Marvel Studios' Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has been controversial subject in China, for a number of reasons. Adding to that list is an old interview in which star Simu Liu touched on his family's story and the part of Chinese history that caused them to immigrate to Canada.
Screenshots from an interview clip featuring Liu from CBC's "What's Your Story?" series was posted by Diba, an online forum for Chinese nationalists, on Chinese social networking app Weibo. Liu's comments are visible in the subtitles of the images and sparked over a thousand heated responses. In the interview, which was filmed in 2017, Liu explained how his parents would tell him stories about "growing up in communist China." He discussed his family's history and described China as part of the "third world," in which people were "dying of starvation." Wanting to live a "free life," Liu's parents emigrated from China and moved to Canada.
The collection of screenshots from the interview has drawn over 1,600 responses on Weibo, with many criticizing Liu's choice to become an actor and represent Chinese people, or his family's decision to move from China. On the gentler end of the spectrum, commenters dismissed Liu for being a foreigner, owing to his owning a Canadian passport. CBC has removed Simu Liu's 2017 interview from its website.
Simu Liu was born in Harbin, China, and immigrated to Canada at the age of five after being raised by his grandparents until he was four years old. It is important to note that many Chinese families that emigrated from China did so in order to escape communist rule and the results of Maoist ideology.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been the ruling party in China since 1949. Led by Mao Zedong until 1976, China underwent what was referred to as the "Cultural Revolution," which was a socio-political movement comprised of various policies intended to firmly establish Maoism as the ruling ideology. Due to a series of failed schemes, Communist China's saw the death of up to 20 million people. Additionally, the CCP implemented harsh punishments to purge anti-communist ideals, including public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, hard labor, seizure of property and execution. These ultimately led to many Chinese citizens fleeing to places such as neighboring Hong Kong (which was a British colony at the time), Taiwan, Canada, the U.S and others.
Liu stars in Marvel Studios' Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Playing exclusively in theaters now.
Source: Taiwan News