‘Shang-Chi’ Details, Nods to Marvel Movies You May Have Missed

There’s a post-blip support group advertisement

When Shang-Chi is heading to his friend Katy’s home, he passes a poster advertising post-blip support.

The poster reads “you are not alone” and has the number for a help line at the bottom.

There’s a “Kung Fu Hustle” poster on Shang-Chi’s wall

Another notable poster that features in the movie appears in Shang-Chi’s bedroom. Shang-Chi has a poster of the 2004 movie “Kung Fu Hustle” pinned to his wall.

“Kung Fu Hustle” was actually one of the influences for “Shang-Chi.”

Wenwu’s rings resemble martial arts training rings, whereas they are actually finger rings in the comics

Wenwu’s 10 rings are what give him his power, and in the movie they look like martial arts training rings, which martial artists wear while practicing to strengthen themselves and perfect moves.

In the comics, however, the ten rings are quite literally rings — as in rings you wear on your fingers. And each specific ring has a different power, including ice blasts, flame blasts, vortex beams, and matter rearranging. 

There is still a great mystery around the ten rings in the MCU, as seen in the first end-credits scene, so we’ll likely find out more about the objects in future movies.

Shang-Chi wears Jordans throughout the movie

Shang-Chi gets his own superhero costume by the end of the movie: an outfit made out of dragon scales, which seem to have some magical power imbued in them. In short, he’s pretty well protected.

But one thing to note is that throughout the movie, Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi wears Nike Jordans pretty consistently. Whether this was a deliberate choice or not remains to be seen.

The Ten Rings logo has changed

The Ten Rings actually first appeared way back in “Iron Man,” and the logo used then is different from the one used in “Shang-Chi.”

In “Iron Man,” the Ten Rings logo is a circle of inter-connected rings that encircles two crossed swords. In each ring was a piece of Mongolian script that denoted a different tribe. This same logo was used in “Iron Man 3.” However, this logo attracted some controversy in real life, and the Mongolian government sent an official letter of complaint to Marvel Studios for connecting their country with a terrorist organization.

The logo has now been updated in “Shang-Chi,” and the Mongolian script has been swapped for Chinese script. This script all relates to words of strength and power.

Razor Fist’s belt buckle features the Ten Rings logo

This new Ten Rings logo pops up quite a lot in “Shang-Chi,” too, and the acolytes of the organization have the logo adorned on their costumes.

For example, Razor Fist has the Ten Rings logo on his belt buckle.

The guy filming the fight on the bus scene is actually the street vendor in ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’

During the bus fight sequence, Shang-Chi’s battle against Razor Fist and several members of the Ten Rings is filmed by one of the passengers of the bus — a character credited as Klev, played by Zach Cherry.

Curiously, this isn’t Cherry’s first appearance in the MCU. He previously played the street vendor who asks Spider-Man to “do a flip” in “Spider-Man: Homecoming.”

That character remained unnamed, so Cherry could theoretically be playing the same character — even though “Homecoming” was set in New York and Shang-Chi is set in San Francisco. Maybe Klev moved?

Wong asks Abomination if he’s been practicing his fight moves, suggesting they are friends

While Wong and Abomination face off against one another in the fighting ring, they don’t seem to really be enemies. Instead, at the end of the fight, Wong asks Abomination if he has been practicing his fighting moves like they’d discussed.

That suggests that the two of them are on good terms and have been for a while, but we don’t yet know the extent of their relationship.

Abomination and Wong go through a portal together, but it’s unclear where they’re going

They also seem to be living together, or at least spend a lot of time with one another, as, after the fight, Abomination goes with Wong through his sling ring portal.

Again, it’s unclear where they are headed.

Wenwu mocks the title of ‘Mandarin’

When Tony Leung’s Wenwu talks to his children Shang-Chi and Xialing at his compound, he discusses how he has been given many nicknames during his long time on Earth.

One of them is “the Mandarin,” which he mocks, saying his enemies named him after “a chicken dish.”

This is basically Marvel calling themselves out for their past controversial depictions of the Mandarin character in “Iron Man 3.”

There’s a creature in Ta-Lo that looks just like Ninetales from Pokemon

“Shang-Chi” features some of Marvel’s most mystical moments — and there are a host of otherworldly creatures to go with that.

When Shang-Chi and company enter the ancient village of Ta-Lo, they find several fantastic-looking creatures including birds that look like they are on fire, dragons, and a wolf/dog like animal that looks startlingly like Ninetales from Pokémon.

Specifically, it looks like the white Alolan Ninetales that can be found in “Pokémon: Sun and Moon.”

Morris might be a DiJiang — an actual Chinese mythological creature

Another of these fantastical animals is Morris — who may actually be a DiJiang, one Marvel fan on Twitter has theorized.

The DiJiang is a mythical beast that features in the classical Chinese text “Classic of Mountains and Seas,” which is a compilation of mythical creatures and geography.

So Morris may not be just a made-up creature for “Shang-Chi.” (Disney didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment to confirm whether Morris is a DiJiang.)

A legendary voice actor voices Morris

While Morris doesn’t speak, he does make noises (that Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery somehow understands). And Marvel hired the very best to bring Morris’ noises to life.

Legendary voice actor Dee Bradley Baker plays Morris. Amongst many other credits, Baker is the guy who voiced the Clone Troopers, Captain Rex, and Commander Cody in “The Clone Wars,” Perry the Platypus in “Phineas and Ferb,” Daffy Duck and Tasmanian Devil in “Space Jam,” and Sebastian the Rat in “The Suicide Squad.”

Bruce is wearing a sling because of the damage of the snap he did in “Endgame”

During the first end-credits scene, Bruce appears alongside Captain Marvel and Wong to discuss the mystical ten rings with Shang-Chi and Katy.

Here, Bruce is wearing a sling around his arm — this is because of the snap that he did in “Avengers: Endgame” to bring everyone back. The snap damaged his arm significantly and he was wearing a sling at the end of “Endgame.”

It’s not clear how long after that movie “Shang-Chi” is set, but it’s interesting to note that he is still feeling the effects of the snap’s damage enough to be wearing a sling.

However, he appears here as Bruce Banner — whereas he was Professor Hulk in “Endgame” and did the snap as Professor Hulk. It’s unclear when or why Banner reverted back to his normal self after being Professor Hulk for so long, but we’ll probably find out why in the future of the MCU.

Xialing is having the Ten Rings compound decorated in her own style, complete with graffiti

In the second end-credits scene, we see Xialing has taken over control of her now-dead father’s Ten Rings organization. And she’s given the compound a makeover.

As men and women train together in combat, graffiti can be seen being painted onto the walls, giving the entire place a very similar look to Xialing’s fighting ring as seen earlier in the movie.

The film is dedicated to Brad Allan, who died in August 2021

Brad Allan was the supervising stunt coordinator who helped to choreograph and construct all of the movie’s incredible action sequences.

Allan was also the stunt coordinator for “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” “Kick-Ass,” and more. He also did stunts on multiple movies including “Wonder Woman” and “Avatar.”

Allan also worked on numerous Jackie Chan movies and was a member of the prestigious Jackie Chan Stunt Team.

He died aged 48 in August 2021, before “Shang-Chi” was released. A post on Chan’s website states that Allan died from an illness.