Shang-Chi and the Problematic Shadow of Fu Manchu

[@megsnets]

I actually got some ads for Shang Chi, but you’re right, when Black Widow was coming out it felt like marvel was screaming at me, but with Shang Chi it felt like a polite reminder.

[@babatea6589]

Lucky at least you got a reminder, my brother literally had to promote the movie to me himself cus I totally forgot the movie even existed! I did not see any ads at all.

[@cindymmm11]

True. I didn’t even know the film was out, until my boyfriend take me to the movie theater.

[@sincerecinnamon]

I saw disney ads for toys about it, so I knew it existed, but just because I still watch cable along with my streaming and yt

[@ToonrificTariq]

the quick shot after the first mispronunciation is crazyy. 😂😂

[@AlexaDonne]

YES! Simu Liu carried promo for this almost single-handedly. That said, it was on my radar but that may be because a close friend is a journalist who specializes in Asian American media and ended up hosting two events at the El Capitan for the movie--so she was shouting about the movie for months! I also think I was served some YT ads? I'm in LA though--I think we normally get pretty big movie pushes. Such a shame b/c I am NOT a Marvel stan in the least--like I really have no strong feelings whatsoever for 95% of the MCU--but I LOVED Shang Chi. I thought it was above average and stood on it's two feet as a fun action/fantasy movie without needing all the MCU mythos, etc. to prop it up which means it may appeal to an audience who doesn't normally go for the MCU.

[@kingmanic]

Allegedly the marketting spend was 30m for shang chi. Other MCU moves range from 100m to 150m. Simu was doing to much to promote the movie. Working harder than anyone except Ryan Reynolds on promotion. Black widow is did roughly as well and allegedly had $150m promotion.

[@julinofooly]

Totally agree.if I hadn’t binged Kim’s convenience last year I literally wouldn’t have know this movie exist.

[@kingmanic]

@@LethalLemonLime Marvel needs to pay the man the difference in marketing dollars. He hustled.

[@davidgabriel27814]

Love you videos Alexa

[@phercy3044]

Omg, Alexa you pop up literally everywhere I go to.😂😂😂queeeeen

[@Nana-js1gs]

😂😂😭crying at the sigh after the first shang “ki”

[@AdaOnDemand]

I can’t even watch this video back because I cringe so badly at the mispronunciation 😭

[@BlueBeetle1939]

@@AdaOnDemand kind of works to your point that you didn't even hear the name enough in promotions to remember the pronunciation

[@elsagreen1476]

@@BlueBeetle1939 That's a good point...

[@ruthkim3950]

HELP THE MISPRONUNCIATION IS SO FUNNY

[@AdaOnDemand]

I literally cringe SO badly watching this back but I had no time to re-record 😭😭😭 hate that for me 😭😭😭

[@jelemil]

@Ashton Lonee its all greek to me!

[@disneyavenger5653]

Part me wonders if Disney (not Marvel) was afraid of over promoting this movie because there were rumors that movie was going to have a low opening due to the pandemic and Shang Chi was an unknown character. Plus coming off the negative atmosphere of Black Widow lawsuit. Simu Liu being active on social media is what promoted this movie.

[@AdaOnDemand]

Definitely agree! I think had Simu Liu not been super active on social media, the movie would have performed much worse than it's performing now

[@kingmanic]

It's more likely COVID fears because they 150m spend on black widow had a very poor return.

[@disneyavenger5653]

@@AdaOnDemand thank goodness it became a surprise hit, in the middle of a pandemic!!! 👏

[@disneyavenger5653]

@@kingmanic it's a shame because Black Widow could have been a better movie 😔

[@sawyer6264]

Also I’m sure Disney was sweating from fear after the backlash they got for Mulan 2020 and worried that they’d get the same reaction

[@oodatooitis6714]

I’m not a MCU fan anymore but I am very happy for Simu and the success this film is bringing him. That said I don’t think it’s a good precedent if you’re theory is correct and they’re just counting on diversity to bring people to theatres without putting in the effort to market them. If the movies are nonsense, lack of effort will hurt more than help.

[@AdaOnDemand]

I completely agree! I think we're seeing an over-reliance on diversity or "breaking barriers" to bring people into the theaters/to get them watching. Diversity is good, but only when paired with genuinely good films, actors, and storylines. It's bad precedent, just as you said. Anyway, thanks so much for watching and commenting ❤️

[@definingdarlene]

Why are you no longer an MCU fan? Just curious.

[@rthur.]

Its true Marvel does rely on hype and I dont think there was enough hype on social media. Usually when a Marvel movie is announced you get a alot of people trying to release leaks, rumors and have conversations about the movie. I dont think Shang-Chi had that. When the first trailer dropped Im sure the hype was not there. Hype has more influence than formal marketing, if people talk about the movie on their timelines people would have heard about it. If you look at Black Panther it had buzz from every sector of the entertainment industry, Kendrick Lamar was making the soundtrack, People showed in traditonal african attire at the movie screenings. The Dora Milaje! Oscar Nomination! You couldn't miss it. I dont think Shang-Chi had such headlines so it felt like a risk for Marvel to invest especially with the pandemic.

