Simu Liu Reveals He Exaggerated His Martial Arts Experience to Clinch Shang-Chi Role

Many people have expanded on the truth to get themselves a job, and it seems that Hollywood stars are no different as Simu Liu revealed that he wasn’t entirely honest about his experience in martial arts when securing the role of Shang-Chi in the MCU. In a new interview for Variety’s Actors on Actors series, the star explained how he exaggerated his background in order to clinch a role that he had no intention of letting slip by him.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings arrived in 2021 as Marvel’s first introductory movie since 2019’s Captain Marvel. Despite arriving mid-pandemic, the film quickly became both a critical and box office success, managing to break the Labor Day weekend domestic box office record and setting up a new hero for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s future. One of the aspects that drew the most praise was the grounded and traditional fight scenes, which abandoned the regular MCU approach of filling the screen with battling CGI creatures and relied on the well-choreographed martial arts fights, of which Simu Liu was a big part.

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During the Actors on Actors discussion, Liu explained how while he may have not been completely upfront about how much experience he had in the area, he had previously worked on and off as a stuntman. He also thinks of himself as a dancer, which he found was a discipline that helped out when performing the intricately constructed sequences in the movie. Liu said:

“When I got the part, they asked me about my martial arts background and experience, which of course I exaggerated because I wanted the job really badly. […] I had done some work as an on-again, off-again stuntman, but if we’re honest, I think I was more of a dancer than I ever was a martial artist. Pretty much from the moment I was cast, I started working with trainers and learning how to move. I had such awful flexibility. My groin and my tendons were just so stiff. A big part of that early process was just bending my body and trying to rip those legs apart.”

Related: Simu Liu Has Ideas of Where He Wants Shang-Chi Sequel to Go

Marvel Could Have Backed a Different Actor Had They Known the Truth Thanks To Netflix’s Iron Fist

There is no doubt that Simu Liu was up to the task of playing Shang-Chi despite his general lack of background in martial arts, but had he laid out the whole truth earlier there is a chance that Marvel could have looked elsewhere for its lead after already being burned in the past for taking on an actor with little fighting experience for one of their now-defunct Netflix shows; Iron Fist.

Back at the time that Netflix was building up The Defenders team, Finn Jones was cast in the role of Danny Rand/Iron Fist for the Marvel television series adaptation of Iron Fist. However, the actor had no real experience in martial arts fighting, and although he would likely have been given some help on set, the casting decision backfired massively as critics and audiences trashed the first season of the show. Although they did give the second season the compliment of having “better action scenes and tighter pacing,” overall the series was still a big disappointment.

Thankfully for Marvel Studios and for Simu Liu himself, everything on Shang-Chi worked out so well that sequences like the bus fight scene were so well created and performed that anyone would think Liu was one of the greatest martial artists in the world. Shang-Chi will return sometime in the future, but for now you can relive the spectacle on Disney+ until the new action hero makes his next appearance.

About The Author

Anthony Lund
(1600 Articles Published)

Anthony Lund is an author, songwriter and puppeteer from a small village in the U.K. with an avid love of all genres of TV and film. As well as keeping up with the lastest entertainment news and writing about it for MovieWeb, he works as a video editor, voice over artist and production designer. A child of the 80s, he is the owner of almost 2000 books, more toys than his children, three Warner Bros. Store Gremlins and a production used Howard The Duck movie script.

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