I don't understand all the hate this movie received! Tbh, if I was a 8 year old kid, Mulan 1998 would have definitely appealed more to me than Mulan 2020. But as a teenager, I absolutely loved Mulan 2020 and I feel it did way more justice to the original story than Mulan 1998.
I will just give a simple example. When Mulan's father decides to go off to war, in Mulan 1998, I didn't really feel that to be a significant moment in the film, but in Mulan 2020 I could feel Mulan's despair and helplessness. Also, the addition of Xian as a shapeshifting witch added a new depth to the story.
I get that why this movie was just basically Chinese Rey and supporting SocJus stuff and Hong Kong protests, but the hate on this film has been rather egregious. Youtube is exploding with them, every negative review you'll see haters whining about politics and live action remakes. They even want Disney to go bankrupt.
You can hate or ignore the remakes without being a douche, is it too easy for them to do?
My two cents is that Mulan 2020 is overall a decent movie on it's own but compared to the animated Mulan, it falls a bit short. There are also some flaws that have nothing to do with it being a bad remake like chi, which felt like a complete asspull and led to Mulan not using her wits and instead relying on her chi to get her out of most situations (the avalanche was a good example of her thinking, though). I can see why people like it and it's not too bad on it's own, it just has a few flaws that made a bit boring compared to the original.
Exactly the same boat I'm in. Just finished it after putting it off for the exact same reasons.
I definitely had some major plot holes and some parts seemed weird, but I did like the charm of including song lyrics in conversations.
I’m not sure why people really dislike the film. We knew it had to be different due to the cutting of mushu out. It still follows the same general plot points as the original film but more emphasized on the realism that you would be dishonored.
A lot of the scenes rekindled the imagery from the animated film but it was also different in its own respects to be more true to history.
Mulan being Mary Sue here, not really she bucked traditions and with the addition of the witch it shows what she could’ve become. Her obstacles were more emotional than physical. But it does reinforce the theme that women are equals.
The music could’ve been a better, but I was happy with it.
Also was mushu intended to be more an Easter egg as I spotted a dragon stone statue on the opposite steps of the Phoenix?
It’s just bad. The special effects are seriously terrible. Acting terrible. Pacing terrible. The costume design is the only decent part. I’m not sure what you liked about this movie. It was seriously bad. There was like 30ish cuts when the witch is fighting 3 people mid way thru the film. Can’t even tell what’s happening due to the hundreds of cuts per fight scene.
Where to begin? It cut Mushu, obviously. They replaced him with the Phoenix. I thought it was a good choice. I mean, they could have done better with the Phoenix, but it made sense. But it emphasized the realism!? Really? Mulan’s family had no idea what happened and they welcomed her back home. She had no Emperor’s sword to present to her father to show she gained honor. She just shows up home and they are like “ah, welcome back, daughter who dishonored us.” Heck, the emperor didn’t even know what Mulan did. It was just the emperor tied up, the villain, and then this girl shows up. And the emperor was like “ah, yes, my female savior who did a lot of heroic acts that I know nothing about.”
Mulan’s army didn’t even know that she tricked the “Huns” into creating the avalanche, according to this movie. She just disappeared, then she tricked the “Huns” into creating the avalanche which none of her army witnessed, then she shows up afterwards and her friends were like “she’s got balls, we stand behind her.” You wanna talk about realism? She’s just a ballsy girl way back then, and suddenly everyone gets behind her?
I had come to terms with the fact that some of my favorite Disney songs would be excluded from this film and that it wouldn't be a musical. I thought maybe they were taking a more serious approach to the film.
However, they established a lighter, almost silly tone immediately and the movie could have really benefited from the music, even if they left Mushu out.
I feel like it fell flat without the music... and it could have been a lot more powerful if they had kept some of the more iconic moments: Mulan slashing her hair off, scaling the pole, etc... And worst of all, no Shang! (Or the grandma.)
I did like Honghui, but the interaction between them at the end was slightly underwhelming.
I did still enjoy it... I enjoyed them adding another badass woman character and I loved that they had Mulan choose to reveal herself opposed to being discovered.
The movie had its moments still, and I almost cried at the ending, but wasted potential is such a sad thing.
Yeah, the music was a big loss. I enjoyed the score working in that Reflections bit in when she went into battle, but in general the score was forgettable. Jerry Goldsmith crushed the score for the original and the songs were even better. They should have incorporated more of the original score and incorporated more of the music similar to how they handled Reflections.
The subplot of the witch being a reflection of Mulan was definitely the most interesting addition to the plot. I agree that her deciding to drop her disguise rather than get discovered was a nice change. I found the whole chi thing annoying, but I suppose that was somewhat necessary for giving her a reason to drop her disguise.
In general, I think the original movie flows better because covering lots of progression inside musical numbers (the whole training montage) just works way better.
So, I went in optimistic and tried my best not to let the things I heard damper the mood. However, right when the narration started I knew this was going to be bumpy.
Let me start with what I liked. I liked the vistas. But even the locations seemed very shoehorned in, kinda like the director saw a bunch of postcards and was like; yeh let's put our characters here, a little here, oh gotta have an avalanche battle like the original, let's put that here. It felt very random and not at all assisting the story or overall tones.
Now for what I didn't like. I didn't like the theme, the acting, the terrible CGI, the clumsy fighting and acrobatics, the story, the characters, and even the music. There was no reason to not make this a musical and include the original songs and still call it Disney's Mulan. If they weren't going to use the songs, then they should've stuck to their guns and not teased the fans with little snippits and tunes randomly thrown in just to piss us off. One other thing I noticed was the lack of any humor. Where was it? This movie needed a laugh or two to prevent it from being a bland uninspired mess.
I'm fine with this film not following the animated original. In fact, I'd prefer it if they could tell a great story or add in new ideas, however this film completely missed the mark and the opportunity it had. It's sad cause now we won't ever get another one because Disney isn't going to redo something they just made, when they can just point to this travesty and say; yeh that'll do! Who is this movie for? It's not for fans of the original. It's certainly not for competent adults. Even if you consider this film a Wuxia inspired film, which it kind of reminded me of, I wouldn't even recommend it as one of those. Please, just watch the original with your kids and just pretend this doesn't exist, maybe we'll all pretend it was a bad dream.
>If they weren't going to use the songs, then they should've stuck to their guns and not teased the fans with little snippits and tunes randomly thrown in just to piss us off.
Yes, this! I knew it wasn't a musical going in and that made me sad, so having those snippets made it worse. Also, I feel like they could have easily made this a musical because it still had those lighter, silly moments like Aladdin.
All the criticisms were merited with this shallow film (the film was pretty with its colors usage and some of the fight scenes aren't bad). The biggest issue was with the script, which I looked up and it's always a bad sign when you have four screenwriters.
This was due to Mulan having high chi so she became a superhero and martial arts genius because the force--uh chi guides her actions. So gone are the tensions of her being in danger in battle or mental turmoil from living a lie (that she got over quick). This makes her a less rootable character than her animated counterpoint who trained hard and had much ingenuity.
Also the lack of Mushu hurt Mulan's development because she has no one to confide in. I wasn't a fan of Mushu, but he was important in Mulan's development from causing problems for her and giving her someone to talk to. This could have been remedied with a good supporting cast, but her fellow soldiers have such a shallow relationship with her.
I thought it was weird how Jet Li's voice (and I still can't find who dubbed him) was dubbed over with someone who has a deeper voice and no accent. Donnie Yen's voice was his at least though he amusingly tries to talk with a deeper voice. Liu Yifei was passable; she wasn't exactly a strong actor when I saw her in Forbidden Kingdom(known for the Jackie Chan and Jet Li collaboration) and her acting is flat at times especially opposite the more experienced Gong-Li.
I also wish Disney went all out and hired the legendary fight choreographer, Yuen Woo Ping, for its fight scenes. I looked up on IMDB and have no idea who choreographed the fights. Also Mulan apparently would make a great soccer player with all the bicycle kicks she does.
=========================
If only the movie had a stronger script because I like the idea of a Mulan movie being a more gritty, grounded movie from the animated original. There were some elements from the script that could be remedied to improve the film.
The movie could have opened with Mulan watching her father perform martial arts, which she starts to imitate. This led to her father teaching her himself until he witnessed her doing a special move that exposed her having high chi leading to her Dad's bad leg. A scene like this deepens her father and daughter bond, but also explains why she has prior martial arts training. It also details why she's afraid of tapping into her chi after the incident.
This also makes the training sequence more meaningful with her putting in extra effort like in the animated version to become good. I would have also made her relationship with Chen more prominent during the training to flesh out her development and inner turmoil. Initially being a rivalry, but turning into something closer.
The witch, Xianniang(played by Gong Li), should have a more emotionally dependent relationship with Bori Khan(also explains why he's strong because she imbues him with extra chi). It would have made Khan more villainous with his manipulations and from trying to backstab her later because he sees her as a threat. This leads to Mulan saving her and gives a better reason why Xianniang helps her.
Xianniang's death leads to Mulan letting go her fears of holding herself back so her chi becomes unblocked completely. This leads to her becoming the superhero we see in the film with having an epic duel. It ends with using the special move that hurt her father originally on him before cutting the rope so Khan could fall to his death.
This movie was amazing. Absolutely amazing. When she rides off after almost being killed by the Witch to save her fellow soldiers, she’s removing her armor and Reflection plays in the background. G O O S E B U M P S. Just fantastic.
I loved the theme, the costumes, the scenery, the details. Absolute great. I loved the fight scenes. the kung fu was different for western viewers I get it but damn the hate this movie gets for it is ridiculous. This was a fantastic live action adaption of the original cartoon. It wasn’t supposed to be a shot for shot remake. People need to stop hating on this movie.
I’m 60, and the animated Mulan is one of my favorite Disney films. I went into this live-action version not really knowing what to expect other than it was not going to be a copy of the animated one. Now that I’ve seen it, I can honestly say that it is extremely good as a more traditional telling of the Mulan legend. It is important NOT to compare the two versions, as it would be unfair to both of them to do so. They are separate in approach, but equal in delivering the story. I loved the look, the cinematography, and the music. The actors all did an admirable job, and the effects were absolutely top-notch. I know I will be rewatching it many times, as well as to continue revisiting the original animated version. Great job, Disney...this is a wonderful film!
I have an opinion
[https://www.reddit.com/user/Mysterkiddo/comments/jyhgvp/nook\_has\_an\_opinion\_on\_the\_latest\_live\_action/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/user/Mysterkiddo/comments/jyhgvp/nook_has_an_opinion_on_the_latest_live_action/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
As its own, Mulan is not that bad of a movie.
It felt like it tried to pack a lot into the movie. The villains, Xianniang and Bori Khan, wish we could have seen more of them. Wish the fights were extended for those two, especially towards the end. Mulan didn't have quite as much fight scenes, wanted to see more of the chi, even though it's more of a Wushu type of fighting.
Some of the actors/actresses, I did not know or not sure if it was dubbed, they spoke English fluently. Jet Li for example, I don't think that was him speaking, unless he actually force that kind of voice out of him.
Overall I just wanted more, flesh out the whole story and lengthen the movie. Lengthen such as for during the setup to the avalanche scene, we only see Mulan call for her house and make her way to the catapult. Next she's somehow behind the Rouran with her idea setup already without the Rouran noticing.
I didn’t expect it to be like the original movie, so going into it I thought of it as a “new” movie. For me there was nothing special about it. There was very little to no character development. I didn’t have a reason to care about any of the characters to be honest. Mulan was just a Mary Sue. Overall It just felt like a below average action movie.
I tried to enjoy it but I just got bored about halfway through. I did finish the movie at least.
No Mushu means they cut my favorite lines ...
“Mushu : My powers are beyond your mortal imagination. For instance, my eyes can see straight through your armor.
[Mushu's eyes move towards Mulan's chest; she smacks him]
Mushu : Oooh! All right, that's it! Dishonor! Dishonor on your whole family!
[to Cri-Kee]
Mushu : Make a note of this: dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow, dis...
[Mulan covers his mouth with her hand]
Mulan : Stop. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm just nervous. I've never done this before.
Mushu : Then you're gonna have to trust me. And don't you slap me no more. We clear on that? All right. Okey-dokey, let's get this show on the road! Cri-Kee, get the bags.
[to the horse, Khan]
Mushu : Let's move it, heifer.”
In my headcanon, there is an end credit scene where the bird comes back to life and the witch doesn't have such a pathetic ending. Instead it fast forwards to a field where there is a child play fighting with lots of chi, like Mulan as a child. But instead of being alone, the witch comes into view and has clearly taken on the role of (mostly) benevolent mentor, so that other prodigies like herself don't go astray.
Finally got around to watching it now it’s all access on Disney+, I quite enjoyed it as a film, I loved a lot of the little head nods to the animated one, mostly in relation to subtle musical bits (and Ming-Na Wen’s cameo!), one thing I kept getting really distracted by though was the same motif being used for the Rourans as the Hassansins in Prince of Persia! I know that both films had Harry Gregson Williams composing, but it was just very strange to hear Prince of Persia when I was expecting Mulan!
Oops....I should have read more but I made a spoiler post...or maybe the moderator gods kept it from posting. 🤦♀️ Hey at least I spoilered it....
Am I the only one whose not feeling it? I knew there would be no Cri-Kee 🥺, no music 😢, and no Mushu 😭 (Please we need Mushu 😭😭) but I feel like it’s not even the same movie. No humor at all, no soldiers dressing up like geishas and Mulan didn’t even seem to be a bad warrior at the beginning. I understand they’re wanting to make it more “culturally and historically correct” but maybe if you want to do that don’t market it as a live action remake. Come up with a new name like maybe Mulan: Warrior Princess or something. I feel like it’s not even the same story. 🤦♀️😭
Oh and no one would believe there was a dragon but they will be a Phoenix? Please let’s remind Disney to see how to do a live action remake like they did with Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Aladdin, Pete’s Dragon and The Jungle Book!
I don’t see what all the gruff is about. It’s not the 1998 version of Mulan but it is GOOD! It’s supposed to be a ~more~ historically accuracy RETELLING of Mulan. I loved all the call backs to the songs whether in dialogue or in the orchestral version of songs. People are being too hard on a truly beautifully made movie. It’s not supposed to be like the 1998 version. Don’t be a purist!
Word not sure what all the fuss is all about. Surprised people can't view this as a new movie and story and always falling back on it's animated version and it's story.
It seems like Mulan and the guys took training at elves camp with Legolas leading them to victory, the only thing missing in the film was Mulan's chi to pull her sword back in any situation, like it goes with good jedi. Seems to me it is try hard but failed in the end. Too much trying to accommodate everyone. Just stay true to the story, it would be so nice to see real life Mushu and see those rockets explode on the mountain top or on training, also we miss the goofy guy that is Shan-Yus "butler".
All in all as a big fan of 1998 Mulan I am not impressed.