[@aanyamallick7747]

Why are you no longer a Marvel fan?

[@material-cheshirekhatter2413]

@@aanyamallick7747 I'm not a marvel fan either anymore, For me it's because they are milking the avengers franchise, They aren't paying attention to dialogue, or costume design, they are also relying too much on diversity for their films to take off,they keep putting random celebrities in the movies with the hope that people will watch them, the acting is mediocre, and a lot of the people from the MCU Franchise have unfortunately passed away, The trailers don't build hype and I'm not really interested in watching any of their new movies, or tv shows, In the 2000's parody movies were popular, now in this era it's superhero movies, and since the 2010's is over the era of superhero movies is over as well.

[@Slm99]

Shang-Chi has very little promotion and it's not just the USA, I can tell you that in Bulgaria where I live we had dust. I learn about the movie because of the actor who I follow on Twitter. I don't know why probably too many other projects, although I'm still not excluding racism or more specifically implicit bias.

[@AdaOnDemand]

Wow!! Thank you so much for saying that the lack of promo was happening in other countries as well

[@sseraphim2818]

Of course, racism and implicit bias had everything to do with this. An important Marvel exec called it "an experiment".

[@khdj7164]

Hi ! In France as well ! For Mulan or Black Widow for example, I knew MONTHS before ! But Shang-chi ? I didnt even know it existed until my friend told "let's go to the movies watch Shang-chi", i was like "what?", and i only realized it was a Marvel movie when i looked for a session at the local cinema on the internet So yeah :/ no marketing whatsoever

[@Temez]

I felt like they promoted the movie more than black widow at least here in Finland. And marvel released clips and promos/tv spots every day on their youtube channel

[@nkechianiamah2499]

Marvel has great movies, but some movies get more promotions/marketing than others. And most of the time the overlooked movies are the entertaining ones

[@mysticwayfinder3578]

I think Simu Liu deserves a raise for working as both the lead actor and the hardest working member of the PR department.

[@BostonChattanooga]

Since I stay on my Marvel grind I knew about Shang Chi since it was announced at comic-con 2019. I honestly think the pandemic took the wind out of the marketing campaign and I also agree with you. Disney saw a way to save money 💰 and still build hype for Shang Chi!

[@osamabindiesel3389]

Shawn Kai, sounds like a power ranger Banger of a video btw, Ada. I’m not a huge marvel fan so I can’t really have an input until I see the movie myself. Still interesting to hear this certain pov of the movie and it’s background.

[@ms.goddess2968]

I’m laughing so hard helppppppp😭

[@AdaOnDemand]

PLEASE NOT A POWER RANGER 💀💀💀 I literally can't watch this video back I cringe so hard when I say Shawn Kai 😭 Thank you so much for watching and putting up with me tho!! ❤️❤️❤️

[@osamabindiesel3389]

@@AdaOnDemand this is going to spread like wildfire, and decades later, there’s going to be a Mandela effect where people remember it as “that Shawn Kai movie”. You have no one to blame but yourself. Hope your hump day goes well tho 👍

[@leeforverett]

It’s not that I don’t believe when people say that they didn’t see a lot of promotion for Shang Chi… but in my experience I kept seeing ads everywhere.

[@onyx081]

Same. I also frequently see the commercials for the toys and merchandise on TV. If someone hasn't seen anything about this movie, I think that has more to do with the type of people and content they follow than anything else

[@AdaOnDemand]

That's wild! Someone else in this comment section said that was the case for them too. I wonder which demographics/people the advertising team chose to target then?

[@sseraphim2818]

You're using your experience to discredit everyone else. You don't have to experience something to acknowledge that it exists. I understand that it's a huge problem to take people at their word, but it shouldn't be that hard.

[@solarmoth4628]

I got very little, I don’t think I ever saw a trailer on TV or on youtube. But I got Black Widow ads every time I went online. Which is weird that I got one but not the other.

[@iamjackscompletelackofsurp5858]

@@sseraphim2818 you're doing the same thing to OP? 🙄 I got tons of Shang-Chi ads and Black Widow ads. Disney even advertised it on MLB ad space right behind home plate for a bit before release.

[@scottiliciousmcfabulous]

I only knew of the movie due to viral tweets about the main character being in stock photos from websites.

[@spunkynuggets]

I saw the viral tweets but didn't know who Simu Liu was

[@AdaOnDemand]

Omg I saw those recently 😂 honestly crazy how far he's come!!

[@scottiliciousmcfabulous]

@@AdaOnDemand also super crazy to see how far you have come! Congrats on 100k Ada!!! You deserve it! 😍🔥🥰

[@quinncyisqueer]

hope you’re doing okay💕

[@victoriasmith7015]

It’s surprising that they promoted black window more than Shang chi, when no one really cared to watch the black widow movie. At least not in my circle , everyone was saying it was pointless to release it now since technically she is dead 🤷🏾‍♀️

[@princess_niya2407]

It actually wasn’t pointless towards the end of the movie thats when she starts to try to bring back the avengers to stop Thanos, every movie in the MCU has a reason whether it’s a small or big impact

[@HeyRae]

I kinda agree with you, if it had been a prequel before her death, I probably would have seen it by now

[@amara560]

I do feel people were unnecessarily harsh on Black Widow personally. It wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I felt it was quite on par with other Marvel movies. There was definitely some misogyny playing part in the harsh reviews on Captain Marvel and Black Widow alike.

