I must’ve been seven-years-old when I told my Mum we could skip the newest Disney release these school holidays, because it didn’t interest me. But a friend of mine was having his birthday at the cinemas, and had decided to see Mulan. ‘Lucky we didn’t plan to go’, Mum said. With a belly full of McDonald’s for lunch no doubt, my friend’s Mum took us to the movie, and I was taken by surprise by how much I loved it. “Would you like to stay forever?”, says Mulan’s grandmother near the end, and the whole cinema filled with laughter. Fast-forward 22 years, and I’m sitting in bed, watching the live-action Mulan alone, after Disney had to make the decision to release the movie on its streaming service, due to a deadly pandemic. How times change.
Although I have found the majority of the live-action Disney adaptations redundant, I’m not so venomous towards them as others. They feel like high-quality recordings of amateur theatre performances to me, and I like the theatre. I’ve actually seen Beauty and the Beast on stage and adored it. Apart from last year’s The Lion King, I’ve found the live-action remakes fine, throw-away nostalgic entertainment. From the trailers, Mulan is going to be different – gone is any light-heartedness, and a serious film seems to stand in its place. All the live-action remakes have tweaked an idea or two, differing from their source material here or there; let’s see how Mulan fares…
Mulan (Yifei Lui) is the daughter of aging soldier, Hua Zhou (Tzi Ma), whose war wounds force him to use a cane to walk. When Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee) attacks the Chinese Empire, the Emperor (Jet Li) calls upon a man from every family to form an imperial resistance. Zhou won’t be much use, and Mulan would take his place, but Mulan’s role as a woman is to bring honour to her family through marriage. Yet Mulan is a talented fighter, with a strong qi that should see her become a noble warrior. Mulan sneaks away, impersonating a male, to pass as her father’s son in his place. Niki Caro directs.
It takes a little while, but some levity breaks through, and comes sporadically. This is a sombre affair, swapping original themes around and bringing the sexual double-standard of Mulan’s community to the forefront. The dishonour Mulan is risking herself and her family is serious, and the movie doesn’t let you forget. But I enjoyed the movie, and I think it provides beyond the source material, with some really interesting ideas. For instance, there is a strong focus on values, ‘loyal, brave and true’, which Mulan struggles with, knowing she is trying to protect her father but disobeying everyone at the same time. Where the original Mulan addresses, but plays for laughs, that Mulan is a girl in the middle of uninhibited and disgusting boys, this interpretation highlights the fear, and somewhat danger, behind her foreign environment and harboured lie. I love that Mulan is filthy, because she refuses to wash and risk revealing herself. In 2020, Mulan is not discovered to be a woman by accident, but choses to stop hiding who she is, because her character, as a valuable Chinese soldier, should be enough for her to earn respect amongst her peers.
It’s been hard avoiding the controversy surrounding this movie, and how Disney have produced yet another overpowered female character – anyone remember Rey? This movie gives Mulan a powerful qi; an innate ability to succeed, without really having to train, but it’s nowhere near as insulting as a social justice droid being the reason why the Millennium Falcon has been awesome all along (thanks, Solo: A Star Wars Story). This Mulan movie has only chosen another storytelling route – Mulan is now a special one, instead of a simple courageous girl standing up for her family against terrible adversity. It makes her less heroic, yes, and less relatable, like she has always been destined for greatness, giving her less to battle out for herself. But there are still stakes here; they just come from a different place. Mulan is fighting for recognition as a female, to become more than what her society offers. Ultimately, the witch, Xianniang (Gong Li), reflects how Mulan could turn out if things don’t work out well for her. The witch is shown to be able to enter other people’s skins, and it begs the question why she doesn’t simply ‘become’ the Emperor herself, but she teams with Khan because she is seeking her dignity, a place in society, like Mulan, and not control of it. For such a naturally-gifted warrior, Mulan certainly gets disarmed a lot. But the Chinese soccer team would win a few World Cups with Mulan on the team, with all the fancy kicking moves she favours. It’s interesting, that the movie has removed the talking dragon, Mushu, but made the original villain’s hawk a shapeshifter. I also like to think that the phoenix following Mulan is never really there, and only comes to her in guiding visions – with the timing of when the phoenix shows, I think you can make the case for it being so.
Of course, I’ve seen the running jokes at Li Shang’s expense, Mulan’s commander in the original animation, that he must be relieved to discover Mulan secret, and come to terms with the funny feelings he was having for his soldier. Here, Chen Honghui (Yoson An), a fellow warrior, has a little spark with Mulan instead; because you can’t have teacher fall for a student in the modern day – that would be an abuse of power. I reckon this movie does Chen oppositely; he definitely has the horn up for his bunk partner, and is completely fine with it, but might as well give this straight thing a chance for a bit, since Mulan turns out to be female. Love the person, not the sex, don’t they say? Also, considering the Emperor rules the lands, I just found it funny when he encourages Mulan to save the day, like he’s not bigoted at all! It’s just the entire empire that believes women bring dishonour by fighting, not the Emperor! Tied up and helpless, I like to think the Emperor is clutching at straws; there’s an incredulous look he gives when Mulan is the victor, like “I was just saved by a woman! A woman! Evidentially, they CAN be warriors! I didn’t even believe it when I said it myself. It sounded ridiculous, but here we are.”
I hated the initial couple of scenes setting up who Mulan is; chasing the chicken, jumping on rooftops and teasing her sister by making her believe there’s a spider in her hair. I’m thinking perhaps, show that Mulan and her sister used to play-fight with sticks as children, and Mulan would always gain the upper hand, which would impress her father. When the time came for her mother to teach them womanly ways, Mulan resisted, and preferred adventurous things, including capturing a spider, and ruining her sister’s tea lessons by releasing it to scare her. Then, when the time comes for the girls to be matched, Mulan can still show she cares about how much the tea ceremony means to her sister, by sacrificing her own elegance to contain the spider, like we see in the movie. Mulan’s father earns an expanded role, and I think Mulan’s sister is completely invented for this movie – it’s like Mulan’s character-building gets stretched between the two and it’s less than the most satisfying. I was a bit confused at Zhou’s motivation behind his attitude towards his daughter – he seems to encourage Mulan’s qi, and teaches her about the phoenix, but still scolds her for not accepting her place. I think ideally, Zhou should be a devoted father whose national pride gets in the way, and I think the movie does ultimately get there by the end.
Like it or lump it, at least this Mulan is not a complete re-tread, and is trying to stand on its own two feet. The movie stretches out the source material in better ways than say, The CGIon King, giving us a dung beetle rolling poo. As a movie, yes there are faulters in quality, like the story doesn’t know if Mulan’s platoon are undertrained hopers or competent fighters, and Mulan is given inconceivable liberties, like going from a disgraced warrior, to leading her platoon to the capital in the next moment. And considering the more serious tone, the battle sequences are notably hampered without permission to use any blood or battle wounds. But the biggest sin of all is that there is no grandmother! Compared to some of the other remakes though, let me go out on a limb to claim that Mulan is a completely justifiable production. All that is missing when the credits roll, is ‘LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS, TO DEFEAT, THE HUNS…!’ But Bori Khan isn’t a Hun in this movie, so scratch that. Tonally speaking, the new song, ‘Loyal Brave True’, is pretty cool, and I love that Christina Aguilera returns to perform the song after she sang the original pop version of Mulan’s ‘Reflection’ in 1998. Yifei Liu also gets to sing a Mandarin version of ‘Reflection’ herself, near the end of the credits.
4.0
Leave a Reply