With Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ready to start screening, audiences are going to learn more about Florian Munteanu’s mysterious character, known affectionately as Razor Fist. Why, you might be wondering, is he called Razor Fist? Well, you caught a glimpse of the reason during the Shang-Chi trailers, with Simu Liu dodged underneath the blazing sword that Munteanu has for an arm. We got very curious as to how Munteanu’s villainous person ended up with a weapon for an appendage, so we asked him about it during the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings press day, and his answer is in the clip above.
As you can tell from the photo above, Florian Munteanu’s Razor Fist makes his lethal presence known during the bus fight that has been the focal point of Shang-Chi’s marketing. And without giving any real details away about the ruffian, he acts a bit like a James Bond villain… or, the strongarm of a 007 antagonist. Razor Fist isn’t, by any means, the ultimate foe in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. That role belongs to Wenwu (Tony Leung), Shang-Chi’s power-hungry father. But because Wenwu doesn’t always have time to get his hands dirty in a street fight, he has Razor Fist at the ready.
So when CinemaBlend spoke to Florian Munteanu about his character’s backstory, he told us how he ended up with that strange arm. He explained that he and director Destin Daniel Cretton discussed a number of different scenarios so Munteanu would better understand the character, then elaborated:
When Wenwu was on one of his business trips in Romania, he found this little kid, this little beggar on the street, juggling three balls with one arm. And he was so inspired by him, that he took him in, and kind of raised him as a stepson and created a very strong soldier out of him. So that’s basically the background story.
You can understand how this backstory would also create some tension between Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Razor Fist (Floriuan Munteanu), since the former has rejected his father’s love, and the latter has stood in like a surrogate son. A surrogate who gets a sword arm from his adopted “father,” and then is trained to be a killer. This is the MCU, after all.
If you think you recognize Florian Munteanu, it might be because you saw him play Ivan Drago’s son in Michael B. Jordan’s boxing sequel, Creed II. He was a formidable opponent in that feature, and he makes life difficult for Shang-Chi in The Legend of the Ten Rings. Find out how the adventure plays out once the film starts screening in theaters. And keep checking our Upcoming Marvel Movies guide to details on the next MCU movies heading out way.