[@rx500android]

Something I gotta said that I loved about the movie is the fact half of it is in Mandarin. It felt way more authentic than a lot of their other movies. Edit: other really good Asian Marvel superheroes in my opinion are Agent May (played by Ming Na Wen) and Daisy Johnson/Skye (played by Chloe Bennet [Wang]) from Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. I had to mention them since they seem to be forgotten

[@momodias1997]

I’ve been rewatching Agents of Shield and been living Ming-Na Wen

[@HeyRae]

I love Shield!! I think it has a lot of great representation and amazing characters, it’s so underrated

[@amara560]

I'm really glad they decided to go with it. It seems like a bold choice when I see a lot of Americans say they don't want to read subtitles. It really helped the movie feel more authentic.

[@kyrstine]

As an Asian American, I've known about shang-chi since the cast was announced. Maybe they wanted the Asian buying power and decided to have Simu just do everything. 🙄

[@alexis-marie_9920]

I also hate how Simu Liu and Awkafina were supposed to be in a relationship but they NEVER KISS!!!!! Hollywood really hates us seeing Asian men as love interests and attractive. I've noticed that a lot . When asian men are leading men or have a love interest they never kiss in screen ...

[@AdaOnDemand]

@Stoshnut I think you both make amazing points! There definitely is a trope about the "asexual asian man" (you can find an amazing video by The Take here on this! kzbin.info/www/bejne/aJybY5t_pslkhdU ) But I also think it's valuable to see a relationship between a man and a woman that's strictly platonic and supportive and close regardless!

[@Lotusbiscof]

Why they gotta kiss? They’re just great friends. Why does everything have to be about romance and kissing and all that??

[@kingmanic]

@@AdaOnDemand They did contradict the trope by having simu wink at that girl on the bus and the shirtless scene. A romance might be too much to fit in. The movie was 2h 15m and it didn't feel like any scenes were unnecessary. A seperate romance would be hard, and a Katy + Shang Chi romance would also need time. I think just friends works for that. There is also irrational 'chinese' anger over Awkafina as a romantic lead because she doesn't meet the narrow definition of attractive over there. Just friends is a good addition. If they want to go canon, they do a Domino + Shang Chi. zazie beetz + Simu Liu.

[@gissellel663]

I loved the relationship and affectionate scenes they showed in the show Kung Fu, it was refreshing to see it happen finally. I get what you’re saying.

[@Carolina57685]

"I don't know how Disney creating a movie for it to flop is in their interests, monetarily" oooooooooh boy let me tell about Treasure Planet LMAO (this isn't to say that that theory about the lack of ads for Shang-chi is true, idk lmao it's just haha yeah wouldnt be the first time)

[@AdaOnDemand]

OMG I just read what they did to Treasure Planet that is so insane!! I've never heard of that movie before but that's insane!

[@Carolina57685]

@@AdaOnDemand yeah! i found some video essay about it on youtube and just....how....what....

[@itachimistress]

@@AdaOnDemand I remember watching Treasure Planet when it came out in Blockbuster (dated myself smh)

[@abookishmess]

Yes !!! They were so damn petty

[@juanrisa945]

@@AdaOnDemand you should watch it. Is really good.

[@ShanyShannon]

What happened to you? I really miss your videos! Hope all is well!

[@Cnlg97]

I actually got the opposite with 'Black Widow' and 'Shang-Chi.' I don't recall seeing many ads for it and only watched it because my bf put it on one night. I saw multiple ads for 'Shang-Chi' and the trailer was recommended to me on yt ~1-2 months before the release date(I don't follow any Marvel/Disney stuff that closely either). I think it might have to do with region since it was a theatrical (and the 1st for them) rather than streaming release since covid and they might've been promoting it more in states/areas that were more comfortable going to theaters🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

[@SpudOfWar]

Dude. I got soo many ads for Shang chi. Tiktok, Instagram, fb, KZbin, on actual TV. Soo many it is was hard to miss

[@KUROFEYMURPHY]

I didn’t see a lot of promotion Shang Chi and I am a Disney, marvel and comic fan boy. It was like here is the teaser and crickets. Once it did well now they got commercials everywhere.

[@notcha8080]

right i only started seeing real ads until AFTER its release

[@stephyworld8713]

Let's not forget that Black Panter was already introduced in Captain America Civil War, so a lot of the marketing and hype started there already. Like someone else said in the comments, I also feel like The Eternals are also not being hugely promoted.. Maybe it's a conscious choice to limit promotion for theatre only releases (because of the pandemic and possibly low attendance) 🤷🏾‍♀️

[@18lillypie]

“a tree branch and a raccoon” had me laughing harder than it should have 😂!

