My Pitch for Shang Chi 3's Villain (and Shang Chi 3)

Now that the foundation is built, it's time for me to talk about how I'd like to see Zheng Baoyu enact her evil plan on the big screen.

I don't care who they cast, because Marvel's casting never disappoints, but here are some basic criteria:

First, she needs to be female-presenting. Secondly, she should be of Chinese descent. I believe she's half-Russian in the comics, but I changed her ethnicity to just completely Chinese because I'm more familiar with that culture. Having or being able to speak in a British accent is preferable because it would be a nice nod to her temporary allegiance to MI6, but it is not required. She must be willing to learn or already able to speak Mandarin and Cantonese. She would definitely need some experience with martial arts, though she doesn't have to be as proficient as Shang Chi and Xialing. Most importantly, she must be at once magnetic and tragic; able to change from delightfully villainous to devastatingly vulnerable in a single scene.

I'm going with a younger version for my script, so my first choice would be Stephanie Hsu. I was immediately sold on her after seeing her performance as Joy and Jobu Tupaki in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Her chemistry with Michelle Yeoh will be an asset as well.

UPDATE: I just found out Stephanie Hsu has already been cast as Shang Chi and Katy's friend Soo, but the MCU has a habit of recasting their actors (Michael B. Jordan, Chris Evans, Gemma Chan), so all is not lost!!

If you want to go with an older version, I would cast Lucy Liu because of her performance as O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill: Volume 1. She has star power, and martial arts experience, and she can speak Mandarin. The scene where she beheads racist rat Tanaka for insulting her Chinese-American heritage shows that she can shift from cool, calm, and collected to fearsome fury, which will be essential to the interpretation of Cursed Lotus that I've constructed.

Okay, so do you remember how Ying Nan mentions that when Ying Li left with Wenwu, she could no longer come back to Ta Lo? In the first film, that scene is presented as bittersweet, but romantic. In the third installment, I'd like to focus more on the bitterness of longing for a home to which you can never return. I want to explore this struggle because it really resonates with me as a daughter of immigrants, and I believe it will resonate with immigrants of any race or ethnicity. I related to Killmonger and Namor even though they're not Asian, so I'm sure the same will be true for the reverse.

In the chapter "By Way of Conclusion" in Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon criticizes the tendency of colonial subjects to reconnect with a pre-colonial civilization (in his case, Africa) because it focuses on the injustices of the past rather than confronting the injustices of the present. In the essay "Cultural Identity," Stuart Hall similarly condemns movements around the idea of returning to a "true", "pure", "mother continent." He rightly points out that it is problematic because it insinuates that hybridized identities, such as the Creole culture of the Caribbean, are substitutes for an idealized, unattainable past. In reality, hybrid identities are rich, unique, and valuable in their own right, and should be respected as such. I intend to integrate the arguments of both of these black theorists, only I will be applying them to the complexities of the Chinese diaspora.

One of the reasons why Black Panther is such a unique Marvel film is because it begins with the antagonist’s backstory, so I want to take a similar approach with Zheng Baoyu, only with the twist that it's told from the perspective of her follower.

Flashback 3 is the most action-packed and will do an excellent job of establishing the themes and the darker tone. Showing the actual lynching of the migrant workers might be too dark, so this is an opportunity to experiment with art styles, as I mentioned above. Let's go with paper shadow puppets, with "Ying Zi" or Moving Shadow (see what I did there?) as the narrator.

We see the assailants dragging the next group of sobbing migrants towards a line of ropes. Then a smoke-like vapor envelops the scene. The assailants scream and recoil from an unseen enemy, then they drop dead from fear. A puppet with an opera mask emerges from the carnage. The migrant puppets bow to her. The puppet with the opera mask helps the young Moving Shadow to his feet. He explains how his "emperor" gave him two options: To wait for the Western world to welcome him, or to follow them and build a new world. The choice is clear, or rather, it's clear that he doesn't have a choice.

We fade from the "emperor"'s shadow into the silhouette of Xialing's throne as she oversees the training of the new Ten Rings. It's been about two years since the Dweller-in-Darkness wreaked havoc on the village. Two of the recruits get into a brawl. Xialing breaks it up and punishes them by ordering them to punch a post until their knuckles bleed.

Ying Nan walks in and sets down a plate of fruit on the armrest, inviting Xialing to take a break and telling her to take it easy on the new students. Xialing insists that she must discipline them, so they will be ready for another threat. Ying Nan reminds Xialing that the inhabitants of Ta Lo are still grieving over the deaths of those they lost to the Dweller-in-Darkness. Xialing's cold, authoritative exterior falters for a moment. Ying Nan begins to ask her how she is doing after what happened to Wenwu. Xialing gets up to leave, but then the gates to the training grounds fly open.

