‘Shang-Chi’ Star Simu Liu Takes Umbrage With Ethan Hawke’s ‘Moon Knight’ Character: He ‘Needs To Fire His Mandarin Teacher’

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Seven Rings star Simu Liu has watched Disney+’s Moon Knight, and let’s just say that he’s not thrilled with the film’s accent work. He’s not alone (Oscar Isaac found himself defending the choice to portray Steven Grant with an English accent, and Isaac apparently made that call), but it’s notable that an MCU star is making this criticism. That’s particularly the case because Shang-Chi took great pains to be authentic and inclusive, from the cast (which was 98% Asian) to the crew.

To that end, Liu finds himself calling out the Mandarin spoken by Ethan Hawke’s cult-leading villain. The Shang-Chi star tweeted, “Alright Arthur Harrow needs to fire his Mandarin teacher.”

Liu was swiftly joined in his responses, including a “what happened here?” response with a tweeted clip.

It’s an awkward development, especially since Moon Knight director Mohamed Diab pointedly aimed to nail the show’s Egyptian representation. In the lead up to streaming time, Diab called out Wonder Woman 1984 for what he deemed “orientalism” (which Diab condemned as “dehumanizing”) particularly the DCEU sequel’s rendering of Cairo. Diab stressed that Moon Knight would portray Egypt “as authentic[ally] as possible, in the realm of being fantastical,” and Diab declared that “[r]epresentation opportunities shouldn’t be wasted” while speaking of the upcoming Black Adam and its casting practices. And especially given that Liu’s an MCU lead, his criticism of Harrow’s dialogue is more than relevant and worth watching for followup.