[@sofiap961]

I’m one of those who didn’t see any sort of big promo like you would any other MCU movies. I’m not a big marvel fan but even then I feel like I would see tons of promo for their other releases. Only reason I knew about it was because Simu appeared on a KZbin channel I’m subscribed to as a special guest, man’s really carried the promo for his movie. Also the soundtrack, a few Asian artists I follow were featured and made me even more excited for the movie’s release!

[@purpleplanetary]

I swear Shang Chi crawled so the Eternals promotion could run.

[@attiyya1300]

I agree, but I also feel like the promo for Eternals is lacking as well.…I’m not sure if anyone besides Marvel fans even know about it? And it may be because the Eternals is very unknown as well but for sure it’s weird

[@parkerisles7256]

I'm not a mcu fan but I've been seeing plenty of articles about and interviews from the cast of the Eternals.

[@desdes5622]

The first Eternals ad I saw didn't make me want to see it at all. I actually saw a longer ad in the theater when I was seeing Shang Chi and that helped me feel interested. So I got a FEW ads, but they sucked.

[@reneeboyd80]

It is. I have seen like two tv ads for Eternals. For Shang-Chi the advertisements picked up closer to the release. Honestly I haven't been seeing alot movie advertisements period. I haven't seen alot for Venom or James Bond ads either.

[@aanyamallick7747]

I'm an editor. And ALOT of my fellow editors on tik tok have been releasing edits to promote shang-chi and eternals. Thank fully our edits went viral. And the collabs helped tremendously

[@SweetyBean]

Girlie it’s been a year😔

[@ashlnn7150]

Just a heads-up the red line on the thumbnail makes it look like I've already watched this video so I actually scrolled past it on my feed at first

[@AdaOnDemand]

Oh my goodness thank you for letting me know! Just fixed it ♥️♥️♥️

[@dahanster5578]

Yo, where you at Ada?

[@krysisstorm2703]

I am a true Marvel fan. I've been reading comics since like 92, so yeah. I was very aware of Shang-Chi origins. For people who would like to learn more about comic book characters, histories and the like there are several good KZbin channels. I like Comics Eplained and Blers without Fear. Alternative Factuals and The New Sage are good too.

[@abraxas3266]

I only found out about Shang Chi after searching for the eternals trailer, needless to say it's now one of my favourite Marvel films

[@alicia379]

Wait-what?! I’ve seen tons of promo for it forevvvver. I had no clue not everyone else was also seeing it. I don’t even watch tv, so I don’t see regular commercials, and I still saw lots of promo. Crazy.

[@shadyjoanneboots]

Despite the unfortunate pronunciation mistake that was lowkey painful to hear, I completely agree with you

[@FaeQueenCory]

I'm gonna expand on the racism line: I think the lack of promotion was because they were having issues with cutting ads for it that weren't racist/appealing to racists. As an example of what I mean: Netflix's first trailer for Q-Force.... Which was a choice. And it wasn't representative of the finished product. So I suspect that there might have been a similar issue here, especially given the character's history. (And the fact that the trailers we eventually got marketed with were very lackluster and didn't show much of the movie beyond "Simu Liu does kung fu".)

[@joejoejoe532]

You might be right. East Asian characters doing kung-fu is indeed a trope at this point, even though we generally love it (see Rush Hour, Romeo Must Die, Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon, KungFu Hustle, etc.). However, showing the deeper family dynamics at play in a trailer would risk simultaneously give away too much. So we are in a rock and a hard place: the spectacle of kung fu is eminently marketable but can be seen as a tired trope and can be seen by some as reinforcing stereotypes and shallow. The meat of the story, which is the dynamic of Wenwu, Shang-Chi, and Xialing, is too good to give away in a trailer.

[@inotaishu1]

I suggest that several reasons contributed to the lack of marketing and racism is non of them. For one thing, the people at Marvel/Disney knew that there would be no release in China (which btw. in my mind has nothing to do with the movie but rather the rise in Chinese nationalism and CCP isolationism), potentially the ScarJo case had an influence but who knows, but what definitely had an influence was the movie Eternals. I suggest that people knew that Marvel had a stinker on their hand with this one, so they decided to put more marketing into the film they considered needing it more. In part Shang-Chi had managed to get people in theaters on its own, especiall after the second trailer arrived.

[@maddie9789]

yeah i didn’t see much promotion of it either. but i feel like the most plausible reason is that disney had 2 movies coming at very similar times (black widow and shang-chi) and they predicted that black widow was more likely to bring in more money for a couple reasons (she’s a fan favourite, an already known and loved character etc) so chose to spend the majority of money on promotion of black widow

[@whatthehellisthis]

nextshark promoted it more than disney did

[@jam33033]

In June Simu Liu was very vocal about representation and the treatment of asian actors and characters in Kim's Convenience, this is (very) tinfoil hat conspiracy theory but I wonder if that had anything to do with the lack of promo

[@krysisstorm2703]

I saw plenty of Shang-Chi promotion, but then again I religiously follow all MCU news and KZbin channels. I've been doing this for the MCUs entire existence. So I know about Shang-Chi since D23 in 2019.