Trevor translates for Morris as the hundun tells Xialing and Ying Nan that someone has breached the bamboo forest barrier of Ta Lo. Before Ying Nan can stop her, Xialing rounds up her best fighters, grabs her rope dart, and marches out to investigate. She recognizes Katy and her stance relaxes, but then her expression changes into one of horror when she sees that her friend is badly injured. Katy collapses into Xialing's arms. Xialing tries to ask her what is going on. Katy only manages to say something along the lines of "They have Sean –" before she passes out from blood loss.

Katy wakes up to Morris snuggling with her. It'll be nice to see her bond with Morris since she was terrified of him at first. Xialing and Ying Nan are at her bedside. Ying Nan offers her some fruit. As soon as Katy has finished eating, Xialing immediately begins interrogating Katy about what happened to Shang-Chi. Katy is too shaken to give her a straight answer. Even more frustrated than before, Xialing leaves the tent and takes out her rage on some dummies with her rope dart. Her fighting style is noticeably a lot more vicious than before, and a lot of the moves she's using are clearly intended for killing her opponent. It is in sharp contrast to her trying to reason with Razor Fist in the first movie. As she lashes out one last time, Ying Nan blocks the blow and kicks Xialing's foot out from under her.

The movie has been quite angsty up until this point, so we should give the audience a break and have some humorous shenanigans. Basically, Xialing is going to try and push past Ying Nan, but Ying Nan won't let her. Ying Nan says that if Xialing can beat her, she will let her go, but if Ying Nan wins, then Xialing has to listen to what she has to say. A short, fun fight ensues. Xialing calms down and remarks that Ying Nan "better give her some good news" after all those heavy conversations. Xialing adds that as soon as Ying Nan is done, she's taking Katy and going after her brother. Ying Nan says that she should let Katy recover and bring along her half-sister instead. Xialing's like "Whoa, whoa, back up…I have a half-sister?"

Ying Nan explains that she's just as shocked as Xialing. She shows her a letter that Shang Chi sent her about a year ago. He explains that a teenage girl who looked unnervingly similar to a young Xialing showed up at his house one day, looking for her father. At first, he didn't believe her either, but then she showed him a jade necklace that resembled the necklaces that Wenwu gave to him and Xialing. Shang-Chi would've taken her to Ta Lo himself, except he was too busy investigating another mystery.

We cut to a few weeks earlier. Shang-Chi and Katy are staring, slack-jawed at the television screen as the anchorman reports on a surge of "ghost sightings" that originated in Chinatown and have spread across the world. People of Chinese descent have only reported positive experiences, but all other ethnic communities describe their experiences as terrifying. Multiple people have admitted themselves into psychiatric units, but even worse, it has led to a spike in Anti-Asian hate crimes, such as the destruction of shrines. Shang-Chi has to defend the Chinese community from those who are attacking them in an act of revenge for enabling the ghosts to return through their practices.

We cut back to Shang-Chi's letter. He finishes by telling Ying Nan that he has given the girl directions to Ta Lo, but she will need Ying Nan to help her through the forest. Xialing asks if the girl has arrived yet. Ying Nan says that her half-sister has already been here for two days, but she didn't want to tell Xialing because she was so busy with the Ten Rings.

As Ying Nan leads Xialing to where the girl is staying, they pass several shrines commemorating those who gave their lives in the battle against the Dweller-in-Darkness. Xialing's gaze lingers on a picture of Wenwu, which now sits on the shelf next to the photo of her mother. They get to a small tent hidden along the last row of shrines.

The camera switches to Xialing's point of view as she scans an old, worn map of China, a big book on Qin Shi Huang, and several sheets of calligraphy. Chinese opera is playing. Baoyu finishes bowing to a picture that seems to have been cut out from a passport. Then she turns around and smiles brightly at Ying Nan hugging her aunt with all of her might, rambling about all the mythological animals, and expressing her gratitude to her "Ge Ge" (older brother) Shang Chi for bringing her to Ta Lo. Xialing blocks her when goes to hug her, telling her to pack her bags and that they can talk while they're traveling. Ying Nan sternly tells Xialing to accompany Baoyu to her room and help her get ready.

The first half of the midsection of this film is essentially going to be a buddy-cop road trip where Xialing and Baoyu travel to Chinatown, the site of the first ghost sighting, and look for traces of Shang-Chi. Throughout this montage, Baoyu slowly endears herself to Xialing by expressing her admiration for her "Jie Jie" and gushing about Chinese history and how much she has missed Chinatown.

