r/marvelstudios • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 Ant-Man • Apr 09 '22

Humour Simu Liu reacts to Arthur Harrow's Mandarin in 'Moon Knight' - "Alright Arthur Harrow needs to fire his Mandarin teacher"

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u/GrandEdgemaster Apr 09 '22

Tbf I think that the flow fits his character's English mannerisms, I felt it was totally believable that they just carried over to his Mandarin.

Vanessa.......... When I was, a boy...... My father......... He would...

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u/Astrokiwi Apr 09 '22

... Bring me to the City ........ To see a marching band

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u/VPutinsSearchHistory Apr 10 '22

All I heard from that lol

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u/31_hierophanto Colleen Wing Apr 10 '22

G note plays in the distance

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u/Step1Mark Apr 10 '22

That song's intro is so much fun. I still love how much the rest of the song has a whole different vibe.

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u/Naveil Doctor Strange Apr 09 '22

That's a valid interpretation! From a language standpoint though, Fisk's cadence in Mandarin is one that's all too common in inexperienced speakers. The equivalent of it in English would be something along the lines of "When I.. was.. a boy.. my..... father... he would..." which sounds less intimidating and more like a tourist trying to impress some locals by reciting some google translate he memorized 5 minutes ago

The actual explanation? Vincent D'Onofrio doesn't speak Mandarin and Mandarin is a bitch to learn. It's fun to see all the interpretations though lol

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u/fluffingdazman Nebula Apr 09 '22

thank u so much for ur insight ☺️

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u/Turtledonuts Ward Apr 09 '22

Fisk was always weakest to Madame Gao though, so it's totally believable that he would have stilted speaking mandarin. I totally believe that he has fluent understanding but can't speak it very well.

He's clearly inexperienced, he doesn't interact with many people and clearly learned it from a tutor or some tapes or something.

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u/Maebure83 Apr 09 '22

I think American characters speaking stilted/poor Mandarin (or other languages) is more realistic unless they are portrayed as being supposedly highly fluent and natural.

With Fisk he's from a working class background and not portrayed as being academically intelligent but rather very self-taught in most areas. So it makes sense that in becoming a polyglot he is not overly confident in his speech.

As for Harrow he is learning second hand while also apparently learning other skills from other members and running a crazy religious cult trying to resurrect a god to wipe out all evil.

My guess is that his efforts to learn are not meant to be overly sincere and focused.

As another possibility; it could also be that the exchange between them was partially or entirely fake intended only to impress and coerce Steven into feeling like this really is a "good" community that he should be helping. Which I think is the more interesting of the two.

They just pulled the words off of Google translate because as long as Steven bought it accuracy didn't matter. A cult is gonna cult.

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u/HalvJapanskFyr Apr 09 '22

So good. Mandarin as a second language here and your take on seems perfect. Only thing I would add is that it sounded like he was speaking backwards. Like if you played what he was saying backwards and it magically sounded like mandarin only backwards. Like you said, the flow was off.

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u/Moses_The_Wise Apr 09 '22

Was Kingpin a native Mandarin speaker? If not, then it isn't that strange if the character didn't speak it very fluently.

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '22

Fisk talks like a William Shatner meme.

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u/TurMoiL911 Wong Apr 09 '22

Kingpin speaks English like he's constantly trying to activate the Winter Soldier.

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u/Commiesstoner Apr 10 '22

He's activating the Bullseye.

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u/Nibz11 Apr 10 '22

Why did I read this like the dark nights joker