[@Mari-od1ir]

I wish you queen. Hope you’re doing good🥺🫶

[@LauraHernandez-zr5hd]

Editing Ada coming in to correct herself I’m dying!! Seriously tho i love Simu Liu and Awkwafina and when he was announced to play the character I was following Shang-Chi news. I would agree tho I feel like heavy promotion came from Simu, Awkwafina, and Michelle Yeoh the actors and not so much the Disney machine. At least, compared to other marvel movies that get so much press. But loved the movie and def recommend everyone go see it!!

[@bigheadrhino]

Haha, the misprununciation actually supports the argument that the film was underpromoted.

[@carliscomedic4680]

I saw one shang chi add and I had no idea what it was before that

[@AdaOnDemand]

Yeah I barely saw any on KZbin or anywhere else! It was so weird :(

[@karahedge7360]

If I remember correctly Black Widow was meant to be released before covid hit. I wonder if they ramped up the advertising for it because of the original delay? Not sure.

[@nonamforu1898]

I live in Colorado and (as someone who doesn't really watch Marvel movies/movies in general that much) I've seen 0 ads for Black Widow and dozens of short KZbin ads for Shang-Chi. I was even tired of seeing them at one point because of how many there were, so it was a little surprising to hear this. Not entirely sure if that's because of coincidence or if I'm just too focused on reading webcomics all day to notice what's going on or what. I'm glad I know more about it in detail though, I think I might have to give it a shot now. Thanks for the awesome vid, as always ❤️

[@lotusthemermaid]

The MCU *started* with a previously unknown character: Iron Man. That's basically their specialty. These arguments don't hold water.

[@iamjackscompletelackofsurp5858]

They weren't expecting it to be as massive a hit as it was plus they didn't have a huge budget to recoup.

[@lotusthemermaid]

@@iamjackscompletelackofsurp5858 Yeah, but we're not talking about Iron Man. We're talking about Shang-Chi and using Iron Man as just one example as to why Marvel absolutely knew this movie should be successful and should have given it just as much hype as any of their other films. Guardians of the Galaxy was the example used in this video and their ads were absolutely everywhere for every film. Those characters were complete unknowns, but Marvel gave them a chance. Why haven't they done that for Shang-Chi?

[@iamjackscompletelackofsurp5858]

@@lotusthemermaid you were talking about Iron Man so why even bring it up? Iron Man was a poor example because they never expected it to be as big a hit as it was and the movies success was in large part due to RDJ giving a great performance. Guardians is a closer example but it too also had star name notoriety to help promote those movies versus Shang-Chi who is not only a lesser known character but is being played by a lesser known actor as well. You're framing this argument from a perspective based on the MCU as it is now versus its status in its early days.

[@lotusthemermaid]

@@iamjackscompletelackofsurp5858 They didn't just forget what a huge hit Iron Man became. 😂 That should have informed their decision, and I'm sure they took into consideration what a huge success literally every single movie with the Marvel name ends up becoming. What argument do you think I'm trying to make?

[@ShanyShannon]

I knew of the film because I love the MCU and I love learning about characters from the comics in video breakdowns. I'll have to come back after I watch the film. I haven't been to a movie theater in a very long time.

[@AdaOnDemand]

It's a great one!! I also don't extensively talk about the movie in this video though, so don't worry about spoilers! Going back to the theater was also super weird for me the first time

[@BeccaAl]

I only knew bc I was a fan of Kim’s convenience and followed the actor. I can’t risk the cinema tho atm, so will have to wait. I’m well out the demographic anyway! Glad it’s successful tho, more films with more diverse representation 🤞🏼

[@fm-gm6hv]

ADAAA my schools wifi won't let me watch IM CRYING

[@ryotoutsukai7605]

I got some huge hype when I went to see a quiet place 2 for shang chi and I feel I'd seen ads for it a few times but the prolific-ness of it doesn't rival anywhere near a lot of their other movies. It's been at the forefront of my mind this entire month but that's more because I've been hyping myself up. :/

[@YellowGiraffeGal]

This is again just anecdotal, BUT In terms of Marvel as a brand, while Shang Chi was waiting for release there was another parallel thing going on, and that is the ScarJo suing Disney over Black Widow's lackluster box office numbers. Many are saying that this might have something to do with the lack of promo Shang Chi was getting. The theory goes: - ScarJo claims Black Widow movie under performed, because Marvel put the movie on Streaming as well as in theaters at the same time. - so Marvel decides to release Shang Chi in theaters only - Marvel gives close to no promotion to SC - SC has acceptable box office, but does not break the bank - without promotion, SC had roughly the same numbers as Black W did if you add up streaming + box office numbers. It was speculated before the movie came out that Marvel has to let SC take a hit to stop ScarJo from being able to use SC numbers as argument in her lawsuit. If ScarJo would win this lawsuit, it would have insane consequences in terms of other streaming+theater release movies as well, giving precedent for Emily Blunt, the Rock, the talent involved with Mulan, etc a possible attack point to get more money. So, essentially, Mavel now could be like "see ScarJo? SC got theater only release, and it didn't perform a lot better than your movie"

[@lolol8552]

I thought the mispronunciation was gonna be a long a like shAng and then when you hit the KAI I was like whuaaaaa!??!!😂

[@Grace_0128]

dang that's actually so weird they wouldn't promote Shang chi more... I guess It's cause I'm very familair with the actor and anything that starts happening within the asian community that it was always pretty hyped I guess? but I'm glad the film was able to beat out expectations. Ngl I didn't fully forgive disney about what they did to mulan live action so when I first heard of shang chi I got worried again since its the first chinese super hero being introduced into the marvel films and I couldn't imgaine any other actor, simu is a really hard worker. I was hoping especially with promotions he'd appear on more talk shows I've only seen him appear in jimmy kimmel and maybe a couple other videos but yeah hope that people will continue to enjoy the film. There were also many great and legendary actors and actresses present like Michelle Yeoh, Tony Leung, and Yuen Wah!

