Ethan Hawke speaks Mandarin in 'Moon Knight' but his pronunciation was so bad fans who speak the language don't even know what he was saying

• In the latest episode of "Moon Knight," Ethan Hawke has a conversation in Mandarin.

• Fans who are native Mandarin speakers have criticized the scene for "butchering" the language.

• Insider has translated the subtitled conversation to figure out what the lines were supposed to be.

Ethan Hawke speaks a few lines in Mandarin in the latest episode of "Moon Knight," ostensibly to show off his character's worldly aspirations, but his pronunciation has been mocked by fans who are native speakers of the language.

Hawke stars in the new Marvel TV series as Arthur Harrow, the leader of a cult that worships an Ancient Egyptian deity. In the second episode, Harrow captures the hero Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) to show the changes his cult is making by purging evil from the world.

During the scene, Harrow jokes around in Mandarin Chinese with one of the cult members (played by Miriam Nyarko), telling Grant that his group's members aim to speak three languages. But his attempt at the lines prompted fans of the show who speak the language to tweet that they were unable to understand what either character was saying.

"A friend sent me this clip of @moonknight and it fills me with rage," Windson Liong, a voice actor, wrote. "I am so sick and tired of prominent Western productions butchering my language repeatedly, turning it into offensive 'oriental' sounding gibberish that doesn't make sense. This is definitely not Mandarin..."

Pop culture podcast host David Chen also tweeted: "Moon Knight has one of the worst instances of a white guy speaking Mandarin Chinese that I can recall. It was pretty much incomprehensible."

Fellow Marvel actor Simu Liu, who was the lead in "Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings," also tweeted: "Alright Arthur Harrow needs to fire his Mandarin teacher."

While the show did not offer subtitles for the scene, turning on the simplified Chinese captions revealed what the lines were apparently supposed to be.

"What are you doing? I'll play with you," says Hawke's character to a woman (Nyarko) with a soccer ball.

"You'll still lose," she retorts.

"You're dead for sure, Jamela, you're dead for sure," he quips.

Some fans pointed out that it was surprising to see this scene following "Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings," which was praised for being the first Asian-led Marvel movie and having multiple scenes entirely in Mandarin with subtitles for those who did not speak the language.

Alexa Heinrich, the creator of a website dedicated to helping social media be more accessible to people with disabilities, criticized the lack of translation through captions, saying: "I'm really enjoying @moonknight on @disneyplus, but I wish that the captions would translate when a different language was spoken like French and Mandarin. I want to know what the actors are saying, that's why I have the captions on!"

Insider has reached out to representatives of the show for comment.

New episodes of "Moon Knight" are released weekly on Wednesdays on Disney+.

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