Marvel’s Moon Knight angers fans over bad Mandarin: the Chinese spoken is ‘gibberish’ and even Simu Liu is mad about it

Viewers who speak Chinese are criticising a scene with Ethan Hawke as Arthur Harrow in Moon Knight for butchering the language, calling it ‘gibberish’ online

Even MCU actors are weighing in – Simu Liu of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings tweeted that ‘Arthur Harrow needs to fire his Mandarin teacher’

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Fans of Marvel’s Moon Knight have taken to social media to blast Ethan Hawke for speaking “gibberish” when he was supposed to be speaking Mandarin. Photo: Marvel Studios

Published: 7:15am, 15 Apr 2022Updated: 7:55am, 15 Apr 2022

Arthur Harrow wants his followers to speak three languages. He might want to find a new Mandarin teacher first.

The Moon Knight villain (played by Ethan Hawke) has a brief conversation, ostensibly in Chinese, with one of his followers in the second episode of the Marvel series, and viewers familiar with Mandarin are criticising the scene for butchering the language and calling it “gibberish” on social media.

Even Marvel Cinematic Universe actor Simu Liu, who starred in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, took to Twitter to comment on the scene, tweeting “Arthur Harrow needs to fire his Mandarin teacher”.

During the lead-up to the controversial exchange, Harrow is trying to appeal to Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) to further his seemingly nefarious plans. While introducing Steven to his community of followers, a girl kicks a football toward him and she and Harrow briefly converse.

Simu Liu’s tweet about the poor Mandarin spoken in Moon Knight. Photo: Twitter

The exchange is not subtitled, and the closed captioning only says they are “speaking in Mandarin”, so there is no translation provided for non-Mandarin speakers.