• Tony Leung revealed he argued with director Destin Daniel Cretton over Wenwu’s fighting style on the Shang-Chi set.
• Leung wanted his 1,000-year-old character to use a combination of martial arts styles — like MMA — rather than traditional ’70s-style kung fu.
• Cretton’s response shut it down immediately: “This is Marvel.”
• Leung also opened up about the emotional core of Wenwu, rooted in grief and his character’s complicated love for his children.
• Shang-Chi director Cretton has since moved on to helm Spider-Man: Brand New Day for Marvel.

Tony Leung has a note for Marvel. They just didn’t take it.

The legendary Hong Kong actor, who played Xu Wenwu — the 1,000-year-old leader of the Ten Rings organization — in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, is opening up about a creative disagreement he had on set that ended about as quickly as it started. Speaking to Vulture, Leung recalled pushing back against the film’s fight choreography, only to receive a three-word response from director Destin Daniel Cretton that made clear there was no room for debate.

“At the very beginning, I argued with the director: ‘If a guy comes from 1,000 years ago, the way he fights must be a combination of all martial arts, like MMA today, because he lived through all that time,'” Leung said. “And the director said no. I said, ‘Why not? Why just typical kung fu in the ’70s?’ He said, ‘This is Marvel.’ I said, ‘Okay,’ and I didn’t argue anymore.”

It’s a fair point, honestly. A warrior who has been alive for a millennium, amassing power and influence across continents and centuries, would logically have picked up a few more tricks than what you’d see in a Bruce Lee film. But Marvel had its vision, and that was that.

A Very Different Kind of Film Set

For Leung — an Oscar-nominated icon whose career spans decades of acclaimed Hong Kong cinema — stepping into the Marvel machine was a culture shock in the best and most bureaucratic sense. “The production was much bigger than what I had experienced before, and the people were very professional, and we had to finish everything on time every day,” he said. “It’s very efficient, but you can’t improvise. You can’t even change a word.”

That’s a significant adjustment for an actor with Leung’s pedigree. He’s built a career on nuance, instinct, and collaborating with directors who prize personal vision above all else. “To me, the script is not important. The director is more interesting,” he said, describing his broader philosophy on filmmaking. He trusts directors over pages — which may be exactly why, once Cretton made his position clear, Leung let it go.

Even so, the fight choreography note wasn’t the only thing Leung brought to the role. Despite his frustration with how Wenwu moved, what he gave the character emotionally is what made the performance land.

The Question That Unlocked Wenwu

Despite the creative friction, Leung found genuine depth in playing Wenwu — not as a villain in the conventional sense, but as a man consumed by grief. The character’s menace, it turns out, was always secondary to his heartbreak.

Leung recalled a moment on set that crystallized everything. “I remember one day the director suddenly asked me a question when I just passed by: ‘Do you love your kids?'” he said. “I said, ‘Yes, but I don’t know how.’ So that’s the relationship between me and my kids in the film. Because I immersed myself with the death of my wife.”

“I don’t care about any other thing,” he added. “So maybe that brings the romance of that character. He is always living in the past.”

That answer — “yes, but I don’t know how” — is quietly devastating, and it’s exactly what you feel watching Wenwu on screen. He’s not a man without love. He’s a man who has forgotten how to give it.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings grossed $432.2 million worldwide in 2021, an impressive number considering theaters were still finding their footing post-pandemic. The film’s fight sequences were widely praised, even if they didn’t quite match Leung’s original vision for the character.

As for what’s next: Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi is confirmed to appear in Avengers: Doomsday, and Liu has publicly insisted a full sequel will happen — though Marvel hasn’t made anything official. Wenwu, meanwhile, has shown up in the animated series What If? and Marvel Zombies, voiced by a different actor. There’s no indication Leung will reprise the role anytime soon.

Cretton, for his part, has moved well within the Marvel system since — he’s now directing Spider-Man: Brand New Day and co-created the Disney+ series Wonder Man. Apparently “this is Marvel” works as both an explanation and a career path.

The post Tony Leung Argued With Shang-Chi Director Over Fight Style appeared first on Cream.

• Sony and Marvel released a new behind-the-scenes teaser for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, showing off practical stunt work filmed in London and Edinburgh
• Tom Holland says the film has “the best action we’ve had in any of these movies,” with more on-camera stunts than any previous Marvel production
• Director Destin Daniel Cretton confirms the tank sequence — first seen in set photos — is the movie’s opening action scene
• Early test screening reactions are calling it the best Spider-Man film ever made
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits theaters July 31, 2026

Two months out from its July 31 release, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is already making some very big promises — and early signs suggest it might actually keep them.

Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios dropped a new behind-the-scenes featurette this week, titled “Practical Production,” giving fans their best look yet at the real, on-location stunt work that forms the backbone of the MCU’s fourth solo Spider-Man film. Tom Holland and director Destin Daniel Cretton both appear in the clip, talking up what sounds like the most physically ambitious Spidey movie to date.

“This is some of the best action that we’ve had in any of these movies,” Holland says in the video. “We’ve shot the most stunts on the day in camera. Putting Spider-Man on the street with cars exploding. It’s just so awesome. It’s going to allow the audience to be part of the experience.”

