I don’t see any reason to pretend I wasn’t comparing this live action adaptation to 1998’s animated version the entire time I was watching it. I was born in the 90s and growing up Mulan was my favorite Disney "princess". Though the truth is that Mulan isn’t a princess at all, which looking back is a big part of why I related to her so much. She wasn’t a princess, she didn’t want to be one, and neither did I. I was labeled a tomboy by just about everyone I encountered. Like Mulan, I simply never fit the mold the world was always trying to put me in. Mulan and I would never have made very good princesses, we weren’t even good at being what girls were supposed to be. But Mulan was more than that. She embodied qualities much more valuable than royal blood, she was brave and clever. She cared for her family more than anything else. These were qualities I could relate to as a little girl, and qualities I still aspire to today.
Naturally, this 2020 live action has been highly anticipated by me. I feel it’s long overdue. Given the effect the 1998 film had on me and the rose-colored influence of nostalgia, I never expected the live-action to stand up to my beloved childhood hero. But I have to say it did a decent job and didn’t leave me disappointed. While the film isn’t perfect (so few films really are) I’m confident in its ability to bring Mulan to a new generation.
That being said, here are my thoughts on Disney’s live-action Mulan…
The new film is undeniably gorgeous. The cinematography and directing is beautiful to watch, and the score (which was clearly inspired by 1998’s musical soundtrack) is powerful and inspiring.
The plot generally follows the same beats as the 1998 film, however one of the major additions is the concept of chi. A sort of inner strength harnessed by warriors that grants them supernatural skill in battle. So basically 2020’s Mulan has superpowers. I’m not too pleased with this. As I mentioned before the things that I admired about Mulan were about her strength of character. I didn’t love her because she was a superhero or the Chosen one. We have plenty of those already. I loved her because she was brave and stubborn and clever and caring. Those are the qualities that allowed her to save China and bring honor to herself and her family. She didn’t need special powers, all she ever needed was her own innate awesomeness.
This contrast is perfectly framed for me in the training montage scenes of both films. In the animated movie (to the absolutely bangin' “I’ll Make A Man Out Of You”) Mulan struggles in bootcamp to learn the ways of the warrior and to keep up physically with her male counterparts. And at what I feel is the film's most powerful moment, she works out the trick to climbing the post and retrieving the arrow, when no one else could. This is so important. She accomplishes this by being clever and thinking creatively, not by having some mystical physical advantage over her fellow soldiers. In the live-action, the task is instead carrying buckets of water up a mountain. There is no trick to it. It’s just a physically difficult task that Mulan eventually overcomes without issue, because she’s got strong chi. This takes all the impact out of the moment, rendering it just another pretty shot in a movie full of beautiful visuals. Likewise during the film’s climactic battle scene, Mulan physically overcomes Bori Khan, rather than outsmarting him and his men by thinking outside the box as she does in the animated version.
It’s not all bad news, however. A change I really enjoyed in the new film was Honghui (a reworked version of General Shang). Honghui’s role is less of a love interest, which Mulan doesn’t really require, and more of a friend which she desperately needs. He is a character made of camdraiere, rather than teaching Mulan to be a soldier or a man, he teaches her to be a friend, a leader, and part of a team.
Mulan (2020)’s villains left me with mixed feelings. There are two characters to consider. The Shan Yu inspired Bori Khan and the new addition, chi witch Xian Lang. Bori Khan honestly pales in comparison to Shan Yu. He simply lacks the strange charisma and presence Shan Yu commanded, and ends up coming off as a coward who lets Xian Lang do all the heavy lifting for him. Xian Lang however does serve as a compelling parallel to Mulan. Another woman who was never going to fit in. But her motivations aren’t fleshed out enough, she seems to just be angry at the world and happy to use Bori Khan as an excuse to be evil.
Despite all these differences and over 20 years between them, both films got the same result from me...I nearly cried at the end. Maybe it’s simply nostalgia, but 2020’s Mulan still has much the same effect on me as an adult as the animated one did on me as a child. It left me feeling like it wasn’t just okay for me to be who i really am, but that it was actually a good and admiral thing to be different, to be more than what society expected of me. The story of Mulan didn’t start with Disney and it is not defined by all the little details that make these 2 films alike or different. The story has endured, and it’s bare bones will always be good enough to inspire those like me who really need to hear.
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