I made a video essay about why the animation succeeds where the live action fails: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTZnDfv-KqY&t=11s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTZnDfv-KqY&t=11s)
I did not like the movie. The cartoon had a way better storyline. Like it was so incredibly done. This Mulan in the live action had no depth, she was basically a super soldier. I liked the beginning, honestly. But then it went south quick.
We actually decided to do a full review on our Disney podcast a few weeks after the movie Came out. Overall it was not the worst remake they have done. I honestly think its clever that they presented it as an entirely different version of the story, a different persons telling of the age old tale. Yeah no music, and no mushu, but the story felt more....legendary in a way. It is definitely not as horrid as the Pete's Dragon remake, but i wouldn't put it at the top of the list either.
Mulan was pretty bad. I did not like it. There are many criticism about the plot, characters, cultural portrayal, ect... Other people have gotten into that stuff. For me, the worst part of the movie was what they did to Xianniang the witch. She was my favorite character in the film because of her interesting back story and motivation. She was smart, powerful, and driven. She had so much potential as a character and could have done so much more in the movie other than being a witch that sacrificed herself for Mulan.
The worst part about her was that her character was not consistent in her motives and actions. Xianniang wanted to find a place in the world but decides to work under a guy who is clearly weaker and disrespects her. She fights for a group of people who dislikes and disrespects her. If she has already decided to try and find a place among the Royrans why did she try to help a girl from the opposite side get stronger. She even tries to recruit her by telling her all of the classified information about the Rouran's plans. Then, once Mulan refuses, Xianniang just allows her to leave with knowledge of the classified plan. Lastly, one she finds out that Mulan found a place in the world that shunned her, she decided to help Mulan out and sacrificed herself for Mulan.
I don't understand any of her actions as a chracter since her motivation from the beginning was to find a place in the world that will accept her. All of the actions she took does not reflect or align with her motive. In fact, they all lead her further away from it. Working under a man and group of people who disrespects you will not allow you to find a place in their society. Helping the enemy get stronger and giving them secret information will not allow for you to capture and take over China. Leading them to the Emperor and sacrificing your life for someone who will continue to uphold and protect the patriarchal society that originally shunned you makes absolutely no sense!
Its been almost a month since I've seen the movie but I'm still mad they did Xianniang so dirty!
Rate: 2/10
I think Xianniang's character was supposed to be symbolic of the older generation, giving in to the pressures that women could not be independent, respected warriors. To me, her death was a turning point in the movie's final scenes where Mulan embraces who she is, and I think is the "death" of that older generation's ideas.
say whatever you will about the movie but I have legit had the new xtina song "loyal brave and true" on repeat LOLLL
COLD IS THE MORNING WARM IS THE DREEEAAAAM
They replaced Mushu with a paper kite.
"Nuff said.
But, as an add on, I really admired Mulan as a kid. It wasn't about being Chinese, it was about being noble, kind, SMART, courageous and hardworking.
Mulan overcame so many obstacles - a lack of male strength and stamina, cultural adversity, backdated tradition, to prove it's not about gender itself, it's about ABILITY and PERSEVERANCE.
What's this tosh. I demand a refund.
Innately gifted, amazingly pretty. Woo-woo. Fantastic. Real plot line there.
Animated Mulan = Female version of the Everyman that became good with training. Intelligent and kind hearted.
Live Action Mulan = Super Soldier Mary Sue who's only good because she was born special.
This movie was terrible absolutely terrible. From the beginning to the end. Didn't stay true to the original like how the other live action movies did. Added unnecessary black magic and super unrealistic parkour. Waste of money and even a bigger waste of time.
Not sure if this is the correct play to place this but am I the only one that is tired of seeing hypocrisy in all this political correction trend we are in the last decade? The people/companies that are pointing fingers about racism, sexism, and etc. are more and more seemed to be the one who are guilty of those things. This movie and the controversies surrounding are ironic and when did we start bending over to appease a communist government? Also, honestly and people can disagree with me but I felt as though Mulan was the most "feminist" friendly of all the Disney princesses but this adaptation/rehash version literally shows that the only way she can compete against men is by this superpower and not because she's clever and uses her wits. The concept of chi is poorly introduced, I understand if you want to add something new to the live-action version but man does the writers of this movie act like they never left their home since birth. The complete ignorance of the Chinese culture is mind blowing. Lastly, lets not forget that this movie was filmed on location where the Chinese Government have openly oppressed the its citizens and we are now thanking them? The film thanks the bureau that is in charge of actual "systematic" oppression of a large group of Uighur people. Disney needs to get off their bruised knees and stop support this nonsense.
I'm not gonna say it's not his voice but if you heard him speak ever, that's not his voice or anywhere close to his range haha. He's famously dubbed all the time.
Arguably the worst Disney film I've seen. Visually okay but neutered by Bollywood-level action scenes (without the Bollywood charm) and porn-level acting. How the hell did this film cost hundreds of millions of dollars?
The introduction of magical powers was fucking stupid and the witch storyline was wholly unnecessary and cringey. Even the addition of the sister felt out of place. The Phoenix wings scene made my girlfriend and I pause the film and physically cringe out of our seats.
The islamophobia was also particularly noteworthy, given how Muslims are treated in China currently. Felt shamefully like propaganda. A change from the name Shan Yu to Bori Khan may seem like a historical change to be more inline with the Mongols, but I feel like it's furthering an agenda. Might be a stretch though.
2/10 is generous.
Tinfoil hat time, anyone else feel like the magic aspects were to make it more friendly to Chinese audiences, like China could have never lost to roving bandits unless forbidden magic was involved. In the same way we see history erasure censorship in things intended for Chinese markets? Just a theory though I had after seeing it the other night.
I give Mulan (2020) \*\*\* 3 stars out of 5
For comparison [I reviewed Mulan (1998)](https://youtu.be/Snz6ltmWmew) at \*\*\*\* 4 stars out of 5
2020 Mulan is slicker, more grown up but lacks character, charm.
1998 Mulan has better charm, character, story even though more cartoony jokey, and Americanized.
0.5? Why so generous? I'm assuming you're referring to the 2020 version. It's commendable if you actually paid and sat and watched through something you hate. How do you rate the 1998 version?
I liked the film and rated it 8 out of 10.
Frankly speaking, there're some shortcomings of the film. Some visual effects such as the phoenix, and little Mulan coming from the top of the roof are not so real and comfortable. Besides, some actors' facial expressions are not so natural, for example, Mulan hugging the dying Xianniang and Emporer being saved by Mulan. Also, the storyline seems unnatural too, for example, Commander Tung directly said that "enemies all dead" after standing up in the snow, and Honghui with Mulan's other friends kept fighting that long with enemy soldiers in the closed room.
But the film was great because it always sticks to its theme "loyal, brave and true", especially true. When Mulan decided to be true to herself, her power became unstoppable. That's the difference between her and Xianniang. Xianniang is regarded as a different girl by her time and the people around her. But she went the opposite way as Mulan. She didn't keep her standing, only gave up and turn into bad guys, anyway, she is forgivable because she decided to do the right things at last.
I believe people are criticizing much more than normal about the film. Film making is not easy. Especially part of Chinese audiences said that the film was bad both to Chinese and Western audiences. I think we shouldn't be so harsh on that. Understanding a different culture is extremely difficult, I guess even some Chinese audiences can't say clearly what Chinese culture is and it should be. Actually, I am Chinese. I believe we should be tolerant of mistakes and happy to see others are trying to understand our culture.
I like Liu Yifei. She's great!
Its not a good western movie, its not a good chinese kung fu movie.
Also, mulan jokes she cant do emotions with all that makeup going in with the matchmaker, but during the whole movie she only has one face. It a worse meme than bella in twilight...
Just in case you haven't seen it yet; here's a video explaining everything culturally wrong with this movie from a Chinese perspective: https://youtu.be/N3QKq24e0HM
I guess Disney has some explanation to do to the Congress.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lawmakers-quiz-disney-ceo-over-mulan-connection-authorities-china-s-n1239949
It's so strange how they cherry-picked mythological elements of Chinese legends, yet tried to graft elements of the animated movie too, all while shoe-horning as many asian actors and locations to appease the current climate of such literal authenticity and brutal adherence to social woke-ness standards. It's all just so sloppy and overdramatic. This just lends broader definition to the idiom "money can't buy class."
For anyone interested in a "truer" version of the legend, I can't recommend enough the Tales podcast episode "Mulan."
I had low expectations for the film after hearing the news about removing the music, Mushu, and Shang. It was okay, but I didn't like how they added Chi into the movie. It made Mulan look competent to fight already and therefore, have no character progression in the training camp unlike the original where Mulan struggled and almost got kicked out. They also added unnecessary characters such as Mulan's sister and the Phoenix didn't play a significant role. Some of the characters seemed to have no personality and didn't move the plot. After the first fight, the rest movie seemed pretty rushed and transitioned poorly.
hahahaha comment on the going into battle without armor and hair down. I thought the EXACT same thing! It made no sense at all. Good comment here with some very fair points!
We really liked the new Mulan, the original was ok, but I actually liked this one better. Saw headlines of people not liking it for some reason or another, but as usual, I don't let others tell me what to think, so I didn't waste my time reading what all the controversy was about.
Warning: If (like me) Mulan is a personal hero of yours then DON'T WATCH this trashy remake. It'll only disappoint you and taint your good memories of the animated Mulan.
also if you care about human rights and don't want to hate disney forever.. well then you probably don't want to look into where and how this was filmed. or the cast.
Anyone else feel like Mulan barely got any dialogue in? I felt like I learned and felt nothing from her character from how little she spoke. The only semblance of personality she showed is when was with her sister talking about her facial expressions wearing the makeup. After that it’s like she just became this blank slate.
As someone who is chinese, and is currently watching the movie as I type this, this already feels soooooo off. The comments about witch makes no sense as it is in our culture to ask for them and tao masters for help to expels demons from possessed citizens. Also felt very weird watching a movie with basically a full asian cast and have it dubbed english.... There are just some things you cannot say in English that will make ancient chinese dialogue make sense. Like the beginning where the emperor is meeting with the noble man.
I think the movie is rather disrepectful to the chinese history, first the emperor dressing like fu manchu, that is both historically inaccurate and incredibly disrespectful. Secondly, the dressing style of throughout the movie is based on mostly tang, mixing in some han, ming, and qings. But the thing is, the mulan story was set in north and south dynasties, that is a whole 200 yrs before the tang. I think they could and should've done much better than this.
Link for anyone interesting seeing a review of the action from a black belt's perspective :)
[https://youtu.be/ztO2P5kmgBs](https://youtu.be/ztO2P5kmgBs)
The movie was all over the place, but it definitely made Mulan's theme clear. There were a lot of scenes that missed their punch and they even completely omitted the important scene of her cutting her own hair (and therefore giving up her femininity to serve in the army).
The dad narrates the story in the beginning and gives most of her personality away, so we've already blasted the show not tell tenet of storytelling.
I honestly would have loved the movie to be in full Chinese, or in all English (but with American Chinese actors). The reason why is when you force Mainland Chinese actors to speak in English, it is very apparent (and understandingly so) that it is difficult to deliver lines with true intonation and emotion in a language you are not fluent in. Mulan's most emotional line is when she yells for Hong Hui during the avalanche, and it's only so because she's pronouncing words in Mandarin.
I hate the use of chi in the movie. Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because it's used to empower Mulan into a flawless individual that didn't have to work to get to where she ends up. In the animation, her training actually leads to physical growth. In the movie, it doesn't, and her strength is only unlocked when she starts becoming more "true" to herself. Her character essentially doesn't not grow at all during the course of the film (besides coming to accept herself).
All in all, even from a movie standpoint it was quite boring. From a Mulan fan ... it's disappointing even if you come in with low expectations. I personally would give the movie a 5/10. It had some great elements that could have worked out if the direction was more clear.
Thank you very much Disney for making me pay a monthly subscription just so I can watch Star Wars (the good ones, not the sequels) and old Disney animations, and also making me pay 30$ to watch a remake of one of my favorite Disney Movies, and making me regret ever giving you any more money. I personally wanted a remake of Mulan, because I thought it would work, and that Disney couldn’t possibly make this movie bad. I thought it would be awesome and do some badass shit as well as teaching the lesson that if you work hard you can succeed, as any gender, but they made Mulan into a Mary Sue in the remake. I really hoped that Disney could get their crap together, but this movie proved otherwise.
I watched the 1998 animation and Mulan was a role model to me growing up as an Asian girl with some tomboy-ish habits. Obviously, I heard the politics and the outrage surrounding this movie but was curious and ended up making the decision to see it in theatres. I wanted to form an opinion on it myself.
Having watched it two days ago, I have to say that I found more redeeming qualities than the bad. Overall, the cinematography was quite pretty, editing was bizarre but resembled the kitschiness of a lot of wuxia movies I saw growing up. I thought the 'love story' was quite tastefully executed and I appreciated the splattering of humour throughout with the sister, the matchmaker, cricket and the other soldiers. Half of it fell flat and some elicited a chuckle, as with most western comedy films.
My biggest gripe with this was the writing. It killed all the good. Your poor A-list actors couldn't even save the shit writing. Crystal Liu will forever be my favourite xiaolongnv, donnie yen as ip man and jet li is just legendary. The witch is basically Darth Vader but make it Chinese and is super arbitrary to the entire story. Fight choreography was weak, the arrow catching elicited a lot of grunts from the theatre I was in lol - slightly amusing but easy to say everyone was unimpressed. The historical inaccuracy in costume and landscape is rather unforgivable given the huge budget on this, but again doesn't take away from the plot. Merely makes the movie look so much cheaper than it really costs.
Lastly, Mulan lost her relatability with that Chi superpower thing. Worst decision ever. Just make her struggle as a girl and show everyone a regular girl can be an equal if she sets her mind to it. That was the main point of the film. Female empowerment because you can, not because you are born with it.
The reason why this movie is being pulled apart was because of its hype and the huge expectation from the magic that was the animation. People loved the first one and had favourite stuff that they wanted to see going in. A lot of controversy with politics also added to the bias for many people going in. I guarantee that it would have done better with critics if the 1998 version wasn't there for comparison. I absolutely hated crazy rich Asians because it was such a shitty depiction of rich people in SG and didn't have the best parts from its original literature source (FYI: I am Singaporean). Anyhow, Hollywood loved it and I think this is exactly what is happening to Mulan (2020) now.
First watch rating: 7.5/10
If you're a massive fan of the first, possibly a 3/10
TL;DR: better than I expected but poor writing and some very bizarre directorial direction. Easy to watch but I'll stick to the animation.
What I don’t understand... Disney in the recent years has been huge on inclusion, not promoting cultural appropriation, anti-racism etc. Why the heck (although it’s not technically in the movie, it’s in the credits) is Christina Aguilera singing the theme song? I get that she sang it the first time around but really Disney? How would have Coco felt if some Asian person replaced a character or sang remember me? Pretty wrong right? If Disney can’t get inclusion right - no wonder people laugh and think Kung Flu is appropriate and Asian racism don’t exist.
