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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is all about Simu Liu's titular hero, but that doesn't mean some familiar faces don't pop up in the movie. In fact, there's quite a few fun cameos, ranging from the in-your-face obvious to the more hidden and unexpected.
And, as we've all come to expect from Marvel, there's also some key crossovers that are sure to set up plenty of stories in the future (one seems certain to be picked up in an upcoming Disney Plus show). Amid all the new characters being introduced to the MCU, some big name Avengers make appearances, and then there's a crucial Iron Man 3 character making a triumphant return, too…
From that underground fight club moment to the post-credits scenes, here's every single cameo you might have missed in Shang-Chi.
Spoiler warning! The following contains major plot points from Shang-Chi, so come back later if you haven’t seen the movie.
Every cameo in Shang-Chi
Wong
First introduced back in 2016’s Doctor Strange, Wong, along with another on this list, is a cameo that many saw coming – because it was spoiled in the early Shang-Chi trailers.
The first part of Wong’s appearance, then, is pretty much in line with what we expected: he’s taking part in an underground fight club in Macau. There, he fights (and defeats) a returning Abomination before taking him back through a portal in a later scene.
Wong returns during the movie’s ending and then again in the movie’s first post-credits scene. He appears – again, via portal – in a bar where Shang-Chi and Katy are talking to their old friends. The trio end up in the Sanctum Sanctorum and talk to Bruce Banner and Captain Marvel, who both appear via hologram. They all discuss the power of the Ten Rings, how the weapon far exceeds Wenwu’s life, and that it’s sending out a warning beacon or a message to an unknown party.
Abomination
Abomination (AKA Emil Blonsky) returns for the first time since The Incredible Hulk. It’s clear that the Super Soldier Serum has mutated him further – the Hulk’s nemesis has a completely new look. Tim Roth, though, helped reprise the role.
He’s beaten by Wong in the fighting arena after the sorcerer tricks Abomination into punching himself through a portal. He’s then seen icing a nasty-looking headache in the locker room, and then heads through a portal by Wong. Their destination is unknown – but Tim Roth is due to return as the character in She-Hulk on Disney Plus.
Helen, a Black Widow
Another character who appears in the fight club is Jade Xu's Helen, who was last seen in Black Widow. At the end of that movie, the Widows of the Red Room were freed from their mind control, and went off with Florence Pugh's Yelena, Rachel Weisz's Melina, and David Harbour's Red Guardian to destinations unknown.
Well, now we know at least one of them ended up in Macau. Helen makes short work of her opponent, which you can see in the clip above. She's still in her Widow gear, too.
Kevin Feige hinted we'd be seeing Helen return in Shang-Chi earlier this year, in a Black Widow Twitter Q&A session. "One of the Widows, Jade Xu, was born in China, and is a multiple World Wushu Champion," he wrote. "She may even have a brief cameo in a future Marvel movie…" There's no word yet on if we'll be seeing Helen again, though.
Man on the bus from Spider-Man: Homecoming
Hands up if you spotted this one. The man on the bus who causes Shang-Chi to go viral by filming his intense fight against Razorclaw and Wenwu’s goons actually has previous in the MCU.
Played by Zach Cherry, the man is also present in Spider-Man: Homecoming. There, he tells Spidey – perched on a rooftop – to "do a flip." Now, his morning commute has been ruined – but he’s seemingly become a magnet for superhero shenanigans in the MCU.
Extremis fighter
Another hard-to-spot cameo is that of an Extremis fighter in Macau’s fighting pits. You can see his orange glowing body while Shang-Chi is told he’s about to fight himself. Unfortunately, the Extremis fighter’s lumped in with the lower level of combatants so isn’t a mainline attraction. Still, he remains one of Shang-Chi’s two main ties to Iron Man 3.
In the threequel, Extremis was used to enhance amputees, to let them grow back limbs, as well as imbuing them with super-strength. It was a power hijacked by AIM founder Aldrich Killian for more nefarious purposes.
While most were destroyed by Tony Stark, some lived on – including in the Schrodinger’s Cat-like, not-quite-canon series Agents of SHIELD. There’s still some Extremis floating around in the MCU proper too, which is an interesting proposition.
Trevor Slattery (AKA ‘The Mandarin’)
During Shang-Chi and Katy’s attempts to escape Wenwu’s compound, they bump into Liverpudlian/toast of Croydon/the one-time ‘Mandarin’ himself, Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley). Here, he’s really playing up his Scouse heritage and has even made a friend: Morris, a creature with wings and no face.
Slattery explains that he was captured and due to be executed by Wenwu, but was instead employed as a jester for the Ten Rings. Slattery’s exploits as ‘The Mandarin’ in Iron Man 3 were also mentioned during Wenwu’s dinner with Shang-Chi – proving that the famed tyrant was always aware of how his reputation was dragged through the mud Stateside.
While we first saw Trevor in Iron Man 3, Kingsley also reprised the role in the One-Shot ‘All Hail the King’, a short film that saw the actor being abducted by the real Ten Rings. That minor film is now a key part of MCU history.
Bruce Banner
In the mid-credits scene, Bruce Banner shows up alongside Captain Marvel to talk over the Ten Rings with Wong, Shang-Chi, and Katy. When Captain Marvel is forced to leave the meeting, she says Bruce will give them her number – except he doesn’t have it. Awks.
Banner’s appearance here suggests this scene is taking place shortly after the events of Avengers: Endgame. His arm is still in a sling, though he has shed his Professor Hulk form. For now, he’s just plain old Bruce Banner. The Jade Giant is scheduled to next return in She-Hulk.
Captain Marvel
Sporting longer hair than she had in Endgame – suggesting maybe this is months, rather than weeks after the end-of-an-era movie – Captain Marvel appears via hologram during the mid-credits scene. Carol Danvers, though, has her mind elsewhere. She’s whisked away to deal with some other problem mid-conversation – and it could be a setup for whatever happens in The Marvels (AKA Captain Marvel 2).
There you have it. Every major cameo in Shang-Chi. For more from the movie, check out our in-depth explainers of the Shang-Chi post-credits scenes and the Shang-Chi ending.
