Iron Man deftly handles the yellowface factor

Were you worried about Ben Kingsley playing the Mandarin in "Iron Man 3"? Did you think that the humor of Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark was going to be lost in the sociopolitical implications of more yellowface after we'd already been through "Cloud Atlas"? Don't despair and buy your tickets and see "Iron Man 3." Shane Black and Drew Pearce's screenplay deftly handles the question of the Mandarin and will have you laughing but isn't that why we love Iron Man?


The Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck and Jack Kirby creation came at a time when yellowface was still acceptable. Iron Man was created by writer-editor Lee, developed by Lieber and designed by Heck and Kirby. He made his first appearance in the 1963 "Tales of Suspense." The self-promoting Lee does make an appearance, of course. But what we're really looking for is the Mandarin.

Lee created the Mandarin in 1964 and supposedly he was the son of a wealthy Chinese father (descended from Ghengis Khan) and an English aristocratic mother. Look at that. The Asian guy getting the white girl. In reality, that was pushing the boundaries of reality by adding the aristocratic bit and makes me think that geek guys do have a thing about royalty that slightly different from the girlish princess fantasy (currently be marketed with alarming effectiveness by Disney).  Iron Man's Mandarin was really at least part Mandarin and he was both a brilliant scientists and a skilled martial artist. That's like combining two stereotypes together for master mayhem.

The Mandarin's primary source of power is ten rings--not one ring Tolkien and Wagner fans, ten.  Each ring has a different power and has to be worn on a specific finger. You probably don't want to be shaking the Mandarin's hand now.

In "Iron Man 3," Sir Ben Kingsley is the son of a Gujarati Indian (Muslim) and a British actress mother. It looked like he was going to join fellow Anglo-Indian Boris Karloff who played Fu Manchu in 1932 ("The Mask of Fu Manchu").  Did we want to diss a fellow Asian for playing Asian?

You won't be seeing Axonn-Karr, a dragon-like alien. We already had aliens in the 2012 Joss Whedon-directed  "The Avengers."  In "Iron Man 3," Black and Pearce have a troubled Tony Stark telling this tale in a voiceover. Stark is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He's not an alien like Thor and at least Thor is a humanoid alien. You could mostly pretend he's human although I'm still wondering about the different accents of Thor and his foster bro Loki.

Thor and Loki don't appear, but they are mentioned. In a flashback, Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) tells in a voiceover how things started on a New Year's Eve party in Berns, Switzerland. Stark has yet to meet and commit to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and while on his way to seduce a pretty brunette female scientist Dr. Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), he's approached by a male scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). Stark is at his self-absorbed worst, and tells Killian to wait for him on the rooftop. Killian is developing an experimental regenerative treatment. Killian eventually hires Hansen and together they develop Extremis (based on story line by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov).

Yet Stark isn't so concerned with Killian yet because the Mandarin is threatening the President of the United States who is being protected by Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle). The Mandarin seems to be behind explosions, including one that injured Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau). The Mandarin has gone the way of the 2007-2008 "Flash Gordon" series. In that TV series, Ming became West Asian like a Saddam Hussein. For "Iron Man 3," the Mandarin is more like an Osama bin Laden leader of an international terrorist ring called the Ten Rings.  Not exactly Mandarin, but I doubt if West Asians will be insulted either.

Black and Pearce give us more falling, crashing, exploding and shooting than personal one-on-one time with Pepper and Stark or even Rhodes and Stark. Yet Black and Pearce keep the tone light with a self-deprecating humor. Things don't always go as Stark plans, but you know eventually things will end well and Stark will end up with Pepper. Be sure to wait until the very end, after all of the very long credits for an extra surprise.