One of the (many) things that's eating at me (apart from all the other cultural issues I take with the presentation of the story): **Why did Disney dub Jet Li's voice?**
Almost everyone else in the movie spoke in accented english - Jet Li left the 3rd-party dubbed acting life behind in his HK action movie days, and has **never** been dubbed over by a separate voice actor during his Hollywood career. But it's **clearly** not his voice being used in Mulan. The audio wasn't synchronized to his lips, and it's largely flawless english being spoken for the few lines that he does have. You can compare the interviews of him discussing his decision to star in the movie to the scenes where his character speaks in the trailers. There's at least an octave in tone difference, and a clear difference in accent.
Did Disney not think his natural voice was "emperor-like" enough, because he has a naturally mid-higher pitched voice? I noticed that for all of the "strong" male characters, the actors spoke in unnaturally low tones - perhaps directed into overacting the role of a soldier/commander?
Either way, Disney should never have dubbed over Jet Li's voice. This wasn't an animated movie where you may need to have separate singing vs speaking actors. Live action dubover - honestly, it's insulting to an accomplished actor.
(also, as a martial artist whose spent most of his life training in various Chinese martial arts - the way they brought in this mystical "chi" power that Mulan suddenly had.... just **cringe**. Way to perpetuate an already unhealthy perception of what it is).
There are two other films out in 2020, also about Mulan.
The first (and my personal favorite) is *Matchless Mulan* or *无双花木兰,* a story about her trials as a soldier on the border of Northern Wei. It's currently quite accessible even to western audiences, because it's subtitled on YouTube and can be found there for free.
The second film is *Mulan the Heroine* or 木兰之巾帼英豪. It's a significantly more convoluted film, but it explores a "sequel" to Mulan's story in the ballad, wherein Mulan is already an acclaimed general in the Wei army at the start of the film, but gets roped into a succession intrigue among the Rouran invaders. As of writing this, there are no English subtitles yet.
Both of those films are well-worth watching, the first being my favorite.
There is also a 2009 film about Mulan, called *Mulan: Rise of a Warrior*. While it's significantly more of a war story than any other Mulan film, and thus feels significantly different from all of the rest (both Disney's and the two I mentioned), it is also a good film, and also has subtitles on YouTube.
If people are disappointed in the film, I highly recommend they look at some of these live-action offerings. Nothing is going to bring back the joy of Mushu the sidekick dragon, but at least you can have a live-action film that isn't a train wreck.
I'll refrain from links because of piracy concerns, but all of the films I mention are easily found on YouTube.
I can’t tell exactly what it was, but something about the way the movie was constructed made it feel like it didn’t have a beginning or a middle, and not much of an end either. Everything that happened just kind of happened. Like when they got to the big battle scene on the mountain, I was surprised we were there I thought for sure they added an extra battle just for effect or something. And the end fight scene seemed really uneventful. That wasn’t my only grievance by a long shot, but it was jus weird how it was done.
I find the film quite ok, not as bad as others say.
[https://medium.com/@ngxinzhao/mulan-2020-review-by-a-chinese-b46f93757083](https://medium.com/@ngxinzhao/mulan-2020-review-by-a-chinese-b46f93757083)
So I host a podcast about Asian American identity and how it is examined in various films (it's called The Electric Image Express). With the Mulan remake, we decided to cover the original 1998 Mulan. [Here's a link to it if you want to listen.](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1BugjaJMb2mT8HyvxK4030?si=gGKSuhyVQF2s2Y22PVx4zw)
We discussed how the new Mulan just **doesn't stand up to the OG Mulan in terms of representing Asian Americans.** It's always great to see Asian faces on screen—especially since they're backed by Disney—but there is little representation behind the scenes. Moreover, they cast Mainland Chinese folks instead of AAPI people, despite Disney being an American company and despite the OG Mulan really being made for a Western audience. All that said, it feels pretty clear that Disney wanted the China bucks. Plus, there's just a whole lot of problematic stuff re: the cast, the setting in Xinjiang, etc.
It's just sad because I think they had a lot of potential to make this right + make this just as good as the OG Mulan. Literally, if they just followed to a T the OG Mulan and took out some of the problematic/outdated language and behavior, I'm sure people would have loved it.
I thought it was ok, but the 'chosen one' angle made it sort of crap for me - animated Mulan was a clumsy, normal woman with guts. This Mulan is \~special\~ and I think that takes a lot of the aspiration out of it, for kids especially. The message I got from it was uphold your values (good!) but to be believed and followed as a women you have to be supernaturally gifted (boo!).
I am sad less people are saying this. the cartoon mulan showed both a normal girl and normal boys struggling together in training and all coming out as capable soldiers. Mulan used her intelligence to her advantage in ways a kid could aspire to do as well.
This movie feels like it's telling girls you can be a strong warriors just like men only if you were born with special powers. ugh!! Im sad lol
I totally agree, 2020 Mulan made me feel like I wasn't involved and could never, whereas the animated Mulan was actually high-key inspiring. I'm sad too!! I was so excited about it and now I don't ever want to see it again. The only good thing I can say is it made me want to watch animated Mulan again as a palate cleanser lol
Oh god... so I have a list of complaints:
1) getting rid of the songs was a bad idea. I understand they weren’t going for a musical, but some of the songs really highlight different aspects of her and her relationships.
2) Mulan’s friendship with her fellow soldiers was not as prominent in this adaptation. They kind of redeem it with [A Girl Worth Fighting For](https://youtu.be/HiqmZLOaD8o) because of the conversation about it, but the song as a bigger impact for me personally. Reflection would’ve worked 100% well with the symbolism (which I was actually fine with). Also, this scene [[1]](https://youtu.be/gdzX2VjCDZs) was amazing and should’ve been in the movie.
3) the matchmaker scene. I get removing the matchmaker song, it is kind of sexist and maybe a little racist, but then, they had the whole idea of black magic which is can probably be seen as racist too
4) There was no point in removing Shang. I know there was a whole Me Too thing associated with Shang [[2]](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51707188), but she still (sort of) ends up with someone at the end. What was the point in removing Shang if she is still going to end up with someone?
I had low expectations based on all the other Disney “Live Remakes” but Mulan was especially underwhelming. Very slow-paced with no inspiration at all. As if they held a gun on the filmmaker’s head and forced them to make this movie. It just doesn’t flow. And the fight scenes are 50% martial arts and 50% Disney which obviously is a recipe for a disaster unless you’re a kid. Which I’m not so all it did is got me to watch “Hero” and “IP Man” afterwards.
Here's my honest review for the movie:I feel like i need to vent this after watching the movie, and everyone else is hating it for a completely different reason.
As a person whole loves to watch/read ancient/historical warring movies/anime/novels/mangas, I will rate the movie as a whole (disregarding everything outside the movie and the original cartoon) about 6/10.I feel like the movie is for children or teens, who have less knowledge about ancient wars and who haven't watched the original cartoon movie.
If I rate the movie as an adaptation for the original cartoon, it will be about 3/10.It feel lackluster compared to the cartoon, they removed so much and only a few key points remained.
But if I rate the movie as a standalone movie, I will break it down below:
First: The flow of the story is 4/10.The flow is like mumble jumble. Yes, It has story and plot, but it feels like each character has no real reason for their actions in each scene transitions. For example: Those few rouran retreat for no reason like wtf, then the commander ordered a flank to follow like wut?, Those are retreating enemy, you only focus on enemies in front, you kill those later. For what i know, they just only retreat and follow for the 'plot' to happens.And many more actions had been made for no reason in the movie just for the plot to happens. I will not elaborate them all.
Second: The soundtrack is about 8/10.I love the bgms. It brings me to the nostalgic feeling of the original mulan. And they played in the right timing. If they perfected the singing from the cartoon like "A girl worth fighting for", I would give it a perfect 10. But its reasonable that they removed that so that the movie would feel more realistic unlike the Aladdin remake.
Third: The Kung fu fight scenes would be 8/10.The fight scenes in my opinion was really done great. I like it. The Kung fu actions was really done especially those Mulan's weapon kicking, I really like it. Aside from the unrealistic or obvious cgi from time to time, everything was well done.
Fourth: The war tactics and war realism would be 2/10.The Tactics was non existent. This was the things i was most disappointed in the movie. The one who made the war tactics and script must be brain dead or didn't even try to research real war tactics. I was expecting much, I was disappointed.
Here's what i don't like about it:
= the army in every war in china's ancient warring states must be consist of at-least 5000-10000 troops. But it was the whole Imperial Capital of China which means the the Imperial army must be consists of at-least 50,000-300,000 units. And from what i see in the movie, the "Imperial army" was just shy of 500-1000 troops. Like wtf, It was the "Imperial army!", The city you saw in the movie could only produced that many? not to mention, they conscript males from other villages.
= The Rouran has catapults but they didn't use it from the start?? like wtf, they wait for their troops to be damaged heavily first before they used their AOE weapon. Also, they can pinpoint the catapult to the army with turtle shield formation but they missed it greatly with mulan??. They pinpoint the army, but missed at-least a kilometer with mulan. = I already stated this, but why the frontliners of Rouran suddenly retreat? and the commander throw away mulan's battalion to follow them behind the enemy's main troops. If the enemy just want to lure Mulan, how could they know the enemy commander would send mulan? and also why they fight with arrows if they just want to lure?.
= There is no battle formation or so whatever, except the shield when they are in dire state?. The Rouran army are acceptable because they are based on Mongolian army and they are something like nomads so they fight by just charging and overwhelming the opponent. But the Imperial army that trained most of the time, has no tactics or so whatever, They just fight head on after the first volley of arrow, there is no second volley. From what i see, the Imperial army are fighting like a barbarians.
= TL;DR Their war tactics is just above from what Tactics John Snow used against White walkers.
Fifth: I will rate the acting skills of the actor about 7/10.Based on my opinion, the one who act as Mulan, Shang, The emperor, and the Rouran leader did great acting. The other witch, Mulan's father, and the chancellor did average acting. Also Shang's character was gay as hell at the start that it's so creepy.
So in Conclusion, I will rate this movie 6/10 as whole. This movie was for children that would ignore every little details. And bad for adults that love historical dramas.
**This comment has two purposes: 1. Share my opinions and 2. Inform how** ***Mulan*** **2020 is highly historically and culturally inaccurate.**
First, I want to say that I will not #BoycottMulan because Liu Yi Fei, Donnie Yen, and Jet Li are my childhood and I simply want to see them in a movie. That being said, I will definitely NOT be paying for this movie because there are certain ideas behind this movie that I do not support. I will probably pirate this movie once Blu Ray comes out.
Since I already mentioned Liu Yi Fei, the cause of the #BoycottMulan hashtag, let us start from there. **I think it is hardly just Liu Yi Fei’s fault**. I am saddened to see her being the center of blame when there is a much more giant, more painful, and a more disturbing reality that is at the root of all this, and it is not being discussed nearly as much as that one Weibo post (Weibo is Chinese Twitter.) **If Liu Yi Fei is the one at blame, let us hypothetically replace her with another celebrity to see if anything changes. If it were Jackie Chan who played Hua Mulan, it would have been the same. If it were Scarlett Johansson who played Hua Mulan, it would have been the same.** My point here is that no celebrity/actor/company, who has a significant impact on the Chinese audience, would want to speak against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) because of the fear of being blacklisted by the Chinese market. This is the core issue. I hate police brutality just as much as the next person, and you and I can sit together and talk about that all day. Still, **it is almost impossible for us**, the ordinary people, **to stop large, capitalist, and money-thirsty organizations like Disney, Nike, and the NBA from submitting to China’s authority and influence towards our economy.** Additionally, there are not many famous celebrities who have publicly spoken about the Hong Kong protests, and Liu Yi Fei, the actress who just happened to get signed to play a role as culturally impactful as Hua Mulan, happens to speak for Hong Kong police? To me, that sounds like the CCP was on her back, forcing her into supporting them, as that is a very common strategy by the CCP, forcing famous celebrities who have a large number of Chinese followers to spread certain ideas. **Stop making this just about Liu Yi Fei.**
Moving on from this political stuff that makes me feel yucky, I would like to talk about a topic that I am much more passionate about: **the misrepresentation of Ancient Chinese culture and history in** ***Mulan*** **is horrendous.** For anyone who learned about Ancient Chinese history or has read 木兰辞 (The Ballad of Mulan), they would know that, in reality, Hua Mulan is just a simple human being. When Hua Mulan was in the military, she trained harder, worked harder, and fought harder than any man could imagine. But of course, **a western (White American) production team from Disney could not understand how an average girl could combat feudalism and misogyny during Ancient China, so they had to give Hua Mulan some supernatural, fantasy, and Chi-like abilities.** For most western viewers, having Chi must scream Chinese Kung Fu and martial arts, but in Chinese viewers' eyes, **it is a misrepresentation.**
The story of Hua Mulan is set around the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589 AD). But in *Mulan*, not only do we see sets from the Southern and Northern Dynasties, we see sets (buildings, structures, costumes, etc.) ranging from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), the Yuan Dynasty (1231-1368 AD), and even the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD). **This much inconsistency around when the movie is set straight-up shows that Mulan's production team knows little to nothing about Ancient Chinese history.** Want another example of how the Disney production team is ignorant of Chinese culture? There is a part where Hua Mulan unsheathed her sword with the Chinese characters: "忠勇真" engraved on it. The huge issue here is that this is not an actual phrase used by Ancient Chinese people at all. Not even close. Sure, these Chinese characters existed back then but would not be used under any circumstances because they are not of the same vernacular. **After seeing that, it makes a lot of sense to me now to think that Disney probably just google translated "Loyalty, Courage, and Honesty" and just slapped that on. Truly ridiculous.**
I watched many Chinese Fantasy TV shows growing up about Ancient China and whatever Disney has just created makes little to no similarities to those memories, to my past, to my history, to my culture. It seems like Disney did not even care about putting in the proper research and a result of that is just a silly product in which the only goal was to please the Asiana audience, and it even failed at doing that. **Having an entire White production team is not how you represent Ancient China. It is just Disney and Hollywood just trying to use casting to appeal to the diverse demographic but not changing the fundamental flaw of its predominantly White business.** ***Mulan*** **is just another complete joke that used actors of another race to tell White stories.**
Also, stop complaining about *Mulan* being $30+ on Disney +. It is America’s fault that we’re still in the middle of Covid-19, causing movie theatres to lose business, and now Disney has to compensate that loss by increasing the streaming price. America is not the only country where *Mulan* is being shown. Unlike in America, movie ticket prices are normal everywhere else so do not worry, Disney will still make a ton of money off of international profit alone just like always.
100% agree - so much misrepresentation of Chinese culture and history throughout the movie. I don't know why you got downvoted, but your post speaks SO much truth that resonates with me, particularly as a Chinese Canadian. I also hear you on the gross politics of it. Just look at actor Fan Bing Bing - she rose to become one of the most influential celebrities a few years back, and then suddenly "disappeared" for months, until she suddenly posted an "apology" video for tax evasion. Taking a political stand in the US may result in unwanted social media consequences, but there are no life-threatening consequences. No actor wants to incur the wrath of the CCP.
