The story of Mulan (花木蘭) is a story that I grew up with. As a Chinese kid, this was one of the most important stories that I had to know. It is similar to America’s Johnny Appleseed story. The story originated from a ballad but has now become one of the most important folklore in Chinese culture.
Trying to create this beautiful story into a movie is a daunting task. It’s been done many times but for a mega company like Disney to take it on was a great joy for me in 1998. Finally, my people’s faces and story gets a spotlight on the big stage. The people of America and around the world will get a chance to my people. We don’t get the spotlight very much so this is very special to me. I was hopeful that the movie would do the Chinese culture and people justice.
It did not.
The animated movie Disney created was a train wreck of a film that was an embarrassment for the Chinese culture. Actually, to be more precise, they westernized the hell out of a movie about people from the East. Two major issues the movie provided was the completely unnecessary addition of a dragon named Mushu. Why a dragon? Because it’s Chinese. Why the name Mushu? Because it’s Chinese. It has no place in the original story and it had no place being in this movie. But the worst part about the movie was the “emotional” scene in which Mulan cut her hair to look like one of the men. The problem with this was that all men in the war had long hair, so cutting her hair short actually would not work. Cutting hair short to look like a man is a western ideal, not a Chinese one. Disney literally westernized the identity of Chinese people in this movie.
So after I saw that animated movie, I truly believed that Disney could NEVER do a film about my people right. It was so simple to do the story of Mulan and they blew their chance. And when I heard that they were going to re-do this movie with a live action approach, I did not have any high hopes. After all, what kind of evidence did I have to believe they would do it right?
So from the get-go I decided that I was not going to pay the ridiculous $30 price to see the movie. I was not going to give Disney my money for this. They had not redeemed themselves for the atrocity they did 22 years ago. It was a hard decision to make because the cast was all Chinese so I felt that I had to support them. But at what cost?
So for the next few weeks since the new Mulan film was released, I decided to find two alternate versions of the story made by Chinese people from China. That way, I can at least see what the movie should be like.
With that search, I found two versions of the film: one from 2009 and one from this year. These two are tremendous films and I highly recommend that you check them out.
Now after watching both of these I felt content with my thoughts on this story put on film. I knew eventually I was going to see Disney’s version. A couple friends had the movie purchased and invited me and my wife to watch it on their account. I decided that it was going to watch the movie and hope for the best. I didn’t give Disney any of my money to see it. I felt OK doing this.
Knowing what I know from what Disney failed to do the first time and now having seen two versions from China, I did not have my hopes high at all. (Also the controversy with Liu Yifei’s non-Hong Kong support and the movie being filmed in Xinjiang didn’t help either.) But I was curious. Will Disney capture the essence of the story or will they add unnecessary fluff? Will it feel like a Chinese story or another westernized story? Will this be a movie that I could be proud to talk about?
I took notes during the film and I will share all my thoughts on what I saw.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
STOP READING IF YOU DON’T WANT THE MOVIE TO BE SPOILED.
THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING!
First of all, I’ll give Disney props on adding the pagodas in the beginning where the fireworks go off at the Disney castle. It’s a subtle touch but I thought it was nice.
In fact, the visuals for this movie was tremendous. The colors and the camera work was very nice. I actually thought that they knocked it out of the park with the visuals.
There were a couple other things that I thought they did very well. The whole identity for Mulan in disguise was done very well. In the two aforementioned Chinese versions, Mulan’s disguise was not done very well and her identity of a woman was very obvious. This Disney version made the effort to cover her hair and her figure to ensure that her gender was not so obvious. Also, they allowed her to intentionally deepen her voice when speaking, which added to the illusion of her being a man. I must say that this was a very important part of her identity that they nailed.
Two historically accurate things Disney also got right were in regards to the war. During battles, it was common to have drummers on the battlefield. The beat of the drums during battle was used to invigorate the warriors in battle. It is actually a common thing that we have seen in American wars so it wasn’t too foreign of a concept and I am glad they included it. The other one was at the end of the film. In the original story, Mulan declines a promotion in the military despite her identity being revealed. She was lauded as a hero but Mulan desired to return home and be with her family. This Disney movie did that too so I am glad that they included that.
And that’s it. Those were the only things from the film that I really liked. In fact, the movie was laced with many things that I felt either were inaccurate or blatantly confusing. And hoping that Disney could represent my people and culture well, it did not.
Here are a list of things that I did not like about the movie:
- THE MOVIE DOES NOT FEATURE CHINESE AUDIO AND SUBTITLES: Before this movie even began, I wondered if this is something I could show to my grandma or even my parents. My grandma does not know English. Most of the time when she watches any kind of film, it has to have Chinese audio at least. Without it, she would not be able to follow. My parents know English but I would feel a lot better if they could have Chinese subtitles so they can follow along just in case they missed a line in the film. But I can’t show them this movie. Because Disney decided to do a movie about a classic Chinese story and not even think about providing its actual Chinese audience a chance to follow. No Chinese audio or subtitles. Absolutely pathetic.
