Warning! Spoilers ahead for Shang-Chi and the Legends of the Ten Rings.

Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings highlights a potential problem in the MCU after the Infinity Saga. The second movie release of Marvel Phase 4, and the first MCU movie to exclusively have a theater premiere since 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home, Destin Cretton's blockbuster opens up an entirely new pocket of the franchise. Simu Liu's Shang-Chi is also one of the newest characters to be introduced in this fresh storytelling chapter for Marvel Studios. 

While the primary narrative of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings takes place in a post-Infinity Saga world, its narrative jumps through time. This is to establish the character's origins, including his father, Wenwu  — an ancient warrior who's able to live for thousands of years thanks to the Ten Rings. Played by Tony Leung, this version of the character is also deemed the real Mandarin of the MCU. After Iron Man 3's fake version in Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), which remains one of the most controversial plot twists in the universe, this is essentially Marvel Studios' way of making amends. 

Related: How Marvel Retconned Its Iron Man 3 Mandarin Controversy

For those who aren't that well-versed in the MCU's history, however, Wenwu being called the Mandarin may cause some confusion. So, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings had to come up with creative ways to properly explain who he is and how he relates to Slattery. That involved recapping the events of Iron Man 3 repeatedly, with both Wenwu and Slattery offering insight about it. Initially, the Ten Rings leader explained to Shang-Chi, Katy (Akwafina), and Xialing (Meng'er Zhang) how Aldrich Killian's (Guy Pearce) ruse against Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) came to be. This was Marvel standing by The Mandarin plot twist but also offering amends by debuting a version of the villain worthy of the Mandarin persona from the comics. Later on, Slattery offered his own recollection of what transpired in the threequel, as well as the Marvel One-Shot, All Hail The King. Given how much time the Destin Cretton-directed film spent in reminding fans of what transpired in Iron Man 3, does this mean that it will be the norm moving forward?

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Granted that Marvel Studios needed to clearly lay out the reason why a new Mandarin is being introduced in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, this isn't the first time an MCU Phase 4 project had to recap certain parts of the Infinity Saga. Loki spent much of its premiere episode tracing back the God of Mischief's arc; that includes what happened in the New York botched time heist that allowed him to escape with the Tesseract/Space Stone. Later on, during his sit-down conversation with TVA Agent, Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson), they go through his whole arc in the MCU Sacred Timeline — up until his death in Avengers: Infinity War. Looking at the upcoming projects, recapping might be a typical storytelling practice. For example, since the reverse snap will expectedly play a pivotal role in Eternals' story, events of Avengers: Endgame and its predecessor will likely be revisited. Meanwhile, The Marvels will need to refer to the events of Captain Marvel to have better establish Carol Danvers' (Brie Larson) relationship with Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris).

As the MCU grows exponentially, recapping is their way to catch up or inform casual viewers of how a project connects to previous events in the franchise. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Loki prove this. Despite its interwoven storytelling, Marvel Studios likes to keep its narratives as succinct and complete as possible, so new fans can easily jump in and not feel totally lost. But at this point, if one wants to really appreciate and understand their movies and TV shows, it's best to just thoroughly follow it. 

More: All 13 Marvel Movies Releasing After Shang-Chi (& When)

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