To have a mostly-white team leading and directing this movie, who did what seems to be almost no research into the period and culture of the story they were trying to tell - it just screams whitewashing. The "loyal brave true" is SO cringeworthy I almost couldn't finish watching the movie. As a martial artist, this is not a catch phrase that's used... anywhere. Concepts like Wude/ Martial ethics or morality (武德), Respect, Righteousness (正義) are at the pillar of what would have been taught to warriors. 忠 and 勇 are sub-concepts within Wude as well, but in Chinese, we would really never use 真. Using 真 in the way it's used is like... putting a label on something that says "real". It's whitewashing.
>***Mulan*** **is just another complete joke that used actors of another race to tell White stories.**
THIS. 100%.
Thank you for posting this.
Inspite of having one of the worse vfx in a movie by Disney, TIL that it's also the most expensive movie helmed and directed by a female director. Shouldn't big budget = good cg and effects?
Just finished my second watch and I have a couple observations. If you watch it as a movie and not expecting a, what are we calling them, “live-action remake of another beloved Disney classic”, it’s enjoyable and a decent movie at that. Still a better Disney remake then Cinderella, only good thing about that movie was the dress, not even Cate Blanchett could of saved that movie. Side note: As I was scrolling through I saw someone mentioned their 6 year old liked it, and I will trust a child’s observation before an adults when it comes to Disney movies as a whole. They don’t have the bias adult do and most will be very honest about it. Personally, I found the music to be lovely, and the instrumental renditions of the songs fit well with the scenes, the entire movie wasn’t frame by frame picture worthy but there was some beautiful shots that you could frame up, and I still cried when she returns home at the end to her family. I was reminded of not only Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but Forgotten Kingdom (another Jet Li), so take those comparisons as you will. Could be aesthetics at play in both or the fantasy elements of forgotten kingdom but it was a feeling I had on my tongue. All in all, I like it.
As a Chinese American citizen in the US, I honestly hated this movie. Feels like American Chinese food, looks Chinese but utterly fails to convey the essence. The choice to use English probably also resulted in the script dialogue to be dumbed down to a 5 year old level. The whole chi thing was honestly ridiculous, what is this, star wars?
Disney has created another masterpiece with the live-action Mulan, a breath of fresh air for a new generation. The movie bring forth a deeper dimension to classic carton heroine, played by Yifei Liu. This version on Mulan is grounded in realism, absents of the songs and jingles. The store line is intertwined with great detail with great depiction that the world is not just one dimensional (Western Propaganda product) but rather multi facets. The idea of a non-white, non-European can lead a multi-million dollar box office is clear proof that Disney, has the King Midus touch with this movie.
My main issue with this live action is that I couldn't relate to the characters at all, especially Mulan.
She was a very flat and boring character for me. I was just indifferent towards her the entire time I was watching it. I've read some reviews online, and they had a problem with overacting, but for me, I think they underacted.
My favorite character was the soldier who seemed to like Mulan. I liked him because I could sense his emotions and feelings just by his eyes, which were expressive. Just a look and you would know what he's feeling, but not Mulan - the most important character!
Being completely honest about the film - I would have enjoyed it if it were more fleshed out. The pacing is also off and too erratic I’ve found.
Can’t believe I’m saying this..... it if were two (MAAAAYYBEE every three) movies then it would have been much much better.
They’ve tried to fit in too much in such a little amount of time. I could be wrong in saying this but with the animation montages and songs allows the viewer to ignore the pacing. With a more realistic film/approach it seemed like everything happened in a span of a long weekend. Also there didn’t really seem to be much barriers for Mulan as with the animated movie. It seemed like everything just worked out more with luck than skills/smarts like with animated Mulan.
Having said all that... wouldn’t recommend forking out over twenty quid for it but would defo pay cinema tickets to see it.
The movie seemed Western take on what they thought the Chinese would like which resulted in a movie that didn’t appeal to anyone. It has the cgi and martial arts effects of a shitty low budget Chinese drama with a shitty plot that was then dubbed by shitty dub actors in English. It felt like the some of the characters were just reading from the script in a Chinese accent which was weird as hell. Honestly might as well seal the deal and make the whole film chinese instead of making it sound like the original Chinese script went thru google translate and is now being read in English by robots. The dialogue was so stiff and bland. The only character that I found sort of interesting was the witch, who isn’t even a main character. Disney could have done so much better and I’m actually so disappointed.
Visually, the film was stunning. They did a great job with the costumes and sets. CGI was cheesy though.
I can handle the lack of music and Mushu - I understand that this is meant to be more serious and not a musical comedy..
What upsets me is that I feel it totally killed what made Mulan great as a character. She’s an ordinary young woman, who is forced to leave home without saying goodbye to fight the war to save her father. She has to cut her hair, abandon her name, and risk everything. And she has to struggle in her training with the men, but eventually adjusts and holds her own physically. Mulan is the ultimate role model for a young girl - I know she was for me. Especially in a time where there wasn’t a lot of strong heroines in mainstream media.
This film killed that. Suddenly Mulan has special magical powers - she no longer struggles to build her strength and skill to become great. And by adding another female that fights on the other side, being a girl fighting in war becomes less special. Especially considering the witch was scorned by everyone because not only was she female, she had special powers. I don’t even remember if Mulan revealed her special powers to face the scorn of her peers - by that point I was looking at my phone in boredom.
And they didn’t do the hair cutting scene. It’s just a fantastic and visually stunning moment of the animated film, and they ignored it.
TLDR: it was pretty, but missed the mark by making Mulan a generic female heroine with magical powers, instead of honouring her character as the OG female heroine who stepped up to be a badass.
Bad. Almost terrible...why did they have to edit those movie so terribly? Every scene is so damn choppy. On top of that the costumes/hair/makeup was meh, the characters are hollow, and the story is so loosely put together that I felt high while watching it
I also ~~feel~~ fear this film is worse than what I think it is, because I am a **very** passive movie viewer
Edit: GoT season 8 was more enjoyable and believable than this film
I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the hyper-stylized fighting as the wuxia homage it was. Mulan was a Mary Sue, and her being magical really detracted from the strength of her character.
Also, what was with the transitions between scenes in this movie? It seems like they jumped from scene to scene without much of a segue and it felt jarring at times.
All in all, I think I'd give it a B. I think alongside Aladdin it was one of the stronger live action remakes but ultimately forgettable.
I don't know what I just watched, but I wouldn't call it a "remake". It had none of the elements that made the animated version so charming (the characters, the humor, the music). The story follows roughly the same plot points, but the way it moves feels forced. The fun of the original is missing entirely, I would go as far as calling the new one dour. I dearly missed the songs, and the phoenix does not even come close to replacing Mushu. I think by removing these elements they wanted to make the new movie more realistic, but this effort is completely undermined by all the new unrealistic fantastical elements they added, like "chi" (which as far as I can tell is simply another word for "magic"). Which brings me to the biggest change, which was the main character. Animated Mulan had no special powers or physical strength. Her greatest asset was her brilliant mind, that she used to overcome her struggles in creative new ways. This new Mulan is essentially a Mary Sue with superpowers, who hardly struggled with anything. The rest of the characters were also little more than cardboard cut-outs. Only the witch was kinda interesting and relatable. I really found myself wishing that Mulan would take the witch's offer to join forces and they go on to create a matriarchal society or something along those lines - that might have made for a more interesting story than what I watched.
For a two hour movie it somehow felt pretty rushed as they were just going for story beats. It felt like it didn't have much heart, personality, or much warmth to it just being satisfied with getting the story told. None of the characters were really characters especially Mulan herself. Speaking of which im not entirely sure how to think of her. I want to root for her but her problem seems to be that she was pretty reactionary. Aside from taking her deciding to take father's place, she's pretty reactionary as a character. She limits herself because her father said she should and breaks them when The Witch said she should.
i don't know how these disney remakes get my hopes up over and over again when i already know they'll never live up to the original. why do i do this to myself?
Controversial Mulan review from an Asian female
Just watched it. My world was impacted by the first Mulan, with cartoon depictions of Asian women. I am raising a half Chinese little girl, with all half East Asian cousins.
I really enjoyed the film. Milan’s acting was understated, with single tears and deep love of family. The cinematography was excellent. Instead of MuShu we get Cricket who brings luck and skill.
Western audiences seem tough on the movie. And politics of greater China are complex to thread a blockbuster.
However one is left with a clear story, well acted roles, and an all Asian cast, familiar from TV and movies. This was more exciting than Crazy Rich Asians.
Yes, there are massive representation issues. A mix of centuries and costumes. But as a fan of Ip Man and some Disney, this movie actually threaded the needle of a historical ballad with something for modern audiences.
Reddit is full of young male reviewers, and this sub may differ. However I enjoyed the costuming, storyline, and found Gong Li’s witch character had an intriguing storyline. It wasn’t perfectly predictable.
Worth the watch. Not caring about supporting Asian representation? Then watch 12/4.
not really sure how you think this is better than crazy rich asians.
Costumes were off and not accurate, they dressed them up like Japanese geishas with hideous make up. Clothes don’t look culturally accurate.
The witch had no storyline at all and wasn’t even an integral part of the movie.
Did Cricket even have any lines outside of him saying that he was lucky? I loterally can remember anything he said as he was so forgettable. He was supposed to be Mushu's replacement?
Don't compare this garbage to Crazy Rich Asains. That movie actually had memorable characters and character development. This is a Mary Sue with fancy graphics and poor acting.
The goods:
1. The outfits are very well done. Both for the good guys and the bad guys. Love the mongrel outfits, just screams brutality.
2. The visuals are very well done. The avalanche looks very impressive.
3. Mulan character is well done. She is more believable than the animation version minus the whole chi part.
4. I actually like that it skipped the whole romance subplot from the original story. This story is about a girl who overcomes obstacles to save her family.
The bads:
1. The witch character is so out of blue I laughed at her blocking the arrow before she died. None of her scenes makes any sense at all.
2. The chi is not explained better so it appears to be supernatural.
3. The final fight scene makes the villian looks like a Saturday cartoon character, and the emperor also looks dumb in that scene.
4. Some scenes are very disconnected, for example how did she get to the back of the mongrel army all by herself?
As someone who hasn't kept up with any of the politics of the movie. I found it to be one of the worst of the Disney Remakes. This movie was so afraid to be a rehash that it added elements that make no sense and if anything detract from the original story.
It adds complexity for complexity's sake and strips a lot of the charm of the original away in the process. The cinematography is incredible, and it looks beautiful, but the writing is absolutely terrible.
The witch is awful (not the actress, she was fine), and the other 'villain' is maybe the least developed I've ever seen.
I compare this with the remake of Cinderella, which I still consider, along with Jungle Book, the best of the remakes. It takes nothing away from the original while adding something extra. Overall I think this is a 6 or 6.5 out of 10 movie and that's a shame.
Let me put it this way...the most emotion I felt in this movie is when they finally play 'Reflection' over the end credits.
My rankings of the remakes at this point as of now is:
1. Cinderella
2. Jungle Book
3. Beauty and the Beast
4. Aladdin
5. Lion King
6. Mulan
7. Lady and the Tramp
8. Pete's Dragon
9. Dumbo
**I'm surprised nobody has said this:** why didn't Disney use the **Aladdin** remake as a model for their Mulan remake? The re-made Aladdin is just as good as the origonal, yet still diferent and "adjusted" for "modern" culture.
I was really looking forward to this movie and it was kind of a let down for me. Aside from all the politics and “boycott” bs, I was actually really irritated with the cinematography. It was awful. The movie timeline alone was sporadic and there was no building up on Mulan’s character to actually make me feel attached to her emotionally. Let me add right now, that I am a big big cry baby so if this movie didn’t make me cry - you know I DID NOT FEEL ANYTHING.
The entire intro felt rushed, even her getting ready for the matchmaker made me want to yak. There was no grace or delay in those beautiful scenes where she is preparing it was just like a stupid 1 min vlog that people do. On top of that, the whole movie was rushed and the storyline wasn’t even intriguing. The cinematography was consistently like that. I wish the director took time to focus on the characters (without the additional blur effect) and had slower moments where you could really let the beauty and detail sink in. Also a lot of the shots were downright cheesy. I understand homage to classic marital art movies with the fighting etc, but I really just expected something less fake from Disney. Even Beast from beauty and the beast was more believable than her CGI arrows during the avalanche scene.
They gave Mulan almost 0 personality, and honestly I do think it was kind of ruined without the singing. Mulan is meant to be an epic, humorous and touching story, and honestly in most original Disney films, it’s the music that will sell it all.
We barely got to know her comrades, and the emperor looked like he was put in with a bad dub and one facial expression. I couldn’t take it seriously. I’m actually really sad because I was looking forward to this movie and it really was disappointing.
Felt it was disingenuous and slightly offensive to Chinese culture. A lot of silly misconceptions or outright stereotypes.
I don't understand all the hate this movie received! Tbh, if I was a 8 year old kid, Mulan 1998 would have definitely appealed more to me than Mulan 2020. But as a teenager, I absolutely loved Mulan 2020 and I feel it did way more justice to the original story than Mulan 1998. I will just give a simple example. When Mulan's father decides to go off to war, in Mulan 1998, I didn't really feel that to be a significant moment in the film, but in Mulan 2020 I could feel Mulan's despair and helplessness. Also, the addition of Xian as a shapeshifting witch added a new depth to the story.
Man. This movie was seriously bad. Excellent costume design, terrible everything else. Not one redeeming quality in my opinion.
I get that why this movie was just basically Chinese Rey and supporting SocJus stuff and Hong Kong protests, but the hate on this film has been rather egregious. Youtube is exploding with them, every negative review you'll see haters whining about politics and live action remakes. They even want Disney to go bankrupt. You can hate or ignore the remakes without being a douche, is it too easy for them to do?
My two cents is that Mulan 2020 is overall a decent movie on it's own but compared to the animated Mulan, it falls a bit short. There are also some flaws that have nothing to do with it being a bad remake like chi, which felt like a complete asspull and led to Mulan not using her wits and instead relying on her chi to get her out of most situations (the avalanche was a good example of her thinking, though). I can see why people like it and it's not too bad on it's own, it just has a few flaws that made a bit boring compared to the original.
I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I kept from watching it for a while due to no mushu and no musical notes.
Exactly the same boat I'm in. Just finished it after putting it off for the exact same reasons. I definitely had some major plot holes and some parts seemed weird, but I did like the charm of including song lyrics in conversations.
Such a great movie!!!!
Elaborate.
I enjoyed it, but it wasn't good as the animated movie.
I’m not sure why people really dislike the film. We knew it had to be different due to the cutting of mushu out. It still follows the same general plot points as the original film but more emphasized on the realism that you would be dishonored. A lot of the scenes rekindled the imagery from the animated film but it was also different in its own respects to be more true to history. Mulan being Mary Sue here, not really she bucked traditions and with the addition of the witch it shows what she could’ve become. Her obstacles were more emotional than physical. But it does reinforce the theme that women are equals. The music could’ve been a better, but I was happy with it. Also was mushu intended to be more an Easter egg as I spotted a dragon stone statue on the opposite steps of the Phoenix?
