The original cartoon version of Mulan (1998) is one of my favorite Disney movies, and maybe one of my favorite movies in general. The story is great, the tone is great, and the cast (though problematic in some ways) is great. The brief music in the film—just FOUR SONGS—is, you guessed it, great. I wish there were more of it, but it’s also cool to have a limited soundtrack where every song is guaranteed to be fantastic.
So, I was excited to see the live-action version in March, but of course it was postponed to September due to COVID. Then I heard some things about the movie that I didn’t love: the lack of songs, the removal of characters like Mooshoo (the somewhat questionable but hilarious dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy), and the controversy with the actress who plays Mulan (Liu Yifei) supporting the Hong Kong police’s violence against pro-democracy protestors in 2019. That, and the fact that Disney+ is charging an additional fee to watch the film, kind of diminished my excitement for it.
I think that the problem with many live-action remakes of cartoons is that, while they may be entertaining and “good” on their own, they really just make me want to watch the original. This I found to be true of The Lion King (2019), but not of Beauty and the Beast (2017) or Aladdin (2019)... but I felt the same way throughout Mulan (2020). I’m not sure why Disney needed to make a live-action version of such a perfect cartoon, especially if they weren’t planning on IMPROVING it, which totally could have been done with the ability to actually have Asian representation and to add a bunch of new songs to an already great score. But they didn’t do that! In fact, I think that the transition to live-action actually diminished some of the great elements of the first film, giving it less emotion and certainly less comedic moments. I understand that there is a true story of Hua Mulan that they were telling, but I felt that this depiction made it more about action and fighting (though I did enjoy some of the dramatic fight scenes, I was overall underwhelmed) than her story.
I found another problem to this telling of the story in the idea of “Qi” (my favorite Scrabble word). In the original movie, Mulan is so incredible in battle because of her bravery, intelligence, and skills. Now, in this adaptation, she is powerful because of some kind of supernatural energy that helps her win. I also don’t know about the decision to turn the Hun leader’s bird into Xian Lang (Gong Li), which as my mom and I were discussing, creates another female villain who has Qi to be Mulan’s foil. I felt her story was underdeveloped and unnecessary. Part of the reason that Mulan is so badass in the original film is because she is fighting alongside and against men. I think it was some kind of attempt to incorporate more feminist themes into an ALREADY great and historically accurate story—there was no evil bird woman, but Mulan did kick the Huns’ male butts. So yeah.
Another attempt at feminism in this film that I have a mixed reaction towards is the removal of Li Shang’s character, who I loved... or maybe I just loved Donny Osmond. Either way, I understand why they did it: in a movie about a woman going into battle, why include an enemies-to-lovers romance trope? That certainly is a Disney Princess theme that seems outdated, so I get that they removed his character and replaced him with another soldier (who is at her rank, not her commander), but I missed him and that part of the storyline honestly. And no “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”!!!??!?!? There are just FOUR songs and they couldn’t include them??? I did hear “Honor To Us All” and “Reflection” instrumentally and some verbal references to the other songs, but come on. In a two hour movie, they could include the songs!!!
It seems, unfortunately, that my biggest issue with this film is in comparing it to the original cartoon. I’m sure I would actually enjoy the film if I weren’t holding it so such a high standard, but alas. I’m going to go watch the original now :)
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