Today, Marvel Entertainment released Thor: The Dark World. The most anticipated thing about the release of this film is the new Marvel One-Shot short film which is attached to it, All Hail The King.
Here's your SPOILER ALERT! so stop reading now. If you dare to read on before seeing the One-Shot for yourself, continue after the below image.
The short film starts off showing that a documentary being made on the fake Mandarin, Trevor Slattery (portrayed brilliantly again by Sir Ben Kingsley). This cues a series of questions by the filmmaker asking Trevor about his past as an actor and actually goes into a hilarious montage from one of Trevor's past CBS pilots called "Caged Heat." This was also the working title for Iron Man 3 while it was in production and filming.
Getting back to the One-Shot, Trevor is asked some questions about his past and there seems to be some assumed plot holes in his past story that the filmmaker eludes to. There is definitely something fishy in this part of the short film like a bigger reveal is coming.
However, the big reveal is the fact the filmmaker is actually a 10 Rings undercover operative who was sent in to not kill Trevor, but to break him free from prison. The operative says the reason for all of this is that Trevor stole someones name and that person is not happy with Trevor.
In other words, there is another Mandarin who is very real and very angry at Trevor. Or it might be a big ruse by Trevor who is and has been be the real Mandarin all along. Once again Marvel Studios has an uncanny way of hinting at things to get its fans to start talking.
Bottom line, All Hail The King takes Marvel's One-Shot short films to another level by teasing so many things and potentially a big reveal of another Mandarin in a future Marvel Studios film. And as Marvel is great at doing, they included a credits scenes which has a fantastic cameo that won't be revealed here so you'll just have to watch it for yourself.
The short film is fantastic and Marvel Studios' One-Shot concept continues to get better and better.
8.5/10
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