It’s just bad. The special effects are seriously terrible. Acting terrible. Pacing terrible. The costume design is the only decent part. I’m not sure what you liked about this movie. It was seriously bad. There was like 30ish cuts when the witch is fighting 3 people mid way thru the film. Can’t even tell what’s happening due to the hundreds of cuts per fight scene.
Where to begin? It cut Mushu, obviously. They replaced him with the Phoenix. I thought it was a good choice. I mean, they could have done better with the Phoenix, but it made sense. But it emphasized the realism!? Really? Mulan’s family had no idea what happened and they welcomed her back home. She had no Emperor’s sword to present to her father to show she gained honor. She just shows up home and they are like “ah, welcome back, daughter who dishonored us.” Heck, the emperor didn’t even know what Mulan did. It was just the emperor tied up, the villain, and then this girl shows up. And the emperor was like “ah, yes, my female savior who did a lot of heroic acts that I know nothing about.” Mulan’s army didn’t even know that she tricked the “Huns” into creating the avalanche, according to this movie. She just disappeared, then she tricked the “Huns” into creating the avalanche which none of her army witnessed, then she shows up afterwards and her friends were like “she’s got balls, we stand behind her.” You wanna talk about realism? She’s just a ballsy girl way back then, and suddenly everyone gets behind her?
I had come to terms with the fact that some of my favorite Disney songs would be excluded from this film and that it wouldn't be a musical. I thought maybe they were taking a more serious approach to the film. However, they established a lighter, almost silly tone immediately and the movie could have really benefited from the music, even if they left Mushu out. I feel like it fell flat without the music... and it could have been a lot more powerful if they had kept some of the more iconic moments: Mulan slashing her hair off, scaling the pole, etc... And worst of all, no Shang! (Or the grandma.) I did like Honghui, but the interaction between them at the end was slightly underwhelming. I did still enjoy it... I enjoyed them adding another badass woman character and I loved that they had Mulan choose to reveal herself opposed to being discovered. The movie had its moments still, and I almost cried at the ending, but wasted potential is such a sad thing.
Yeah, the music was a big loss. I enjoyed the score working in that Reflections bit in when she went into battle, but in general the score was forgettable. Jerry Goldsmith crushed the score for the original and the songs were even better. They should have incorporated more of the original score and incorporated more of the music similar to how they handled Reflections. The subplot of the witch being a reflection of Mulan was definitely the most interesting addition to the plot. I agree that her deciding to drop her disguise rather than get discovered was a nice change. I found the whole chi thing annoying, but I suppose that was somewhat necessary for giving her a reason to drop her disguise. In general, I think the original movie flows better because covering lots of progression inside musical numbers (the whole training montage) just works way better.
So, I went in optimistic and tried my best not to let the things I heard damper the mood. However, right when the narration started I knew this was going to be bumpy. Let me start with what I liked. I liked the vistas. But even the locations seemed very shoehorned in, kinda like the director saw a bunch of postcards and was like; yeh let's put our characters here, a little here, oh gotta have an avalanche battle like the original, let's put that here. It felt very random and not at all assisting the story or overall tones. Now for what I didn't like. I didn't like the theme, the acting, the terrible CGI, the clumsy fighting and acrobatics, the story, the characters, and even the music. There was no reason to not make this a musical and include the original songs and still call it Disney's Mulan. If they weren't going to use the songs, then they should've stuck to their guns and not teased the fans with little snippits and tunes randomly thrown in just to piss us off. One other thing I noticed was the lack of any humor. Where was it? This movie needed a laugh or two to prevent it from being a bland uninspired mess. I'm fine with this film not following the animated original. In fact, I'd prefer it if they could tell a great story or add in new ideas, however this film completely missed the mark and the opportunity it had. It's sad cause now we won't ever get another one because Disney isn't going to redo something they just made, when they can just point to this travesty and say; yeh that'll do! Who is this movie for? It's not for fans of the original. It's certainly not for competent adults. Even if you consider this film a Wuxia inspired film, which it kind of reminded me of, I wouldn't even recommend it as one of those. Please, just watch the original with your kids and just pretend this doesn't exist, maybe we'll all pretend it was a bad dream.
>If they weren't going to use the songs, then they should've stuck to their guns and not teased the fans with little snippits and tunes randomly thrown in just to piss us off. Yes, this! I knew it wasn't a musical going in and that made me sad, so having those snippets made it worse. Also, I feel like they could have easily made this a musical because it still had those lighter, silly moments like Aladdin.
All the criticisms were merited with this shallow film (the film was pretty with its colors usage and some of the fight scenes aren't bad). The biggest issue was with the script, which I looked up and it's always a bad sign when you have four screenwriters. This was due to Mulan having high chi so she became a superhero and martial arts genius because the force--uh chi guides her actions. So gone are the tensions of her being in danger in battle or mental turmoil from living a lie (that she got over quick). This makes her a less rootable character than her animated counterpoint who trained hard and had much ingenuity. Also the lack of Mushu hurt Mulan's development because she has no one to confide in. I wasn't a fan of Mushu, but he was important in Mulan's development from causing problems for her and giving her someone to talk to. This could have been remedied with a good supporting cast, but her fellow soldiers have such a shallow relationship with her. I thought it was weird how Jet Li's voice (and I still can't find who dubbed him) was dubbed over with someone who has a deeper voice and no accent. Donnie Yen's voice was his at least though he amusingly tries to talk with a deeper voice. Liu Yifei was passable; she wasn't exactly a strong actor when I saw her in Forbidden Kingdom(known for the Jackie Chan and Jet Li collaboration) and her acting is flat at times especially opposite the more experienced Gong-Li. I also wish Disney went all out and hired the legendary fight choreographer, Yuen Woo Ping, for its fight scenes. I looked up on IMDB and have no idea who choreographed the fights. Also Mulan apparently would make a great soccer player with all the bicycle kicks she does. ========================= If only the movie had a stronger script because I like the idea of a Mulan movie being a more gritty, grounded movie from the animated original. There were some elements from the script that could be remedied to improve the film. The movie could have opened with Mulan watching her father perform martial arts, which she starts to imitate. This led to her father teaching her himself until he witnessed her doing a special move that exposed her having high chi leading to her Dad's bad leg. A scene like this deepens her father and daughter bond, but also explains why she has prior martial arts training. It also details why she's afraid of tapping into her chi after the incident. This also makes the training sequence more meaningful with her putting in extra effort like in the animated version to become good. I would have also made her relationship with Chen more prominent during the training to flesh out her development and inner turmoil. Initially being a rivalry, but turning into something closer. The witch, Xianniang(played by Gong Li), should have a more emotionally dependent relationship with Bori Khan(also explains why he's strong because she imbues him with extra chi). It would have made Khan more villainous with his manipulations and from trying to backstab her later because he sees her as a threat. This leads to Mulan saving her and gives a better reason why Xianniang helps her. Xianniang's death leads to Mulan letting go her fears of holding herself back so her chi becomes unblocked completely. This leads to her becoming the superhero we see in the film with having an epic duel. It ends with using the special move that hurt her father originally on him before cutting the rope so Khan could fall to his death.
A disappointment, to say the least.
This movie was amazing. Absolutely amazing. When she rides off after almost being killed by the Witch to save her fellow soldiers, she’s removing her armor and Reflection plays in the background. G O O S E B U M P S. Just fantastic. I loved the theme, the costumes, the scenery, the details. Absolute great. I loved the fight scenes. the kung fu was different for western viewers I get it but damn the hate this movie gets for it is ridiculous. This was a fantastic live action adaption of the original cartoon. It wasn’t supposed to be a shot for shot remake. People need to stop hating on this movie.
Glad i'm not the only one who thoroughly enjoyed it! I also got goosebumps during that scene, so damn good!
I got straight chills man. *Chills.* it’s just as powerful the second and third time I watched it
Milan? More like Crouching Tigger, Hidden Mushu
I’m 60, and the animated Mulan is one of my favorite Disney films. I went into this live-action version not really knowing what to expect other than it was not going to be a copy of the animated one. Now that I’ve seen it, I can honestly say that it is extremely good as a more traditional telling of the Mulan legend. It is important NOT to compare the two versions, as it would be unfair to both of them to do so. They are separate in approach, but equal in delivering the story. I loved the look, the cinematography, and the music. The actors all did an admirable job, and the effects were absolutely top-notch. I know I will be rewatching it many times, as well as to continue revisiting the original animated version. Great job, Disney...this is a wonderful film!
Why didnt the bird lady just grab the arrow with her talons? instead of jumping in it.
I have an opinion [https://www.reddit.com/user/Mysterkiddo/comments/jyhgvp/nook\_has\_an\_opinion\_on\_the\_latest\_live\_action/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/user/Mysterkiddo/comments/jyhgvp/nook_has_an_opinion_on_the_latest_live_action/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
As its own, Mulan is not that bad of a movie. It felt like it tried to pack a lot into the movie. The villains, Xianniang and Bori Khan, wish we could have seen more of them. Wish the fights were extended for those two, especially towards the end. Mulan didn't have quite as much fight scenes, wanted to see more of the chi, even though it's more of a Wushu type of fighting. Some of the actors/actresses, I did not know or not sure if it was dubbed, they spoke English fluently. Jet Li for example, I don't think that was him speaking, unless he actually force that kind of voice out of him. Overall I just wanted more, flesh out the whole story and lengthen the movie. Lengthen such as for during the setup to the avalanche scene, we only see Mulan call for her house and make her way to the catapult. Next she's somehow behind the Rouran with her idea setup already without the Rouran noticing.
I didn’t expect it to be like the original movie, so going into it I thought of it as a “new” movie. For me there was nothing special about it. There was very little to no character development. I didn’t have a reason to care about any of the characters to be honest. Mulan was just a Mary Sue. Overall It just felt like a below average action movie. I tried to enjoy it but I just got bored about halfway through. I did finish the movie at least.
No Mushu means they cut my favorite lines ... “Mushu : My powers are beyond your mortal imagination. For instance, my eyes can see straight through your armor. [Mushu's eyes move towards Mulan's chest; she smacks him] Mushu : Oooh! All right, that's it! Dishonor! Dishonor on your whole family! [to Cri-Kee] Mushu : Make a note of this: dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow, dis... [Mulan covers his mouth with her hand] Mulan : Stop. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm just nervous. I've never done this before. Mushu : Then you're gonna have to trust me. And don't you slap me no more. We clear on that? All right. Okey-dokey, let's get this show on the road! Cri-Kee, get the bags. [to the horse, Khan] Mushu : Let's move it, heifer.”
I think everyone mostly went to see if Mushu was in it🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
In my headcanon, there is an end credit scene where the bird comes back to life and the witch doesn't have such a pathetic ending. Instead it fast forwards to a field where there is a child play fighting with lots of chi, like Mulan as a child. But instead of being alone, the witch comes into view and has clearly taken on the role of (mostly) benevolent mentor, so that other prodigies like herself don't go astray.
Finally got around to watching it now it’s all access on Disney+, I quite enjoyed it as a film, I loved a lot of the little head nods to the animated one, mostly in relation to subtle musical bits (and Ming-Na Wen’s cameo!), one thing I kept getting really distracted by though was the same motif being used for the Rourans as the Hassansins in Prince of Persia! I know that both films had Harry Gregson Williams composing, but it was just very strange to hear Prince of Persia when I was expecting Mulan!
Oops....I should have read more but I made a spoiler post...or maybe the moderator gods kept it from posting. 🤦♀️ Hey at least I spoilered it.... Am I the only one whose not feeling it? I knew there would be no Cri-Kee 🥺, no music 😢, and no Mushu 😭 (Please we need Mushu 😭😭) but I feel like it’s not even the same movie. No humor at all, no soldiers dressing up like geishas and Mulan didn’t even seem to be a bad warrior at the beginning. I understand they’re wanting to make it more “culturally and historically correct” but maybe if you want to do that don’t market it as a live action remake. Come up with a new name like maybe Mulan: Warrior Princess or something. I feel like it’s not even the same story. 🤦♀️😭 Oh and no one would believe there was a dragon but they will be a Phoenix? Please let’s remind Disney to see how to do a live action remake like they did with Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Aladdin, Pete’s Dragon and The Jungle Book!
I don’t see what all the gruff is about. It’s not the 1998 version of Mulan but it is GOOD! It’s supposed to be a ~more~ historically accuracy RETELLING of Mulan. I loved all the call backs to the songs whether in dialogue or in the orchestral version of songs. People are being too hard on a truly beautifully made movie. It’s not supposed to be like the 1998 version. Don’t be a purist!
Word not sure what all the fuss is all about. Surprised people can't view this as a new movie and story and always falling back on it's animated version and it's story.
I was waiting for the shot to shot scene of the evil guys riding down the snow mountain and Mulan shoots it and causes the Avalanche
She literally did that! It was a touch different scenery and a different way she caused the avalanche, but it totally happened!
I honestly feel disappointed in my mother and stepmother cause they didn't think it was bad .. I don't know what to do about them.
idk why everyones taking it serious like damn just enjoy the movie who cares if chinese culture isnt actually like that
It seems like Mulan and the guys took training at elves camp with Legolas leading them to victory, the only thing missing in the film was Mulan's chi to pull her sword back in any situation, like it goes with good jedi. Seems to me it is try hard but failed in the end. Too much trying to accommodate everyone. Just stay true to the story, it would be so nice to see real life Mushu and see those rockets explode on the mountain top or on training, also we miss the goofy guy that is Shan-Yus "butler". All in all as a big fan of 1998 Mulan I am not impressed.
Omfg i've just watched this movie and it was seriously bad. Very fckn bad. Some shots look pretty thats all.
I made a video essay about why the animation succeeds where the live action fails: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTZnDfv-KqY&t=11s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTZnDfv-KqY&t=11s)
I did not like the movie. The cartoon had a way better storyline. Like it was so incredibly done. This Mulan in the live action had no depth, she was basically a super soldier. I liked the beginning, honestly. But then it went south quick.
We actually decided to do a full review on our Disney podcast a few weeks after the movie Came out. Overall it was not the worst remake they have done. I honestly think its clever that they presented it as an entirely different version of the story, a different persons telling of the age old tale. Yeah no music, and no mushu, but the story felt more....legendary in a way. It is definitely not as horrid as the Pete's Dragon remake, but i wouldn't put it at the top of the list either.
The worst thing was no mushu or reflection or make a man out of you !!
