Chinese Connection For "Iron Man 3"

Sneak Peek director Shane Black's Marvel Studios' 3D feature, "Iron Man 3", that filmed exterior sequences on location in Beijing, China.

Chinese actor Wang Xuequi plays the new character 'Dr. Wu'. 

Cast of "Iron Man 3", based on the Marvel Comics characters include Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Jon Favreau, Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, James Badge Dale, Ashley Hamilton and Rebecca Hall.

Screenplay is by Black and Drew Pearce.

"Iron Man 3" will be released in both North America and China, May 3, 2013.

Distribution is by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in all territories worldwide except China, where the film will be distributed by DMG Entertainment and in Germany and Austria by the Tele München Group.

The comic book origins of Marvel Comics' super-villain, 'The Mandarin', played in the new film by actor Ben Kingsley, with his ten alien rings, has his roots in Chinese culture.

"...brash-but-brilliant industrialist 'Tony Stark'/'Iron Man' comes up against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds.

"When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible."

Marvel Comics' 'The Mandarin' debuted in "Tales of Suspense" #50 (February 1964), written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Don Heck.

"...the Mandarin's father was one of the wealthiest men in pre-revolutionary mainland China, as a descendant of 'Genghis Khan', while his mother was an English noblewoman. Their son was born in an unnamed village in mainland China before the Communist revolution.

"Both of the boy's parents died soon after his birth, and he was raised by his (paternal) aunt, who was embittered against the world and raised him with much the same attitude. The family fortune was spent obsessively training him in science and combat, until he was completely broke upon reaching adulthood. Unable to pay the taxes on his ancestral home, he was evicted.

"Hoping to find a means of avenging himself upon a society that had taxed him into becoming homeless,  the Mandarin explored the forbidden 'Valley of Spirits', where no one had dared to set foot for centuries.

"There he found the remains, in a crashed starship, of 'Axonn-Karr', a techno-advanced reptilian alien from the planet 'Maklu IV', who had come to Earth centuries ago. salvaging what he could from Axonn-Karr and the craft, he studied and mastered 'Makluan' science.

"He also learned how to use the ten rings he found within the starship which were apparently its propulsion source. He discovered that each ring had a special purpose, that would reveal more of itself over the years including a 'black light', a 'disintegrator' beam,'vortex' power, 'sonic' blast, poison gas, 'white' light, flame burst, electro-blast, mass hypnotizer and ice blast.  

"He subjugated all the villages around the Valley, and, through his advanced science, rapidly became a power that not even the Chinese Army could successfully challenge.

"He then embarked on a series of attempts to achieve world domination, with his alien-acquired technology the surest means to achieve his goals."

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