TV-MOVIES
Fans React to Simu Liu's Critique About Moon Knight's Arthur Harrow
By MELISSA LEMIEUX
On April 9, 2022, actor Simu Liu, who plays Shang-Chi in the MCU and speaks Mandarin Chinese, made an open comment about the show's use of the language on Twitter. "Alright Arthur Harrow needs to fire his Mandarin teacher," the actor wrote, referring to Ethan Hawke's character.
Several fans on Twitter were also disappointed by the episode's lack of linguistic accuracy and stated Hawke’s attempt at Mandarin sounded like gibberish. The scene in question, when watched with English closed captioning, the captions simply read "speaking Mandarin" as Hawke speaks, instead of any discernible terms in either Chinese or English.
Other viewers looked for reasons why the scene may have played out the way it did. At least one fan posited that Harrow might have intentionally spoken an incorrect or even intentionally made-up dialect to confuse Steven Grant and better suit his personal purposes.
One watcher suggested the way the scene used language could have summarily been an in-joke between Harrow and his friend. "[They've] created an insular community and are trying to learn other languages without tutors or native speakers. If you can actually tell it's nonsense, that means you're in on the joke."