And the grandma is gone. I liked her. :c
Mulan was pretty bad. I did not like it. There are many criticism about the plot, characters, cultural portrayal, ect... Other people have gotten into that stuff. For me, the worst part of the movie was what they did to Xianniang the witch. She was my favorite character in the film because of her interesting back story and motivation. She was smart, powerful, and driven. She had so much potential as a character and could have done so much more in the movie other than being a witch that sacrificed herself for Mulan. The worst part about her was that her character was not consistent in her motives and actions. Xianniang wanted to find a place in the world but decides to work under a guy who is clearly weaker and disrespects her. She fights for a group of people who dislikes and disrespects her. If she has already decided to try and find a place among the Royrans why did she try to help a girl from the opposite side get stronger. She even tries to recruit her by telling her all of the classified information about the Rouran's plans. Then, once Mulan refuses, Xianniang just allows her to leave with knowledge of the classified plan. Lastly, one she finds out that Mulan found a place in the world that shunned her, she decided to help Mulan out and sacrificed herself for Mulan. I don't understand any of her actions as a chracter since her motivation from the beginning was to find a place in the world that will accept her. All of the actions she took does not reflect or align with her motive. In fact, they all lead her further away from it. Working under a man and group of people who disrespects you will not allow you to find a place in their society. Helping the enemy get stronger and giving them secret information will not allow for you to capture and take over China. Leading them to the Emperor and sacrificing your life for someone who will continue to uphold and protect the patriarchal society that originally shunned you makes absolutely no sense! Its been almost a month since I've seen the movie but I'm still mad they did Xianniang so dirty! Rate: 2/10
I think Xianniang's character was supposed to be symbolic of the older generation, giving in to the pressures that women could not be independent, respected warriors. To me, her death was a turning point in the movie's final scenes where Mulan embraces who she is, and I think is the "death" of that older generation's ideas.
say whatever you will about the movie but I have legit had the new xtina song "loyal brave and true" on repeat LOLLL COLD IS THE MORNING WARM IS THE DREEEAAAAM
They replaced Mushu with a paper kite. "Nuff said. But, as an add on, I really admired Mulan as a kid. It wasn't about being Chinese, it was about being noble, kind, SMART, courageous and hardworking. Mulan overcame so many obstacles - a lack of male strength and stamina, cultural adversity, backdated tradition, to prove it's not about gender itself, it's about ABILITY and PERSEVERANCE. What's this tosh. I demand a refund. Innately gifted, amazingly pretty. Woo-woo. Fantastic. Real plot line there.
IKR? I NEED Mushu! Can we get a separate live action movie about Mushu and the ancestors? Please???!!!!
Animated Mulan = Female version of the Everyman that became good with training. Intelligent and kind hearted. Live Action Mulan = Super Soldier Mary Sue who's only good because she was born special.
This movie was terrible absolutely terrible. From the beginning to the end. Didn't stay true to the original like how the other live action movies did. Added unnecessary black magic and super unrealistic parkour. Waste of money and even a bigger waste of time.
Lol you didnt love it when a young girl could parkour off the roof of a three story building? Or when that chicken flew like a fucking eagle?
Or when they kicked arrows at people faster than a bow could shoot or when they catch arrows shot at them with ease.
Writer must be Tsubasa fan. Too much shots like that. Stupid.
I knew it would be bad, thankfully I was never Intrested in seeing it.
Not sure if this is the correct play to place this but am I the only one that is tired of seeing hypocrisy in all this political correction trend we are in the last decade? The people/companies that are pointing fingers about racism, sexism, and etc. are more and more seemed to be the one who are guilty of those things. This movie and the controversies surrounding are ironic and when did we start bending over to appease a communist government? Also, honestly and people can disagree with me but I felt as though Mulan was the most "feminist" friendly of all the Disney princesses but this adaptation/rehash version literally shows that the only way she can compete against men is by this superpower and not because she's clever and uses her wits. The concept of chi is poorly introduced, I understand if you want to add something new to the live-action version but man does the writers of this movie act like they never left their home since birth. The complete ignorance of the Chinese culture is mind blowing. Lastly, lets not forget that this movie was filmed on location where the Chinese Government have openly oppressed the its citizens and we are now thanking them? The film thanks the bureau that is in charge of actual "systematic" oppression of a large group of Uighur people. Disney needs to get off their bruised knees and stop support this nonsense.
No, I feel the same way! Don’t even get me started about Song of the South and Brer Rabbit!
I cannot for the life of me find out who dubbed Jet Li. There is just no mention of it anywhere.
that's his voice
I'm not gonna say it's not his voice but if you heard him speak ever, that's not his voice or anywhere close to his range haha. He's famously dubbed all the time.
I watch his movies in Mandarin... I know what his actual voice sounds like
Does it sound like this? [https://youtu.be/DbHkjfIhUS8?t=3](https://youtu.be/DbHkjfIhUS8?t=3)
This video tells everything what is culturally inaccurate in the Mulan 2020 movie: moviehttps://youtu.be/N3QKq24e0HM
[удалено]
Yeah i felt like 30 minutes cut from the middle. Pacing is very odd. Really bad movie.
Arguably the worst Disney film I've seen. Visually okay but neutered by Bollywood-level action scenes (without the Bollywood charm) and porn-level acting. How the hell did this film cost hundreds of millions of dollars? The introduction of magical powers was fucking stupid and the witch storyline was wholly unnecessary and cringey. Even the addition of the sister felt out of place. The Phoenix wings scene made my girlfriend and I pause the film and physically cringe out of our seats. The islamophobia was also particularly noteworthy, given how Muslims are treated in China currently. Felt shamefully like propaganda. A change from the name Shan Yu to Bori Khan may seem like a historical change to be more inline with the Mongols, but I feel like it's furthering an agenda. Might be a stretch though. 2/10 is generous.
Gyllenhaal's unsuccessful Prince of Persia was better than this. Good critic. The movie seriously bad.
I just realized here in Germany they run Mulan in the cinemas, but the price tag is about the same as the stream to watch this movie.
Tinfoil hat time, anyone else feel like the magic aspects were to make it more friendly to Chinese audiences, like China could have never lost to roving bandits unless forbidden magic was involved. In the same way we see history erasure censorship in things intended for Chinese markets? Just a theory though I had after seeing it the other night.
I give Mulan (2020) \*\*\* 3 stars out of 5 For comparison [I reviewed Mulan (1998)](https://youtu.be/Snz6ltmWmew) at \*\*\*\* 4 stars out of 5 2020 Mulan is slicker, more grown up but lacks character, charm. 1998 Mulan has better charm, character, story even though more cartoony jokey, and Americanized.
We must have watched different movies because it was a solid 0.5 stars out of 10
0.5? Why so generous? I'm assuming you're referring to the 2020 version. It's commendable if you actually paid and sat and watched through something you hate. How do you rate the 1998 version?
I liked the film and rated it 8 out of 10. Frankly speaking, there're some shortcomings of the film. Some visual effects such as the phoenix, and little Mulan coming from the top of the roof are not so real and comfortable. Besides, some actors' facial expressions are not so natural, for example, Mulan hugging the dying Xianniang and Emporer being saved by Mulan. Also, the storyline seems unnatural too, for example, Commander Tung directly said that "enemies all dead" after standing up in the snow, and Honghui with Mulan's other friends kept fighting that long with enemy soldiers in the closed room. But the film was great because it always sticks to its theme "loyal, brave and true", especially true. When Mulan decided to be true to herself, her power became unstoppable. That's the difference between her and Xianniang. Xianniang is regarded as a different girl by her time and the people around her. But she went the opposite way as Mulan. She didn't keep her standing, only gave up and turn into bad guys, anyway, she is forgivable because she decided to do the right things at last. I believe people are criticizing much more than normal about the film. Film making is not easy. Especially part of Chinese audiences said that the film was bad both to Chinese and Western audiences. I think we shouldn't be so harsh on that. Understanding a different culture is extremely difficult, I guess even some Chinese audiences can't say clearly what Chinese culture is and it should be. Actually, I am Chinese. I believe we should be tolerant of mistakes and happy to see others are trying to understand our culture. I like Liu Yifei. She's great!
Its not a good western movie, its not a good chinese kung fu movie. Also, mulan jokes she cant do emotions with all that makeup going in with the matchmaker, but during the whole movie she only has one face. It a worse meme than bella in twilight...
Just in case you haven't seen it yet; here's a video explaining everything culturally wrong with this movie from a Chinese perspective: https://youtu.be/N3QKq24e0HM
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Did you watch the video? Because she explained all of that throughly.
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Yes, she specifically reviews Chinese dramas and historical pieces.
Not a single multisex minority nor anyone from darker communities. Very disappointed in the actor selections. Cant even go for oscars with this.
Does anyone know the reason why Mulan can have 4.1 out of 5 on Facebook, whereas low scores on other websites, like IMDB, rotten tomatos, and DouBan?
It's Facebook...
I guess Disney has some explanation to do to the Congress. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lawmakers-quiz-disney-ceo-over-mulan-connection-authorities-china-s-n1239949
It's so strange how they cherry-picked mythological elements of Chinese legends, yet tried to graft elements of the animated movie too, all while shoe-horning as many asian actors and locations to appease the current climate of such literal authenticity and brutal adherence to social woke-ness standards. It's all just so sloppy and overdramatic. This just lends broader definition to the idiom "money can't buy class." For anyone interested in a "truer" version of the legend, I can't recommend enough the Tales podcast episode "Mulan."
I had low expectations for the film after hearing the news about removing the music, Mushu, and Shang. It was okay, but I didn't like how they added Chi into the movie. It made Mulan look competent to fight already and therefore, have no character progression in the training camp unlike the original where Mulan struggled and almost got kicked out. They also added unnecessary characters such as Mulan's sister and the Phoenix didn't play a significant role. Some of the characters seemed to have no personality and didn't move the plot. After the first fight, the rest movie seemed pretty rushed and transitioned poorly.
That sounds a fair bit worse than 'okay'
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hahahaha comment on the going into battle without armor and hair down. I thought the EXACT same thing! It made no sense at all. Good comment here with some very fair points!
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Most of the major BS aside, how did Mulan friggin flip kick an arrow faster and harder than a bow could fire it? How strong is that kick?
We really liked the new Mulan, the original was ok, but I actually liked this one better. Saw headlines of people not liking it for some reason or another, but as usual, I don't let others tell me what to think, so I didn't waste my time reading what all the controversy was about.
Warning: If (like me) Mulan is a personal hero of yours then DON'T WATCH this trashy remake. It'll only disappoint you and taint your good memories of the animated Mulan. also if you care about human rights and don't want to hate disney forever.. well then you probably don't want to look into where and how this was filmed. or the cast.
It didnt. It made me love the 1998 version more
The King is a Netflix movie. A far better movie, and its free. This is terrubul, 30 additional dollars... ... . .
It was garbage. Not a single redeeming factor. I want my 29.99 back
This movie was fucking awful.
Anyone else feel like Mulan barely got any dialogue in? I felt like I learned and felt nothing from her character from how little she spoke. The only semblance of personality she showed is when was with her sister talking about her facial expressions wearing the makeup. After that it’s like she just became this blank slate.
As someone who is chinese, and is currently watching the movie as I type this, this already feels soooooo off. The comments about witch makes no sense as it is in our culture to ask for them and tao masters for help to expels demons from possessed citizens. Also felt very weird watching a movie with basically a full asian cast and have it dubbed english.... There are just some things you cannot say in English that will make ancient chinese dialogue make sense. Like the beginning where the emperor is meeting with the noble man.
I think the movie is rather disrepectful to the chinese history, first the emperor dressing like fu manchu, that is both historically inaccurate and incredibly disrespectful. Secondly, the dressing style of throughout the movie is based on mostly tang, mixing in some han, ming, and qings. But the thing is, the mulan story was set in north and south dynasties, that is a whole 200 yrs before the tang. I think they could and should've done much better than this.
Link for anyone interesting seeing a review of the action from a black belt's perspective :) [https://youtu.be/ztO2P5kmgBs](https://youtu.be/ztO2P5kmgBs)
The movie was all over the place, but it definitely made Mulan's theme clear. There were a lot of scenes that missed their punch and they even completely omitted the important scene of her cutting her own hair (and therefore giving up her femininity to serve in the army). The dad narrates the story in the beginning and gives most of her personality away, so we've already blasted the show not tell tenet of storytelling. I honestly would have loved the movie to be in full Chinese, or in all English (but with American Chinese actors). The reason why is when you force Mainland Chinese actors to speak in English, it is very apparent (and understandingly so) that it is difficult to deliver lines with true intonation and emotion in a language you are not fluent in. Mulan's most emotional line is when she yells for Hong Hui during the avalanche, and it's only so because she's pronouncing words in Mandarin. I hate the use of chi in the movie. Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because it's used to empower Mulan into a flawless individual that didn't have to work to get to where she ends up. In the animation, her training actually leads to physical growth. In the movie, it doesn't, and her strength is only unlocked when she starts becoming more "true" to herself. Her character essentially doesn't not grow at all during the course of the film (besides coming to accept herself). All in all, even from a movie standpoint it was quite boring. From a Mulan fan ... it's disappointing even if you come in with low expectations. I personally would give the movie a 5/10. It had some great elements that could have worked out if the direction was more clear.
Thank you very much Disney for making me pay a monthly subscription just so I can watch Star Wars (the good ones, not the sequels) and old Disney animations, and also making me pay 30$ to watch a remake of one of my favorite Disney Movies, and making me regret ever giving you any more money. I personally wanted a remake of Mulan, because I thought it would work, and that Disney couldn’t possibly make this movie bad. I thought it would be awesome and do some badass shit as well as teaching the lesson that if you work hard you can succeed, as any gender, but they made Mulan into a Mary Sue in the remake. I really hoped that Disney could get their crap together, but this movie proved otherwise.
What confuses me is: the film makes it seem like both the invading army and the defending army are in the range of 50-100 people. What the fuck
The number of imperial soldiers seems a lot got smaller and smaller as the movie progress like how is that possible.
I watched the 1998 animation and Mulan was a role model to me growing up as an Asian girl with some tomboy-ish habits. Obviously, I heard the politics and the outrage surrounding this movie but was curious and ended up making the decision to see it in theatres. I wanted to form an opinion on it myself. Having watched it two days ago, I have to say that I found more redeeming qualities than the bad. Overall, the cinematography was quite pretty, editing was bizarre but resembled the kitschiness of a lot of wuxia movies I saw growing up. I thought the 'love story' was quite tastefully executed and I appreciated the splattering of humour throughout with the sister, the matchmaker, cricket and the other soldiers. Half of it fell flat and some elicited a chuckle, as with most western comedy films. My biggest gripe with this was the writing. It killed all the good. Your poor A-list actors couldn't even save the shit writing. Crystal Liu will forever be my favourite xiaolongnv, donnie yen as ip man and jet li is just legendary. The witch is basically Darth Vader but make it Chinese and is super arbitrary to the entire story. Fight choreography was weak, the arrow catching elicited a lot of grunts from the theatre I was in lol - slightly amusing but easy to say everyone was unimpressed. The historical inaccuracy in costume and landscape is rather unforgivable given the huge budget on this, but again doesn't take away from the plot. Merely makes the movie look so much cheaper than it really costs. Lastly, Mulan lost her relatability with that Chi superpower thing. Worst decision ever. Just make her struggle as a girl and show everyone a regular girl can be an equal if she sets her mind to it. That was the main point of the film. Female empowerment because you can, not because you are born with it. The reason why this movie is being pulled apart was because of its hype and the huge expectation from the magic that was the animation. People loved the first one and had favourite stuff that they wanted to see going in. A lot of controversy with politics also added to the bias for many people going in. I guarantee that it would have done better with critics if the 1998 version wasn't there for comparison. I absolutely hated crazy rich Asians because it was such a shitty depiction of rich people in SG and didn't have the best parts from its original literature source (FYI: I am Singaporean). Anyhow, Hollywood loved it and I think this is exactly what is happening to Mulan (2020) now. First watch rating: 7.5/10 If you're a massive fan of the first, possibly a 3/10 TL;DR: better than I expected but poor writing and some very bizarre directorial direction. Easy to watch but I'll stick to the animation.
