This is the Mandarin.
He is not silly. He is not racist. He is a great and classic comic book villain.
Ever since he was teased in the first Ironman movie, I have been looking forward to see him on the screen. I was weary when I heard who would portray him in the third part, and concerned when I heard the ridiculous discussion about him being potentially offensive to Chinese sensibilities. I thought that discussion was political correctness (and financial greed) gone mad as usual, and that he could easily be adapted to work in a contemporary context (as he had been adapted decades ago in the comics themselves).
Yesterday I watched Ironman 3. I was disappointed. It could have been great – RDJ was fantastic as usual -, but the portrayal of the Mandarin ruined the entire movie for me. I know that I am pretty alone with this impression, even amongst die-hard comic fans, but I do not expect anyone to agree either.
Update 20/05/2013:
After intensive digging, I discovered the script for a post-credits scene, which seems to have been deleted from the movie before the official screening. As the script contains major spoilers for the movie, I will discuss it after the break.
Once more, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR IRONMAN 3 – proceed at own risk, if you have not seen it yet.
So – in all of the recent Marvel movies, they have included so-called post-credit scenes, which run after the end credits are over (and usually all the theatre goers have left, leaving only the die-hard fans – yay, us!). They tend to be very brief scenes with in-jokes, or setting up some upcoming movies. Famously, in the first Ironman movie, in the secret post-credit scene we had Samuel L. Jackson turn up as Nick Fury, announcing the “Avengers Initiative” – and setting the scene for all the later movies.
The post-credit scene in Ironman 3 was – well, not disappointing, but nothing special either. There was some speculation, if there had been a different scene planned, maybe to set up the Guardians Of The Galaxy movie – but that was never confirmed.
Well, my many sources in Hollywood have managed to dig up an early script of Ironman 3 – containing a hereto unknown post-credit scene! The scene is slightly longer than the previous post-credit scenes have been, and I would like to assume, that the authors were planning to either use it in a different part of the movie, or to cut it down considerably. I have no information if this scene was even filmed before it was cut from the script, but if it has, I feel confident that it will eventually turn up on the DVD/Blu-ray.
In any case, this scene restores my enjoyment of the Ironman 3 movie, as it fixes in one fell swoop everything which was wrong with it – and restores the Mandarin to his full majestic glory, setting him up as a possible major antagonist for future movies!
But here’s the scene, see what you think.