[@catherinemarchelli9076]

ngl i love this movie so much. i love how the characters are written, the lore, the EVERYTHING!!! the lack of promo was so weird and now i feel icky when i see how much marvel and disney are promoting the new spiderman movie.

[@KARINEMOOSE]

Hey Ada! Loved the video! About the pronunciation thing, I’m in bioinformatics and we use something called “chi-squared statistical tests” and chi is pronounced “Kai” in that context, kind of like how you pronounced it in the video. So I don’t think it’s totally crazy that you went for that variation! I love your heart for representing everyone with respect. Keep making amazing videos, thanks for all the hard work you put into them!

[@dgtor_official]

I agree with you here, Disney most likely thought saying "diversity" into the void counted s actual PR instead of putting actual effort into creating better buzz. Like if they put in more effort, it would probably triple the film's profit. Still can't wait to see it though! And Simu Liu is a real G carrying this project on his back.

[@waynerobit5778]

It’s okay, mispronunciation happen. Happy that you addressed it and know better for next time.

[@AdaOnDemand]

Thank you for understanding! I still have no clue how I managed to mess it up but hope it wasn't too distracting during the video! ❤️

[@jolarini]

woah, i heard the spotify shang-chi promo dozens of times each hour while listening without premium, im not a marvel fan but for once i actually knew about this release and was surprised to come into this video hearing the opposite??? i didnt look into it or anything so i had just assumed it was getting the same amount of promotion with all those spotify ads.. i can practically recite the audio they used in my head LOL

[@iamjackscompletelackofsurp5858]

It seems some of us managed to get all the advertising spots while others got none lol. I saw a good bit of advertising for this movie both online and offline.

[@spideysnooch]

Not the pterodactyl!! 🤣🤣♥️♥️ Congratulations on the 100k subscribers.

[@samash7302]

Gotta love the person who leaked Simu’s iStock photo modeling past lmao…That helped a lot too 😂🤣

[@RandomJtv]

The lack of promo for Shang-Kai was GLARING. Especially considering that it came off of the back of a film and a bunch of Disney+ shows which were promoted EVERYWHERE. Bitch. I could not go outside ONCE without seeing a Black Widow poster. Could not go on Instagram without seeing a Marvel post on Loki and What If...?. But Shang-Chi 'bout to drop and it's Jiminy Crickets?! If Marvel Studios could support Asian actress Scarlett Johansson's movie, they could and should have supported Simu Liu, who seemed to be carrying all of the Shang-Chi promo on his back. If anything, you'd think the Black Widow lawsuit and how that film got DRAGGED would have forced Marvel to over market Shang-Kai to try and plaster over it. And as for Black Panther. Nah, Disney / Marvel pushed THE HELL out of that film. It was everywhere. That cast was on every talk show, in every country doing the most. Black Twitter word of mouth definitely did a lot for that film. But Disney / Marvel pumped hella money into that marketing and making sure everybody knew that shit was dropping.

[@mayday4495]

this is such a well-informed and researched video i love it!!! i'm so glad you brought up guardians of the galaxy because oh my goodness, no one cared about the tree and the raccoon until marvel literally made them integral to the MCU and made sure people knew about them. i really loved shang chi and it's probably one of my favourite MCU movies, it's so good and beautifully made, but yeah the marketing was definitely lacklustre. black widow was inescapable and so was what if (which i ended up not watching bc the marketing was straight up annoying) and a lot of people pointed out that dropping the spiderman: no way home trailer in the same week as shang chi drew attention away from it. but luckily the movie doesn't seem to have been too affected by it because pretty much everyone agreed it was an amazing film and it was successful at the box office. one thing that a lot of people including simu liu mentioned was that unlike black widow, shang chi was exclusively in theatres and the CEO of disney said something like 'it was an experiment' to see how well it did. now the disney plus thing is shady as we know in terms of scarlett johansson not getting paid etc. but it did feel like in not putting it on disney plus as well, during a pandemic when a lot of people couldn't go to theatres (me included as my home city of auckland was in lockdown when shang chi released) marvel didn't care as much to ensure that everyone watched shang chi as they did with black widow. but even with whatever was going on behind the scenes, the film did so well anyway which is amazing!! as it deserves to, literally one of the best films of 2021

[@Leo-hk9fz]

Omg this is so weird tho. Shang Chi got SO many clips tho? The reason why Black Widow seems to have more promo was 1. bc it was their big return to the theaters (which failed) and 2 BW promo campaign had already finished so we had already seen a HUGE part

[@AshTanya]

Take a shot every time she says shang kai

[@macgirl1234]

The lack of promotion! I knew and heard NOTHING about this movie. Then suddenly it was in theatres.i thought I just missed everything. I feel better I'm not alone in this 😂

[@shreyalove715]

we missed you kween

[@AdaOnDemand]

Missed you too!! Finally got an editor so I’ll hopefully be able to post weekly now ❤️

[@shreyalove715]

@@AdaOnDemand yaaaaaaaaaaaaay my school year just became instantly better :D

[@obsidianromance34]

For me, I saw a poster and heard a couple of ads on my city’s R&B radio station. This is coming from after it was released. I saw no ads from KZbin.

