When things jump from the page to the screen, things tend to change in translation. For instance, the Marvel Cinematic Universe saw Tony Stark create Ultron rather than Hank Pym, Wong become a master of the mystic arts rather than just Doctor Strange’s servant, and Thor will join Hulk on the gladiator planet of Sakaar. Now with ‘Iron Fist’ dropping on Netflix this weekend, True Believers will see how Danny Rand’s mystic city has changed after coming to life on the small screen.
During a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Finn Jones discussed some ways in which their version mystical city of K’un Lun would be different than the comic. The star of Netflix’s latest Marvel series revealed that rather than being mostly Asian as it was in the comics, it will instead be a diverse environment inhabited by students from all over the world:
“What you may not know about K’un-Lun yet is that in our version of the story, K’un-Lun isn’t predominantly an Asian culture. K’un-Lun is a diverse place with people from all over the world—South America, Europe, Asians, and Caucasian people all reside in this place.”
While it may strike a chord with some fans at first due to the erasure of the city’s Asian roots, it sounds like Scott Buck and company took a page from the book of ‘Doctor Strange’. The showrunner also commented on the changes made to K’un Lun and it sounds a whole lot like The Ancient One and Karl Mordo’s home of Kamar-Taj:
“It’s a celestial city that exists in another dimension and because of that there’s nothing that we felt made it specifically Chinese or Tibetan. We certainly modeled it after Tibetan monasteries, but it felt like we just naturally wanted to open it up to make it a little more diverse just because it gives us a lot more options in writing about it, I believe. The entry to the city is somewhere in Asia but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an Asian city, wholly.”
We’ve previously heard that the creative minds behind ‘Iron Fist’ worked hard so that the living weapon would not be viewed as a white savior. Maybe changing around K’un Lun was a part of that. Also, while the representation of Asians has been a hot button issue in Hollywood as of late, we have to appreciate the fact that Buck and his team want to diversify the MCU. But we’ll just have to wait and see to what degree this happens in the highly anticipated series that marks the final step before ‘The Defenders’.
What do you think about the changes being made to K’un Lun in ‘Iron Fist’? Are you disappointed that another predominantly Asian setting from the Marvel Universe is being changed for it’s live-action adaptation? Or are you fine with seeing the Marvel Cinematic Universe be more diverse by making a change like this? Or are you just disappointed that some groups of people get so little representation that some people might even question something like this? Sound off in the comments.
‘Iron Fist’ starring Finn Jones, Jessica Henwick, David Wenham, Jessica Stroup, Tom Pelphrey, Rosario Dawson, and Carrie-Ann Moss hits Netflix on March 17, 2016.
Despite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