That’s a bold statement from a guy who’s already swung through two MCU trilogies and a multiverse event — but watching the footage, it’s hard to argue. The teaser shows real web-swinging through city streets, practical effects, and what looks like full-scale chaos with actual vehicles. No volume stage, no green screen safety net. Just Spidey on the ground, in the mix.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6GW4JPeqm3s%3Fsi%3DK9YW-0qtTaFwaByF

The Opening Scene That Stopped Traffic in Edinburgh

Cretton, who previously delivered some of Marvel’s most inventive action sequences with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, revealed that the sequence featured in the teaser — the now-famous tank scene that drew massive crowds when it filmed on location in Edinburgh, Scotland, dressed up as New York — is actually the film’s opening action set piece. He described it as “exhilarating” to shoot, and noted it was the very first thing they filmed for the movie.

“One of the results of that was that we were seeing thousands of people showing up to watch us work,” Cretton said. “It was a really lovely reminder to us how much this movie means to a lot of people in the world.”

Eagle-eyed fans watching the featurette closely will also catch something interesting: at one point, Peter is seen wearing a puffer vest jacket and hat over his suit — a cold-weather disguise that looks remarkably similar to what Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man wore in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Whether it’s a deliberate nod or a happy coincidence, it’s the kind of detail that’s going to send corners of the internet into a spiral for the next few weeks.

Also worth noting: new Halloween costume merchandise from Rubies has given fans a surprisingly detailed look at Peter’s new web-shooters for the film. They’re clunky, homemade, and a far cry from the Stark Industries tech he’s used before — which lines up with the movie’s premise of a Peter Parker who is fully on his own, with no Tony Stark safety net. The official plot description confirms that Peter undergoes some kind of unexpected “physical evolution” during the film, and the web-shooters appear to be edited out of several scenes in the existing trailer, suggesting they won’t be around for long before something bigger takes over.

A Fresh Poster and a Story That Starts From Zero

Alongside the featurette, Sony also unveiled a new poster — easily the closest look we’ve gotten at Holland’s suit in the film. It’s a clean, striking design: the bottom half of his face visible beneath the mask, the suit dominating the frame. Simple, but it hits. The accompanying tagline says everything about where this story is headed: “The world has forgotten Peter Parker, but he hasn’t forgotten them.”

Set four years after the events of No Way Home, Brand New Day finds Peter living completely alone, having erased himself from the memories of everyone he loves — including Zendaya’s MJ and Jacob Batalon’s Ned. He’s a full-time Spider-Man now, protecting a city that doesn’t know his name. Holland has spoken about how much that emotional reality drives the story.

“I think what Peter Parker is going through post-Spider-Man: No Way Home is really profound and unique to the superhero genre,” Holland previously said. “The thing I’m most excited about with Brand New Day is I think more so than any of our previous movies, New York is really a key character in the fabric of this movie.”

He’s also described the film as being about “finding their identity and becoming adults” — and for Peter specifically, that means “learning to really find an identity” while dealing with a physical change that threatens his existence and a wave of crime that brings some genuinely dangerous new threats to his doorstep.

A Stacked Cast and Some Very Intriguing Additions

The film brings back Holland, Zendaya, and Batalon, and adds a lineup that reads like a street-level MCU dream team. Michael Mando returns as Scorpion, Marvin Jones III plays Tombstone, and Mark Ruffalo is in as Bruce Banner — with promo art already showing the Hulk alongside Spider-Man, suggesting Banner won’t just be sitting this one out. Tramell Tillman plays Department of Damage Control boss Bill Metzger, setting up what sounds like an institutional antagonist alongside the physical threats.

Jon Bernthal is back as Frank Castle, and the recently released Disney+ short film The Punisher: One Last Kill does important work resetting Frank’s status quo ahead of his appearance here. In that special, Frank wrestles with whether to hang up the skull after completing his revenge mission, ultimately recommitting to being a street-level protector. Bernthal has talked about the challenge of bridging the tonal gap between the two projects. “With Spider-Man, I think what was most important — because, obviously, tonally it’s different and such an honor to be a part of it, especially with my dear friend Tom Holland — it was important to us that one Punisher could walk off one set and walk onto the other,” he said.

And then there’s Sadie Sink, whose role remains officially undisclosed but has become one of the most discussed mysteries in Marvel fandom right now. Many believe she’s playing Jean Grey — a mutant fugitive with telekinetic powers — and there’s a rumor circulating that Bernthal’s Punisher may be acting as her protector in the film, a dynamic that would make a lot of sense given what One Last Kill established about Frank’s instinct to shield people who remind him of his daughter.

The Test Screening Buzz Is Extremely Loud

Cretton confirmed that test screenings have already taken place, and that he was very pleased with how audiences responded. But the reactions going around are something beyond diplomatic studio-speak.

Insider John Campea reported that the responses were “beyond excellent” and better than the studio had hoped for. Scooper MTTSH went further, sharing that people who attended are calling Brand New Day “the greatest Spider-Man movie” yet. Test screening hyperbole is real, and a self-selected audience is not general audiences — but it’s worth pointing out that early test screening reports are often mixed, so uniformly glowing reactions do mean something.

Rumblings are also growing that a full new trailer is imminent, possibly attached to The Mandalorian and Grogu when it opens next weekend. Given that the first Brand New Day trailer broke records for trailer viewership when it dropped in March, the appetite for more footage is clearly not going anywhere.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. It opens July 31, 2026.

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