[@Arosukir6]

Might wanna change that thumbnail, Ada. The red on the bottom makes it looks like the progress bar is at the end. Scrolling through my subscription feed and thought for a moment that I'd already seen this!

[@SweetyBean]

Me myself I saw advertisement for Shang Chi movie EVERYDAY. I live in DC so I saw it on the benches, Train station ad Screens, Instagram, Snapchat filters. I saw it everywhere. I already know of the main actor (Simu Liu) cus he plays in my favorite tv show (Kim’s Convenience; Good Show watch on Netflix btw) so I took it as the world tryna force me to support his other ventures 🤣

[@CaraRowen]

As a comic fan this video gives me life, even with the mispronounciation. I always avoided the solo Shang Chi runs but with the revitalization of marvel comics with writers of diverse backgrounds being allowed more freedom I was kind of excited for what this might mean for the ten rings saga. Also having the Mandarin not be a crusty Ben Kingsley because that was a really unnecessary choice for iron man 3, even if he was a red herring.

[@CaraRowen]

Also guardians did in fact already have a large fanbase as the starlord comics have being fairly consistent long before the movie came out.

[@mackeym10]

The problem with this is Disney doesn’t know what they’re doing really. Marvel does.But we can even see with the whole entire problem with Scarlett Johansson. Disney and marvel do not agree with how they should even pay their Actress.

[@DutchSimmer1]

I love your edit add the beginning. Thanks for learning about the pronunciation and everyone can make a mistake like you did and that’s no problem. You acknowledged it and genuinely showed concern about it. Many social media people wouldn’t do this, or at the very least do it in a non genuine way. Also, congratz on hitting 100k I only noticed it right now!!

[@mbanerjee5889]

I don't think Disney expected the movie to fail, I think they didn't expect it to be as big as a success it was. My guess is that they didn't want a repeat of Mulan which was meant to be a major release and it flopped hard. They didn't want to promote it as "Asian" in case there was backlash for it. But now that it's a hit they have no problem bragging about it.

[@danicleckley5404]

I just feel that Marvel replaced the textbook black friend with Awkwafina.

[@lgarza9640]

I did get SOME ads for Shang Chi but it was not as much as I have gotten for What If, Black Widow, Loki, and especially Eternals. That is weird especially because I am an avid watcher of marvel content. I watch breakdowns, comics explained, and even the trailer breakdown and theories too. So even I was surprised by the lack of advertisements I got. I was especially excited to see this movie because it is an Asian driven marvel movie, which was truly amazing!!! It deserves more recognition and advertisements for such a beautiful and amazing movie ✨

[@CozieGhosty]

I'm not gonna lie, I knew about the movie because I love Awkwafina and because it was released the day after my birthday. Not from traditional promotion.

[@AdaOnDemand]

Yeah casting Awkwafina created a lot of buzz for it but not much outside of that :( It was sad to see

[@lotusthemermaid]

My only guess is that *maybe* they put all of their promotional budget toward marketing the film to China because of what a huge cash cow that is if it's even permitted to release over there. They only allow a few foreign films to release there per year.

[@burbujas4448]

Black widow was easily forgettable but Shang Chi was AMAZING

[@VenusAD]

I saw a ton of promotion, but I'm also a regular watcher of Korean/Chinese/Taiwanese/Thai shows and movies and I frequently shared ads for the movie when I saw them. I'm not saying the hype wasn't lacking, but I do think it's hard to fully judge it when nothing is normal right now and the majority of advertisements we see are based on our own browsing history and other activity online. That being said, the advertisers set those parameters and I think it's obvious Disney didn't want to bank on this movie doing well, so they likely concentrated on more of a niche audience (e.g. people who are more likely to watch and appreciate Asian actors and culture) they'd be more likely to bring in. Which, of course, is not cool, but par for the course.

[@angels.digitaldiary]

same in SA, I only knew about it last week and the way I was so geeked!! but I didn't realise that it had BEEN done

[@AdaOnDemand]

That's insane! And such a shame since the movie was so good 😭

[@emilywumbozeko]

I didn’t know about this movie until I saw red carpet pics from the premiere

[@aliceliu9338]

In my experience, I didn't even see one advertisement for this movie. In fact, I discovered it from my sister, after 2 days of it playing in the theaters

[@gabriellebrown8767]

Great video! I really really enjoyed Shang-Chi and thought it was a unique departure from the typical Marvel movie script. That being said maybe it depends on who you are as a consumer? I have been inundated with advertisement for this movie here on KZbin and especially on IG. I enjoyed this media analysis, maybe do more videos like this (no need to be Marvel films) in the future!