At some point, maybe after a fight scene where they work together to outsmart a gang of supremacists, she gets Xialing to talk about her mother's death. Xialing tells her about how Ying Li sacrificed herself to save them and rants about how Wenwu emotionally abandoned her and Shang-Chi. Baoyu says that she is sorry about Ying Li because she seemed like a wonderful mother. Xialing asks her about her mother. Baoyu says that she was an opera singer, but after Wenwu left, she got addicted to drugs and died from an overdose. Even worse, she said that maybe Wenwu wouldn't have left them if she had a son instead. This completely wins over Xialing and gets her to let her walls down. Baoyu tells her that she later got adopted by a Chinese immigrant and moved to British Columbia with him. They didn't pay him much, but he taught her that as long as every family member had each other's backs, they would be alright. Unfortunately, he died in an accident while working on a construction project.

Meanwhile, in Ta Lo, a worried Morris leads Katy to Trevor, who is crouched behind a shrine and muttering hysterically to himself. At first, she thinks he's practicing his acting, but then she realizes he is genuinely terrified of the invisible entity he is speaking to. While she is distracted, she is attacked by Razor Fist. He keeps calling her by another name and screaming at her to leave him alone.

Baoyu and Xialing interrogate one of the supremacists. Being a racist, he insults them and refuses to give them information. Baoyu remarks that they won't get any information out of him with diplomacy, subtly encouraging Xialing to let loose. Xialing brutally beats the supremacist until he chokes out that his boss told him that they would lure Shang Chi to the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Ying Nan leaps to Katy's defense and knocks out Razor Fist. When Razor Fist comes to, he doesn't remember attacking Katy and claims that he was fighting with the ghost of a dead loved one. Katy notices that the moonlight is reflecting off the shrines in a strange way and points out that there is a ruby vapor bomb embedded in the stone that wasn't there before. When Razor Fist turns to look at it, he becomes aggressive and starts screaming again.

While they are on the flight to Beijing, Xialing goes to the washroom and is disturbed when she sees the blood on her knuckles and tells Baoyu that she is worried about becoming like their father. Baoyu comforts her by reiterating that there was no other way to get the information and that they should focus on saving Shang-Chi. Xialing calls Katy and orders her to send reinforcements from Ta Lo. Xialing tells Baoyu to stay hidden while she takes out the guards. She has a harder time with Moving Shadow since they're fighting at night and he specializes in stealth, but she finally takes him down. She finds Shang Chi tied up on a stake in the middle of the palace grounds. As soon as she cuts him loose, he attacks her. She puts up a good fight, but he eventually knocks her out.

When Xialing comes to, she is chained up in a room with a painting of a lotus on the wall. She yells at Shang Chi to wake him up and chews him out for punching her in the face. Shang Chi truthfully says that he doesn't even remember fighting her. They engage in some good old-fashioned sibling bickering until they admit that they are relieved to see each other safe and well. As they are trying to figure out an escape plan, they both express their worries about Baoyu. They're both relieved when they see her approaching their cell and urge her to quickly break them out. Then Moving Shadow bows to her, handing her an opera mask and addressing her as "Huangdi" (emperor). Baoyu addresses Shang-Chi and Xialing as "Di Di" (younger brother) and "Mei Mei" (younger sister) and asks them how they like their new home.

If you want to go with the older version, you could use visual effects to transform her from her teenage girl disguise to an older woman and bring in the illusion powers, but personally, I would stick with the younger version because it makes for a better twist and continues with the trend of introducing mutants to the MCU.

Xialing and Shang-Chi angrily ask Baoyu if all the stuff she said about her mother was a lie to get them to let their guard down so she could kill them. Baoyu claims that she technically did not lie. She just omitted the detail that her mother died from an opium overdose in Canton in 1842. She explains that her adoptive father died detonating a mountain for the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. By not paying him much, she meant that they paid him a dollar and fifty cents, even though he had already fallen sick from the horrible conditions in the cargo boats that they used to ship them into Canada. She didn't even get to bury him before she was shoved back out onto the sea. She learned that she would not get back into Canada unless she paid the head tax as if her father hadn't already paid for their railroad with his life, so that's why she came to America. She assures Shang Chi and Xialing that she would never kill them or Ying Nan, or anyone else in Ta Lo. Not when they're the only family she has left.

Shang-Chi asks what Baoyu is going to do with them if she isn't going to kill them. Baoyu gives Moving Shadow her necklace. As she walks away. Xialing shouts that she has called for reinforcements from Ta Lo.

In Ta Lo, Katy and Ying Nan search through Baoyu's room. Ying Nan flips over the map of China and sees the diagram of a tiger-like apparatus that will be powered by the stolen ten rings and the New Jade Palace, which will be built on top of the Forbidden City. Hidden between the pages of the book about Qin Shi Huang is her list of all the "ghost sites'' where she has already released the vapor to destabilize the West and summon her ancestors, which will lead her Chinese "Xiong Di Jie Mei" (siblings) to the new Middle Kingdom of their benevolent Huangdi.

Shang-Chi rightly points out that Baoyu's nationalism is actually making life harder for immigrants because she is giving racists an excuse to persecute Chinese people, and that she is wrong to assume that all immigrants want to return to their homeland, hoping to convince Moving Shadow to let them go.

