10 Movie Villain Reveals That Were Genuinely Surprising

10. Ra's Al Ghul - Batman Begins

Giving the world the definitive superhero origin story, Batman Begins essentially rebranded the entire comic-book genre as something which could be taken seriously by any kind of movie fan. Creating a new version of Batman necessitated a new villain that hadn't been featured on screen before though, with director Christopher Nolan landing on both the Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul.

The latter was the most interesting, played by Ken Watanabe and actually being an integral part of Batman's training before he adopted the superhero moniker, bringing him in to join the League of Shadows. Liam Neeson played one of his most trusted men, Henri, and the guy actually responsible for recruiting Bruce Wayne in the first place.

Unable to adopt Ra's' murderous tendencies though, Bruce escapes and burns the place to the ground, killing his mentor in the process. He manages to stop Henri from falling to his death, leaving him to be nursed back to health while Bruce returned to Gotham.

However, it's later revealed that not only has Henri been bankrolling the Scarecrow's attack on Gotham, but he was the real Ra's al Ghul the whole time. As all major changes to comic-book lore is, the reveal was quite contentious at the time, but it certainly took everybody by surprise.