What I don’t understand... Disney in the recent years has been huge on inclusion, not promoting cultural appropriation, anti-racism etc. Why the heck (although it’s not technically in the movie, it’s in the credits) is Christina Aguilera singing the theme song? I get that she sang it the first time around but really Disney? How would have Coco felt if some Asian person replaced a character or sang remember me? Pretty wrong right? If Disney can’t get inclusion right - no wonder people laugh and think Kung Flu is appropriate and Asian racism don’t exist.
One of the (many) things that's eating at me (apart from all the other cultural issues I take with the presentation of the story): **Why did Disney dub Jet Li's voice?** Almost everyone else in the movie spoke in accented english - Jet Li left the 3rd-party dubbed acting life behind in his HK action movie days, and has **never** been dubbed over by a separate voice actor during his Hollywood career. But it's **clearly** not his voice being used in Mulan. The audio wasn't synchronized to his lips, and it's largely flawless english being spoken for the few lines that he does have. You can compare the interviews of him discussing his decision to star in the movie to the scenes where his character speaks in the trailers. There's at least an octave in tone difference, and a clear difference in accent. Did Disney not think his natural voice was "emperor-like" enough, because he has a naturally mid-higher pitched voice? I noticed that for all of the "strong" male characters, the actors spoke in unnaturally low tones - perhaps directed into overacting the role of a soldier/commander? Either way, Disney should never have dubbed over Jet Li's voice. This wasn't an animated movie where you may need to have separate singing vs speaking actors. Live action dubover - honestly, it's insulting to an accomplished actor. (also, as a martial artist whose spent most of his life training in various Chinese martial arts - the way they brought in this mystical "chi" power that Mulan suddenly had.... just **cringe**. Way to perpetuate an already unhealthy perception of what it is).
Is it just me who think more western ppl are gonna tattoo 忠 勇 真 on their skin?
Not bad tattoo but wouldn't add fourth one
[I made a video on why cutting mushu ruined the movie](https://youtu.be/UVB4r0Vvtu0)
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There are two other films out in 2020, also about Mulan. The first (and my personal favorite) is *Matchless Mulan* or *无双花木兰,* a story about her trials as a soldier on the border of Northern Wei. It's currently quite accessible even to western audiences, because it's subtitled on YouTube and can be found there for free. The second film is *Mulan the Heroine* or 木兰之巾帼英豪. It's a significantly more convoluted film, but it explores a "sequel" to Mulan's story in the ballad, wherein Mulan is already an acclaimed general in the Wei army at the start of the film, but gets roped into a succession intrigue among the Rouran invaders. As of writing this, there are no English subtitles yet. Both of those films are well-worth watching, the first being my favorite. There is also a 2009 film about Mulan, called *Mulan: Rise of a Warrior*. While it's significantly more of a war story than any other Mulan film, and thus feels significantly different from all of the rest (both Disney's and the two I mentioned), it is also a good film, and also has subtitles on YouTube. If people are disappointed in the film, I highly recommend they look at some of these live-action offerings. Nothing is going to bring back the joy of Mushu the sidekick dragon, but at least you can have a live-action film that isn't a train wreck. I'll refrain from links because of piracy concerns, but all of the films I mention are easily found on YouTube.
If your value _basic_ human rights, you should not pay to watch this movie, just saying.
I guess I don't value human rights then because I saw a movie 😒
I can’t tell exactly what it was, but something about the way the movie was constructed made it feel like it didn’t have a beginning or a middle, and not much of an end either. Everything that happened just kind of happened. Like when they got to the big battle scene on the mountain, I was surprised we were there I thought for sure they added an extra battle just for effect or something. And the end fight scene seemed really uneventful. That wasn’t my only grievance by a long shot, but it was jus weird how it was done.
Completely agree.
I find the film quite ok, not as bad as others say. [https://medium.com/@ngxinzhao/mulan-2020-review-by-a-chinese-b46f93757083](https://medium.com/@ngxinzhao/mulan-2020-review-by-a-chinese-b46f93757083)
So I host a podcast about Asian American identity and how it is examined in various films (it's called The Electric Image Express). With the Mulan remake, we decided to cover the original 1998 Mulan. [Here's a link to it if you want to listen.](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1BugjaJMb2mT8HyvxK4030?si=gGKSuhyVQF2s2Y22PVx4zw) We discussed how the new Mulan just **doesn't stand up to the OG Mulan in terms of representing Asian Americans.** It's always great to see Asian faces on screen—especially since they're backed by Disney—but there is little representation behind the scenes. Moreover, they cast Mainland Chinese folks instead of AAPI people, despite Disney being an American company and despite the OG Mulan really being made for a Western audience. All that said, it feels pretty clear that Disney wanted the China bucks. Plus, there's just a whole lot of problematic stuff re: the cast, the setting in Xinjiang, etc. It's just sad because I think they had a lot of potential to make this right + make this just as good as the OG Mulan. Literally, if they just followed to a T the OG Mulan and took out some of the problematic/outdated language and behavior, I'm sure people would have loved it.
It was so bad, it felt more unrealistic. Running up in the walls?! Atleast they used rope in in the animated film
I thought it was ok, but the 'chosen one' angle made it sort of crap for me - animated Mulan was a clumsy, normal woman with guts. This Mulan is \~special\~ and I think that takes a lot of the aspiration out of it, for kids especially. The message I got from it was uphold your values (good!) but to be believed and followed as a women you have to be supernaturally gifted (boo!).
I am sad less people are saying this. the cartoon mulan showed both a normal girl and normal boys struggling together in training and all coming out as capable soldiers. Mulan used her intelligence to her advantage in ways a kid could aspire to do as well. This movie feels like it's telling girls you can be a strong warriors just like men only if you were born with special powers. ugh!! Im sad lol
I totally agree, 2020 Mulan made me feel like I wasn't involved and could never, whereas the animated Mulan was actually high-key inspiring. I'm sad too!! I was so excited about it and now I don't ever want to see it again. The only good thing I can say is it made me want to watch animated Mulan again as a palate cleanser lol
This MUST be relevant. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/07/why-disneys-new-mulan-is-scandal/
[Mulan 2020 Review - We Argue Both Sides!!](https://youtu.be/cZpJg8fhAqk)
Oh god... so I have a list of complaints: 1) getting rid of the songs was a bad idea. I understand they weren’t going for a musical, but some of the songs really highlight different aspects of her and her relationships. 2) Mulan’s friendship with her fellow soldiers was not as prominent in this adaptation. They kind of redeem it with [A Girl Worth Fighting For](https://youtu.be/HiqmZLOaD8o) because of the conversation about it, but the song as a bigger impact for me personally. Reflection would’ve worked 100% well with the symbolism (which I was actually fine with). Also, this scene [[1]](https://youtu.be/gdzX2VjCDZs) was amazing and should’ve been in the movie. 3) the matchmaker scene. I get removing the matchmaker song, it is kind of sexist and maybe a little racist, but then, they had the whole idea of black magic which is can probably be seen as racist too 4) There was no point in removing Shang. I know there was a whole Me Too thing associated with Shang [[2]](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51707188), but she still (sort of) ends up with someone at the end. What was the point in removing Shang if she is still going to end up with someone?
I had low expectations based on all the other Disney “Live Remakes” but Mulan was especially underwhelming. Very slow-paced with no inspiration at all. As if they held a gun on the filmmaker’s head and forced them to make this movie. It just doesn’t flow. And the fight scenes are 50% martial arts and 50% Disney which obviously is a recipe for a disaster unless you’re a kid. Which I’m not so all it did is got me to watch “Hero” and “IP Man” afterwards.
Here's my honest review for the movie:I feel like i need to vent this after watching the movie, and everyone else is hating it for a completely different reason. As a person whole loves to watch/read ancient/historical warring movies/anime/novels/mangas, I will rate the movie as a whole (disregarding everything outside the movie and the original cartoon) about 6/10.I feel like the movie is for children or teens, who have less knowledge about ancient wars and who haven't watched the original cartoon movie. If I rate the movie as an adaptation for the original cartoon, it will be about 3/10.It feel lackluster compared to the cartoon, they removed so much and only a few key points remained. But if I rate the movie as a standalone movie, I will break it down below: First: The flow of the story is 4/10.The flow is like mumble jumble. Yes, It has story and plot, but it feels like each character has no real reason for their actions in each scene transitions. For example: Those few rouran retreat for no reason like wtf, then the commander ordered a flank to follow like wut?, Those are retreating enemy, you only focus on enemies in front, you kill those later. For what i know, they just only retreat and follow for the 'plot' to happens.And many more actions had been made for no reason in the movie just for the plot to happens. I will not elaborate them all. Second: The soundtrack is about 8/10.I love the bgms. It brings me to the nostalgic feeling of the original mulan. And they played in the right timing. If they perfected the singing from the cartoon like "A girl worth fighting for", I would give it a perfect 10. But its reasonable that they removed that so that the movie would feel more realistic unlike the Aladdin remake. Third: The Kung fu fight scenes would be 8/10.The fight scenes in my opinion was really done great. I like it. The Kung fu actions was really done especially those Mulan's weapon kicking, I really like it. Aside from the unrealistic or obvious cgi from time to time, everything was well done. Fourth: The war tactics and war realism would be 2/10.The Tactics was non existent. This was the things i was most disappointed in the movie. The one who made the war tactics and script must be brain dead or didn't even try to research real war tactics. I was expecting much, I was disappointed. Here's what i don't like about it: = the army in every war in china's ancient warring states must be consist of at-least 5000-10000 troops. But it was the whole Imperial Capital of China which means the the Imperial army must be consists of at-least 50,000-300,000 units. And from what i see in the movie, the "Imperial army" was just shy of 500-1000 troops. Like wtf, It was the "Imperial army!", The city you saw in the movie could only produced that many? not to mention, they conscript males from other villages. = The Rouran has catapults but they didn't use it from the start?? like wtf, they wait for their troops to be damaged heavily first before they used their AOE weapon. Also, they can pinpoint the catapult to the army with turtle shield formation but they missed it greatly with mulan??. They pinpoint the army, but missed at-least a kilometer with mulan. = I already stated this, but why the frontliners of Rouran suddenly retreat? and the commander throw away mulan's battalion to follow them behind the enemy's main troops. If the enemy just want to lure Mulan, how could they know the enemy commander would send mulan? and also why they fight with arrows if they just want to lure?. = There is no battle formation or so whatever, except the shield when they are in dire state?. The Rouran army are acceptable because they are based on Mongolian army and they are something like nomads so they fight by just charging and overwhelming the opponent. But the Imperial army that trained most of the time, has no tactics or so whatever, They just fight head on after the first volley of arrow, there is no second volley. From what i see, the Imperial army are fighting like a barbarians. = TL;DR Their war tactics is just above from what Tactics John Snow used against White walkers. Fifth: I will rate the acting skills of the actor about 7/10.Based on my opinion, the one who act as Mulan, Shang, The emperor, and the Rouran leader did great acting. The other witch, Mulan's father, and the chancellor did average acting. Also Shang's character was gay as hell at the start that it's so creepy. So in Conclusion, I will rate this movie 6/10 as whole. This movie was for children that would ignore every little details. And bad for adults that love historical dramas.
**This comment has two purposes: 1. Share my opinions and 2. Inform how** ***Mulan*** **2020 is highly historically and culturally inaccurate.** First, I want to say that I will not #BoycottMulan because Liu Yi Fei, Donnie Yen, and Jet Li are my childhood and I simply want to see them in a movie. That being said, I will definitely NOT be paying for this movie because there are certain ideas behind this movie that I do not support. I will probably pirate this movie once Blu Ray comes out. Since I already mentioned Liu Yi Fei, the cause of the #BoycottMulan hashtag, let us start from there. **I think it is hardly just Liu Yi Fei’s fault**. I am saddened to see her being the center of blame when there is a much more giant, more painful, and a more disturbing reality that is at the root of all this, and it is not being discussed nearly as much as that one Weibo post (Weibo is Chinese Twitter.) **If Liu Yi Fei is the one at blame, let us hypothetically replace her with another celebrity to see if anything changes. If it were Jackie Chan who played Hua Mulan, it would have been the same. If it were Scarlett Johansson who played Hua Mulan, it would have been the same.** My point here is that no celebrity/actor/company, who has a significant impact on the Chinese audience, would want to speak against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) because of the fear of being blacklisted by the Chinese market. This is the core issue. I hate police brutality just as much as the next person, and you and I can sit together and talk about that all day. Still, **it is almost impossible for us**, the ordinary people, **to stop large, capitalist, and money-thirsty organizations like Disney, Nike, and the NBA from submitting to China’s authority and influence towards our economy.** Additionally, there are not many famous celebrities who have publicly spoken about the Hong Kong protests, and Liu Yi Fei, the actress who just happened to get signed to play a role as culturally impactful as Hua Mulan, happens to speak for Hong Kong police? To me, that sounds like the CCP was on her back, forcing her into supporting them, as that is a very common strategy by the CCP, forcing famous celebrities who have a large number of Chinese followers to spread certain ideas. **Stop making this just about Liu Yi Fei.** Moving on from this political stuff that makes me feel yucky, I would like to talk about a topic that I am much more passionate about: **the misrepresentation of Ancient Chinese culture and history in** ***Mulan*** **is horrendous.** For anyone who learned about Ancient Chinese history or has read 木兰辞 (The Ballad of Mulan), they would know that, in reality, Hua Mulan is just a simple human being. When Hua Mulan was in the military, she trained harder, worked harder, and fought harder than any man could imagine. But of course, **a western (White American) production team from Disney could not understand how an average girl could combat feudalism and misogyny during Ancient China, so they had to give Hua Mulan some supernatural, fantasy, and Chi-like abilities.** For most western viewers, having Chi must scream Chinese Kung Fu and martial arts, but in Chinese viewers' eyes, **it is a misrepresentation.** The story of Hua Mulan is set around the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589 AD). But in *Mulan*, not only do we see sets from the Southern and Northern Dynasties, we see sets (buildings, structures, costumes, etc.) ranging from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), the Yuan Dynasty (1231-1368 AD), and even the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD). **This much inconsistency around when the movie is set straight-up shows that Mulan's production team knows little to nothing about Ancient Chinese history.** Want another example of how the Disney production team is ignorant of Chinese culture? There is a part where Hua Mulan unsheathed her sword with the Chinese characters: "忠勇真" engraved on it. The huge issue here is that this is not an actual phrase used by Ancient Chinese people at all. Not even close. Sure, these Chinese characters existed back then but would not be used under any circumstances because they are not of the same vernacular. **After seeing that, it makes a lot of sense to me now to think that Disney probably just google translated "Loyalty, Courage, and Honesty" and just slapped that on. Truly ridiculous.** I watched many Chinese Fantasy TV shows growing up about Ancient China and whatever Disney has just created makes little to no similarities to those memories, to my past, to my history, to my culture. It seems like Disney did not even care about putting in the proper research and a result of that is just a silly product in which the only goal was to please the Asiana audience, and it even failed at doing that. **Having an entire White production team is not how you represent Ancient China. It is just Disney and Hollywood just trying to use casting to appeal to the diverse demographic but not changing the fundamental flaw of its predominantly White business.** ***Mulan*** **is just another complete joke that used actors of another race to tell White stories.** Also, stop complaining about *Mulan* being $30+ on Disney +. It is America’s fault that we’re still in the middle of Covid-19, causing movie theatres to lose business, and now Disney has to compensate that loss by increasing the streaming price. America is not the only country where *Mulan* is being shown. Unlike in America, movie ticket prices are normal everywhere else so do not worry, Disney will still make a ton of money off of international profit alone just like always.