- NOT HISTORICALLY ACCURATE: The story of Mulan takes place during the Northern Wei Dynasty (between 4-6 AD). But some of the clothing, architecture of buildings didn’t exactly line up with that time period or location. Read more about it here.
- CHI CHI CHI: They said the word “chi” so much it lost all its meaning. In fact, they didn’t really explain what it meant. Was it something that was within? An energy? A power? A hope? They blasted that word like 10 times within the first five minutes of the film. Chi is real but to have it be thrown around like that really devalues it.
- WE HAVE A LANGUAGE ISSUE: One of the biggest issues I had about this movie is that it was too dependent on the English language. Even though the basis of this movie was to be told in English, the Chinese language was barely a major presence in the film. They had decorations with Chinese words and even the sword had Chinese words on it too. But that was it. And it was weird to see these Chinese people reading Chinese words but speaking it in English. It was weird to see the emperor give orders in English and his scribes writing it all down in Chinese. Not at any point did anybody speak a word of Chinese. Not even an attempt to give the actual Chinese language some of the spotlight. None whatsoever. It was completely white-washed.
What’s also troubling is that because this film required all actors to speak English without a single thought into the different accents that come with it. The actors in this film are all most likely English as a second language speakers. And where did they learn their English? All over the world. That meant that each actor had a unique English accent. In a film where all the characters are from one area, the film featured characters speaking in so many different accents. It just didn’t work. Oh, how I so wish they would have done this in Chinese. Instead, English ruled it all and it made it worse.
- FAMILIAL IDENTITY: Chinese people treat their kids differently than some people in America. We are strict with our children and yelling is always expected. There are high expectations. It can be viewed as harsh but it is the way Chinese people treat their family. So to see the movie start off with Mulan not getting yelled out for breaking a statue and causing a ruckus in the community, it immediately made me feel that this movie was already too White. And when in the movie they kept pushing the “dishonor to family” narrative, it just felt that the direction and creators of the movie didn’t understand Chinese culture. But why?
- DIRECTOR AND WRITERS OF THE MOVIE WERE NOT CHINESE: At the end of the film, look through the credits. Do you see a Chinese name? Anywhere? Nope. It wasn’t until it got to the cast until we saw a Chinese name. The director, writers and producers were not Chinese. You couldn’t have one Chinese person in charge of telling this Chinese story? You couldn’t hide behind an all-Chinese cast. This movie was a sham.
- THEY WESTERNIZED THE CONCEPT OF HER NAME: You know in English when you hear the name Patrick you can instantly tell that is a name for a male. And if you hear the name Jessica, you know that’s a female’s name. But in the Chinese culture, it doesn’t work that way. There is no alphabet. Instead, the names are created by adding two words together. There is no gender to these names. When seeing a name written, you cannot instantly tell if that name belongs to a male or female. That is what makes a Chinese name unique. But in this movie, Mulan changes her name to Jun to “sound more like a man’s name.” But why? If Chinese names have no assigned genders, then what is the point of a name change? It is once again Disney implementing western English culture into a Chinese film. This really bothered me. Mulan is an un-gendered name yet this film gave it one.
- THE REVEAL WAS TERRIBLE: In the original story, her identity is revealed at the end of the war. In this movie, she reveals herself in the middle of the war with a dramatic horse ride where she removes her armor and lets down her hair. This is wrong. This is dumb. This was not good. Also prior to that, she was the hero by setting off an avalanche. Odd.
- WOMEN EMPOWERMENT?: There was a part towards the end of the film where the witch and Mulan have a deep moment about traumatic pasts and women empowerment. It didn’t need to happen. It was forcing a narrative that was already in place. (Are you trying to recreate that moment from End Game?) Their whole special moment didn’t need to happen. Moreover, the whole phoenix and raven thing was odd too. Too many birds. Yes, witches were part of folklore but this was not accurate or even remotely relevant at all to the actual story.
- 12 YEARS? MORE LIKE 12 DAYS: In the original Mulan story, our hero was engaged in a 12-year war. Let me repeat. TWELVE YEARS. Yet this movie played out the entire thing as if it happened in 12 days. It devalues the story and the importance of Mulan being able to withstand the war for so long while keeping her identity a secret. No war lasts only two weeks. It is definitely not as impressive to have a disguise for 12 days with the final day being a whole set of an emotional reveal. This is another awful mistake from the movie.
So after evaluating this movie, I give it a 4 out of 10 stars. It’s a movie about Chinese people but not made for Chinese people or by Chinese people. It failed to capture the essence of the people and culture and even after being given a second chance to make it right, Disney fails once again. I would not recommend this movie.
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