, this explains why the villain will be a bit different from the original comic.
The film will have location shooting in Beijing and Shanghai, it will narrates that the daughter of Robert Downey Jr.’s friend was kidnapped and brought to China, in order to save his friend’s daughter, he flew over from America to China to seek help from Andy to strengthen his abilities to fight The Mandarin. You will see Iron Man fly over The Great Wall of China, National Palace Museum & other landmarks in Shanghai May 2013.
What do you think? Will The Mandarin be the focus of the film? Of course, we never called Obadiah Stone “The Iron Monger” or Ivan Vanko “Whiplash”, so maybe we’ll just see a very Mandarin-esque Ben Kingsley at the head of a major terrorism organization without mention of his heritage.
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