[@BlueBeetle1939]

Bro idk how you made it through the editing process this is so frustrating I would have dubbed over myself for every flub

[@AdaOnDemand]

I tried dubbing over all of them but the dubbing was so distracting and distracted the viewers I send to test the final product. So we just agreed to take it out 😭

[@BlueBeetle1939]

@@AdaOnDemand I just commented this somewhere else but it's kind of proof of your point that you didn't hear the name pronounced out loud enough to drill it into your head like they do everything else

[@AdaOnDemand]

That’s true!! I rarely saw ads for it so I had only heard Shang-Chi a few times, especially since even in the movie he gets by Shawn for most of it. It’s still ultimately my fault though since I should have nailed the pronunciation before recording!! So thank you for putting up with me ❤️😂

[@sseraphim2818]

This comment is so shady.

[@KUROFEYMURPHY]

The same thing is happening to eternals where there has not been promoted as much as it should too.

[@lustforlimerence]

i do wish there were more promotional material for eternals because it’s a huge diverse ensemble cast, but there’s also a lot of big names attached. angelina jolie, salma hayek, richard madden just to name a few. they also have oscar winning director chloe zhao. only time will tell if eternals has a significantly lower marketing budget, but from where i’m standing, marvel banking on name recognition might work out for them.

[@obsidianromance34]

I heard a lot of people online say it was boring from the first teaser. Disney is probably predicting that it’s gonna be a flop from this.

[@apoptosisduellinks109]

Nothing wrong with a history lesson, and nothing wrong with promoting a movie. I live in the Netherlands and I did not know of this movie when it came out. Thanks for sharing the story

[@Thesilentvoice...]

I’m just salty they cut out Jackson wangs song for Shang-Chi, since he’s popular in China it would have gotten a lot of promo. Plus he has international fans and Korean fans too. I also haven’t seen much promotion for it either at ALL, while Spider-Man is getting hyped and the eternals. Shang-Chi is really good as well it deserves hype.

[@VenusAD]

yeah, same, but I'm never sure when that happens with a citizen of China. The government pulls stuff for weird reasons too. Remember his song Lifted just got straight up canceled for content?

[@organicstorm]

Interesting.. I'm not located in the US, so my experience could be different due to a multitude of reasons, but I got even more ads for Shang-Chi than for Black Widow, to the point it felt like literally every vide I clicked on on YT was prefaced by a Shang-Chi ad, which was slightly hilarious because I couldn't even legally watch it where I'm at .. 🤣

[@destinidavis7438]

I saw a preview for it at the movie theaters.

[@Lina-hi5ji]

The future is looking brighter with Ada !

[@Rudolph386]

At least personally, I saw lots of trailers for Shang Chi before it came out, and knew it was coming out well in advance

[@iamjackscompletelackofsurp5858]

Yeah I was well aware all year long about this release.

[@jamessantillanes]

So I don't have any facts to post but from what it seems is since Marvel's releases got squished together (Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Spider-Man 3, and Eternals) they didn't really want overlap of promotion. We didn't get a full length Shang-Chi trailer until Black Widow dropped and we just barely got a full Spider-Man trailer and the movie comes out in December. Eternals also released their final trailer right before Shang-Chi released. I think Black Widow's marketing just seems more aggressive in comparison because it was the MCU's feature length return. You could also argue that BW had a higher budget simply due to it being a solo film of one of the core Avengers.

[@keithkoganeislife3144]

I heard one of the reasons that Disney wasn’t doing much promotion for the movie was because that there were rumours at the time of the Chinese government banning the movie, mainly for one reason. Several years ago Simu Liu did an interview with CBC and he talked about his parents being immigrants. As well as the stories they told him of how the Chinese government mistreats its people. The CCP of course not only bans anti-China material from the movies they allow into the country, but also actors that have publicly made comments against the CCP that are negative. Because the CCP see themselves and the realm of China as one in the same, to them insulting the government is like insulting the country and people, therefore making you anti-China in their eyes.

[@csavage00]

congratulations on 100K! 🥳 you have one of the most thought-provoking and well-researched channels on this platform. it is an honour to watch your incredible videos, Ada! 💜

[@SunlightHugger]

I had no ads at all. But once I sae the reviews on Tumblr, I was like "ah, yiss" and went to see it. Also, my parents mispronounce the name as "Sheng Chai", and it cracks me up.

[@stevie6421]

i go to the movie theater often and almost every movie i saw around the time the movie came had shang-chi ads in the beginning. otherwise i didn't see ads anywhere else.

[@bushdenae]

I didn’t even think about the Scarlett Johansson lawsuit but I could totally see that being a factor and if it was I’m happy they failed because box office numbers don’t fail and I think they owe her in that situation

[@Queen_Nyxie]

The only reason I even heard of Sang-Chi is because so many artists from 88 Rising are on the soundtrack and ended up dropping lyric/visualizer videos on their KZbin channel. I was so surprised to find the movie was already out rather than that being the first rollout of the advertisement campaign.