Through the blending of shadow puppetry and an actual scene, Moving Shadow tells them that he cannot betray his emperor because of the blood oath he made to her after she saved him from the Los Angeles lynching. Shang Chi argues that he understands that they want to keep themselves safe in their secret society like Wakanda, and Ta Lo, did for so many years, but they do not have to attack the West. Moving Shadow says that Wakanda was wrong on two counts: Firstly, Wakanda abandoned its people. The new Jade Palace will welcome the Chinese diaspora into its walls as well. Secondly, Wakanda hid from the world. The new Jade Palace will not cower in such a way. After all, how will the Western world learn to fear them if they do not even know about them? The West must be humbled, or their relatives will always be in danger. If all the West will do is treat their people like a plague, the Jade Palace will give them a plague. Then he hypnotizes them with the necklace.

Katy receives a voicemail from Xialing asking for reinforcements. She and Ying Nan put on blinders so they will not be hypnotized by the rubies that Baoyu planted on the shrines. They go to get the troops, but they have all been hypnotized and are following the "ghosts" of their loved ones into the bamboo forest with hauntingly tranquil expressions on their faces. This is a reference to what Fanon describes as "Asiatic Serenity," and the model minority stereotype, in which East Asians are categorized as competent, but almost robotically cold. All hope seems lost, but then Katy's face lights up with an idea.

Ying Nan: "She has our army!"

Katy, motioning towards the lake: "We have a dragon."

Baoyu kneels before a shrine in her room, asking her adoptive father for strength and assuring them that she will take care of their "Jia Ren" (family). Then she breathes in the Wild Tiger vapor herself. She screams in pain as it scars her with the dark pink scales that she has in the comics.

Baoyu is transported into Flashback 4 and Flashback 5. As she comes out of Flashback 5, she still sits on the roof of the Forbidden City in a position reminiscent of Zhuge Liang when he tricked Sima Yi. However, now the Forbidden City is no longer empty but filled with Baoyu's terracotta army. She declares that they will never have to flee or be afraid ever again.

Ying Nan breaks in and breaks through the hypnosis in the terracotta soldiers by smashing the rubied masks. Morris can help out by flying in and taking off their masks, too. Here's an opportunity for an awesome two-on-one fight between her, hypnotized Shang Chi, and hypnotized Xialing.

Once Xialing and Shang Chi snap out of it, the three of them get into the Forbidden City and corner Baoyu. They attempt to reason with her one last time, but then she puts on the opera mask and tells Moving Shadow to release the tiger, embracing the persona of the Cursed Lotus.

Shang Chi, Xialing, and Ying Nan seem to have the upper hand at the beginning of the fight, but then Baoyu brings out the vapor bombs, disorienting them with disturbingly realistic illusions of Wenwu and Ying Li.

Baoyu tells Moving Shadow to defend the tiger, and that if he fails, to flee with the other Oriental Expeditors and get a hold of their own reinforcements. Katy rides in on the Great Protector and shoots an arrow into the apparatus, cutting off the Tiger's roar. The Great Protector and the Tiger are synonymous with Yin and Yang in Chinese iconography, but they are particularly associated with balance in the home, which ties into Baoyu's obsession with making a new home.

Xialing, Shang Chi, and Ying Nan find their way out of the illusion by focusing on each other. It is their ability to focus on the future that allows them to get to Baoyu, who is always lost in the past. Shang Chi reclaims the ten rings and uses them to break through Baoyu's opera mask, exposing her to the full effects of the vapor.

Baoyu rebukes Wenwu for abandoning her, saying that the only thing she is grateful for is inheriting his immortality so her eyes could be opened to how much her siblings need her. She is slightly saddened, but ultimately unfazed by the sight of her dying mother. Then she finds herself in her adoptive father's home in British Columbia. She tells him about Wild Tiger, the new Jade Palace, and the formation of the Oriental Expeditors family, expecting pride and relief, but instead, he laughs it off and repeats that he needs to go to work. Baoyu realizes that this is the day of his death. She begs him not to leave, but he simply walks out of the door all the same. She finally comprehends that the truly important lesson that he tried to teach her was to look forward to the future instead of longing for the past because the past can be just as painful as the present.

In the real world, Shang Chi, Ying Nan, and especially Xialing look on solemnly as Baoyu falls to her knees, cradling the cracked opera mask in her hands.

Ying Nan and Razor Fist take Baoyu back to Ta Lo. Shang Chi stays behind to help the hypnotized Chinese diaspora get back to their real homes and track down the Oriental Expeditors who escaped during the battle. This time, Xialing insists on going with him so he won't get captured so easily again.

This concludes my first attempt at a pitch! If you enjoyed reading this, please like it and share it. Constructive criticism is appreciated.