There’s A Deeper Meaning Behind Shang-Chi’s Subtitles
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings features a lot of subtitled dialogue, but the translations provided have multiple potential meanings. Shang-Chi's martial arts-filled adventure, the 25th film in the MCU, hit theaters in the fall of 2021, holding the distinction of being the first Marvel movie with a predominantly Asian cast. In addition to the performances of the cast, such as Simu Liu and Tony Leung, Shang-Chi also received high praise for its fantastic martial arts sequences.
As part of its story, a good deal of Shang-Chi's dialogue is spoken in Mandarin Chinese. While being subtitled into English, the translations provided were not necessarily direct translations of the dialogue being spoken on-screen. This is simply a natural byproduct of linguistics, but interestingly, it creates another layer in the dialogue of Shang-Chi.
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Many viewers wasted no time in exploring exactly this as soon as Shang-Chi hit theaters. One particularly notable example of the different interpretations of language can be seen in the dialogue of Shang-Chi's father Wenwu (Tony Leung). Wenwu, having lived for centuries, asserts himself heavily during the third act in Ta Lo, telling Master Guang Bo (Yuen Wah) "I've lived ten of your lifetimes," subtitled exactly as that from Mandarin to English. However, this isn't an exact translation. As Reddit user u/ashiakatamaki pointed out (via Looper), the more literal translation of Wenwu's line is actually "Kid, show some respect when you talk to me. I've eaten more salt than you've eaten rice in your entire life." Right there, Shang-Chi presents two different readings of the same line of dialogue. Moreover, each
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