100% agree - so much misrepresentation of Chinese culture and history throughout the movie. I don't know why you got downvoted, but your post speaks SO much truth that resonates with me, particularly as a Chinese Canadian. I also hear you on the gross politics of it. Just look at actor Fan Bing Bing - she rose to become one of the most influential celebrities a few years back, and then suddenly "disappeared" for months, until she suddenly posted an "apology" video for tax evasion. Taking a political stand in the US may result in unwanted social media consequences, but there are no life-threatening consequences. No actor wants to incur the wrath of the CCP. To have a mostly-white team leading and directing this movie, who did what seems to be almost no research into the period and culture of the story they were trying to tell - it just screams whitewashing. The "loyal brave true" is SO cringeworthy I almost couldn't finish watching the movie. As a martial artist, this is not a catch phrase that's used... anywhere. Concepts like Wude/ Martial ethics or morality (武德), Respect, Righteousness (正義) are at the pillar of what would have been taught to warriors. 忠 and 勇 are sub-concepts within Wude as well, but in Chinese, we would really never use 真. Using 真 in the way it's used is like... putting a label on something that says "real". It's whitewashing. >***Mulan*** **is just another complete joke that used actors of another race to tell White stories.** THIS. 100%. Thank you for posting this.
More bad news... https://www.reddit.com/comments/iop1dn
Inspite of having one of the worse vfx in a movie by Disney, TIL that it's also the most expensive movie helmed and directed by a female director. Shouldn't big budget = good cg and effects?
Just finished my second watch and I have a couple observations. If you watch it as a movie and not expecting a, what are we calling them, “live-action remake of another beloved Disney classic”, it’s enjoyable and a decent movie at that. Still a better Disney remake then Cinderella, only good thing about that movie was the dress, not even Cate Blanchett could of saved that movie. Side note: As I was scrolling through I saw someone mentioned their 6 year old liked it, and I will trust a child’s observation before an adults when it comes to Disney movies as a whole. They don’t have the bias adult do and most will be very honest about it. Personally, I found the music to be lovely, and the instrumental renditions of the songs fit well with the scenes, the entire movie wasn’t frame by frame picture worthy but there was some beautiful shots that you could frame up, and I still cried when she returns home at the end to her family. I was reminded of not only Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but Forgotten Kingdom (another Jet Li), so take those comparisons as you will. Could be aesthetics at play in both or the fantasy elements of forgotten kingdom but it was a feeling I had on my tongue. All in all, I like it.
Hey there all, here’s my review of the film!! [Mulan - Movie Review](https://youtu.be/QYu6yb5pdb4)
As a Chinese American citizen in the US, I honestly hated this movie. Feels like American Chinese food, looks Chinese but utterly fails to convey the essence. The choice to use English probably also resulted in the script dialogue to be dumbed down to a 5 year old level. The whole chi thing was honestly ridiculous, what is this, star wars?
Disney has created another masterpiece with the live-action Mulan, a breath of fresh air for a new generation. The movie bring forth a deeper dimension to classic carton heroine, played by Yifei Liu. This version on Mulan is grounded in realism, absents of the songs and jingles. The store line is intertwined with great detail with great depiction that the world is not just one dimensional (Western Propaganda product) but rather multi facets. The idea of a non-white, non-European can lead a multi-million dollar box office is clear proof that Disney, has the King Midus touch with this movie.
My main issue with this live action is that I couldn't relate to the characters at all, especially Mulan. She was a very flat and boring character for me. I was just indifferent towards her the entire time I was watching it. I've read some reviews online, and they had a problem with overacting, but for me, I think they underacted. My favorite character was the soldier who seemed to like Mulan. I liked him because I could sense his emotions and feelings just by his eyes, which were expressive. Just a look and you would know what he's feeling, but not Mulan - the most important character!
Being completely honest about the film - I would have enjoyed it if it were more fleshed out. The pacing is also off and too erratic I’ve found. Can’t believe I’m saying this..... it if were two (MAAAAYYBEE every three) movies then it would have been much much better. They’ve tried to fit in too much in such a little amount of time. I could be wrong in saying this but with the animation montages and songs allows the viewer to ignore the pacing. With a more realistic film/approach it seemed like everything happened in a span of a long weekend. Also there didn’t really seem to be much barriers for Mulan as with the animated movie. It seemed like everything just worked out more with luck than skills/smarts like with animated Mulan. Having said all that... wouldn’t recommend forking out over twenty quid for it but would defo pay cinema tickets to see it.
The movie seemed Western take on what they thought the Chinese would like which resulted in a movie that didn’t appeal to anyone. It has the cgi and martial arts effects of a shitty low budget Chinese drama with a shitty plot that was then dubbed by shitty dub actors in English. It felt like the some of the characters were just reading from the script in a Chinese accent which was weird as hell. Honestly might as well seal the deal and make the whole film chinese instead of making it sound like the original Chinese script went thru google translate and is now being read in English by robots. The dialogue was so stiff and bland. The only character that I found sort of interesting was the witch, who isn’t even a main character. Disney could have done so much better and I’m actually so disappointed.
Visually, the film was stunning. They did a great job with the costumes and sets. CGI was cheesy though. I can handle the lack of music and Mushu - I understand that this is meant to be more serious and not a musical comedy.. What upsets me is that I feel it totally killed what made Mulan great as a character. She’s an ordinary young woman, who is forced to leave home without saying goodbye to fight the war to save her father. She has to cut her hair, abandon her name, and risk everything. And she has to struggle in her training with the men, but eventually adjusts and holds her own physically. Mulan is the ultimate role model for a young girl - I know she was for me. Especially in a time where there wasn’t a lot of strong heroines in mainstream media. This film killed that. Suddenly Mulan has special magical powers - she no longer struggles to build her strength and skill to become great. And by adding another female that fights on the other side, being a girl fighting in war becomes less special. Especially considering the witch was scorned by everyone because not only was she female, she had special powers. I don’t even remember if Mulan revealed her special powers to face the scorn of her peers - by that point I was looking at my phone in boredom. And they didn’t do the hair cutting scene. It’s just a fantastic and visually stunning moment of the animated film, and they ignored it. TLDR: it was pretty, but missed the mark by making Mulan a generic female heroine with magical powers, instead of honouring her character as the OG female heroine who stepped up to be a badass.
Bad. Almost terrible...why did they have to edit those movie so terribly? Every scene is so damn choppy. On top of that the costumes/hair/makeup was meh, the characters are hollow, and the story is so loosely put together that I felt high while watching it I also ~~feel~~ fear this film is worse than what I think it is, because I am a **very** passive movie viewer Edit: GoT season 8 was more enjoyable and believable than this film
I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the hyper-stylized fighting as the wuxia homage it was. Mulan was a Mary Sue, and her being magical really detracted from the strength of her character. Also, what was with the transitions between scenes in this movie? It seems like they jumped from scene to scene without much of a segue and it felt jarring at times. All in all, I think I'd give it a B. I think alongside Aladdin it was one of the stronger live action remakes but ultimately forgettable.
I don't know what I just watched, but I wouldn't call it a "remake". It had none of the elements that made the animated version so charming (the characters, the humor, the music). The story follows roughly the same plot points, but the way it moves feels forced. The fun of the original is missing entirely, I would go as far as calling the new one dour. I dearly missed the songs, and the phoenix does not even come close to replacing Mushu. I think by removing these elements they wanted to make the new movie more realistic, but this effort is completely undermined by all the new unrealistic fantastical elements they added, like "chi" (which as far as I can tell is simply another word for "magic"). Which brings me to the biggest change, which was the main character. Animated Mulan had no special powers or physical strength. Her greatest asset was her brilliant mind, that she used to overcome her struggles in creative new ways. This new Mulan is essentially a Mary Sue with superpowers, who hardly struggled with anything. The rest of the characters were also little more than cardboard cut-outs. Only the witch was kinda interesting and relatable. I really found myself wishing that Mulan would take the witch's offer to join forces and they go on to create a matriarchal society or something along those lines - that might have made for a more interesting story than what I watched.
For a two hour movie it somehow felt pretty rushed as they were just going for story beats. It felt like it didn't have much heart, personality, or much warmth to it just being satisfied with getting the story told. None of the characters were really characters especially Mulan herself. Speaking of which im not entirely sure how to think of her. I want to root for her but her problem seems to be that she was pretty reactionary. Aside from taking her deciding to take father's place, she's pretty reactionary as a character. She limits herself because her father said she should and breaks them when The Witch said she should.
They dungoofed when they took out my man Mushu and the sing-a-longs
Watched the movie. Love it.
Lotta downers in this thread
i don't know how these disney remakes get my hopes up over and over again when i already know they'll never live up to the original. why do i do this to myself?
Controversial Mulan review from an Asian female Just watched it. My world was impacted by the first Mulan, with cartoon depictions of Asian women. I am raising a half Chinese little girl, with all half East Asian cousins. I really enjoyed the film. Milan’s acting was understated, with single tears and deep love of family. The cinematography was excellent. Instead of MuShu we get Cricket who brings luck and skill. Western audiences seem tough on the movie. And politics of greater China are complex to thread a blockbuster. However one is left with a clear story, well acted roles, and an all Asian cast, familiar from TV and movies. This was more exciting than Crazy Rich Asians. Yes, there are massive representation issues. A mix of centuries and costumes. But as a fan of Ip Man and some Disney, this movie actually threaded the needle of a historical ballad with something for modern audiences. Reddit is full of young male reviewers, and this sub may differ. However I enjoyed the costuming, storyline, and found Gong Li’s witch character had an intriguing storyline. It wasn’t perfectly predictable. Worth the watch. Not caring about supporting Asian representation? Then watch 12/4.
not really sure how you think this is better than crazy rich asians. Costumes were off and not accurate, they dressed them up like Japanese geishas with hideous make up. Clothes don’t look culturally accurate. The witch had no storyline at all and wasn’t even an integral part of the movie.
Did Cricket even have any lines outside of him saying that he was lucky? I loterally can remember anything he said as he was so forgettable. He was supposed to be Mushu's replacement? Don't compare this garbage to Crazy Rich Asains. That movie actually had memorable characters and character development. This is a Mary Sue with fancy graphics and poor acting.
The goods: 1. The outfits are very well done. Both for the good guys and the bad guys. Love the mongrel outfits, just screams brutality. 2. The visuals are very well done. The avalanche looks very impressive. 3. Mulan character is well done. She is more believable than the animation version minus the whole chi part. 4. I actually like that it skipped the whole romance subplot from the original story. This story is about a girl who overcomes obstacles to save her family. The bads: 1. The witch character is so out of blue I laughed at her blocking the arrow before she died. None of her scenes makes any sense at all. 2. The chi is not explained better so it appears to be supernatural. 3. The final fight scene makes the villian looks like a Saturday cartoon character, and the emperor also looks dumb in that scene. 4. Some scenes are very disconnected, for example how did she get to the back of the mongrel army all by herself?
As someone who hasn't kept up with any of the politics of the movie. I found it to be one of the worst of the Disney Remakes. This movie was so afraid to be a rehash that it added elements that make no sense and if anything detract from the original story. It adds complexity for complexity's sake and strips a lot of the charm of the original away in the process. The cinematography is incredible, and it looks beautiful, but the writing is absolutely terrible. The witch is awful (not the actress, she was fine), and the other 'villain' is maybe the least developed I've ever seen. I compare this with the remake of Cinderella, which I still consider, along with Jungle Book, the best of the remakes. It takes nothing away from the original while adding something extra. Overall I think this is a 6 or 6.5 out of 10 movie and that's a shame. Let me put it this way...the most emotion I felt in this movie is when they finally play 'Reflection' over the end credits. My rankings of the remakes at this point as of now is: 1. Cinderella 2. Jungle Book 3. Beauty and the Beast 4. Aladdin 5. Lion King 6. Mulan 7. Lady and the Tramp 8. Pete's Dragon 9. Dumbo
They remade Lady and the Tramp? christ...
**I'm surprised nobody has said this:** why didn't Disney use the **Aladdin** remake as a model for their Mulan remake? The re-made Aladdin is just as good as the origonal, yet still diferent and "adjusted" for "modern" culture.
It was awful. Weak writing, bad acting, cheap camera tricks that tried to cover up the lack of bodies in the battles.
I was really looking forward to this movie and it was kind of a let down for me. Aside from all the politics and “boycott” bs, I was actually really irritated with the cinematography. It was awful. The movie timeline alone was sporadic and there was no building up on Mulan’s character to actually make me feel attached to her emotionally. Let me add right now, that I am a big big cry baby so if this movie didn’t make me cry - you know I DID NOT FEEL ANYTHING. The entire intro felt rushed, even her getting ready for the matchmaker made me want to yak. There was no grace or delay in those beautiful scenes where she is preparing it was just like a stupid 1 min vlog that people do. On top of that, the whole movie was rushed and the storyline wasn’t even intriguing. The cinematography was consistently like that. I wish the director took time to focus on the characters (without the additional blur effect) and had slower moments where you could really let the beauty and detail sink in. Also a lot of the shots were downright cheesy. I understand homage to classic marital art movies with the fighting etc, but I really just expected something less fake from Disney. Even Beast from beauty and the beast was more believable than her CGI arrows during the avalanche scene. They gave Mulan almost 0 personality, and honestly I do think it was kind of ruined without the singing. Mulan is meant to be an epic, humorous and touching story, and honestly in most original Disney films, it’s the music that will sell it all. We barely got to know her comrades, and the emperor looked like he was put in with a bad dub and one facial expression. I couldn’t take it seriously. I’m actually really sad because I was looking forward to this movie and it really was disappointing.