Mulan
Disney is banking on the idea that families eager to see a new movie will pay $29.99 to sit down together at home and watch their latest live action version of an animated classic, “Mulan.” Released only on Disney+, an additional fee is added to their regular service to see this film. The movie will become a part of the regular Disney+ catalog at the end of the year. Some may view this as a money grab, but it is not hard to understand that Disney needs to recoup the $200 million dollars they have invested in what should have been a major theatrical release.
This live action adventure takes a new path from the animated classic and the result is a fresh and exhilarating story that will thrill the family. The premise is the same. Mulan (Liu Yifel) must leave her family under the guise of a young man to take her father’s place in the army and defend the empire from an evil horde of invaders. In the army, Mulan must hide her true identity under penalty of death for the lie. Struggling to maintain her honor while living the lie, Mulan is torn between telling the truth and sparing her family dishonor.
Liu Yifel is flawless as Mulan capturing all the nuisances of both her warrior side and her role as daughter and friend. Tzi Ma (Fa Zhou) commands the screen as Mulan’s father giving him a rich depth of honor strength and emotion without falling back on stoic coldness which so often is the choice of actors in that scenario. Gong Li (Xian Lang) also goes against stereotype as an evil witch who feels every ounce of humanity she has given up to obtain her power. She is captivating and complex throughout the film. The cast is well rounded and aptly handles the brilliant screenplay provided by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Lauren Hynek, and Elizabeth Martin. Rarely have I seen a Disney blockbuster work so hard to maintain such taut action while delving into deep levels of emotion in most all the lead characters, without falling back on cliches. Tremendous effort is made to pay respect to Chinese culture while elevating the virtues of bravery, truth, loyalty, and devotion to family in order to make the story universal in appeal.
The character of Mulan embodies these virtues with nobility, bucking the latest trend to make protagonists a hybrid of good and evil. The thought being that virtuous heroes are boring and predictable, but anti-heroes have the freedom to take whatever path suits them in the moment. Mulan is entrenched in her nobility and the confinement it demands, and that struggle is profoundly different from much of what is on screen today and the result is wonderfully uncommon. Mulan is a true hero in every sense of the word and it is refreshingly exhilarating.
Feminism is another strong theme in this story and once again the writers (three of whom are women) have elevated this above the petty, snarky tone that plagued Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” remake. Belle’s rebellion against a male dominated culture was couched in arrogance and laced with condescension toward others in such a way that the character of Belle was unrecognizable from her noble animated counterpart. Writer’s seemed so concerned that viewers might miss Belle’s contemporary new attitudes that they shoved it in audiences faces rather that letting Belle’s character and strengths speak for itself (same as they did for their heavy handed changes to Lefou). “Mulan” writers are much more respectful of audiences’ intelligence and assume that people will identify virtue when they see it and recognize for themselves the power of a woman fighting for what she believes in. The result is truth and it plays wonderfully.
That is not to say that the film is perfect. While visually stunning, some of the stunts Mulan executes leave viewers wondering why she doesn’t make a simpler choice. In one scene, Mulan catches an entire tea set before it can fall to the ground and break. The manner in which she performs this act is unbelievably complicated and seemingly unnecessary. There are a few eye-rolling moments where Mulan’s rescue tactics are a bit over the top which stand out in such a grounded and realistic world. There is also a great deal of Jedi knight meets superhero action that elevates Mulan to “Avenger” status. Only this time it isn’t “the force” or mutant radiation, it’s her “Chi” and she was simply born with it. Somehow that explains her abilities to leap in the air to remarkable heights, her uncanny knowledge of all martial arts and swordplay and an inexplicable ability to walk up walls.
Gone this time are the ancestral statues and talking dragon, though praying to the ancestor’s shrine happens briefly at the beginning of the film, and a mystical family phoenix follows around Mulan unseen by anyone else. It occasionally points the way to go. There are some intense battle sequences, not bloody in nature, but violent none the less. There is a bathing scene where Mulan’s form is seen from a distance that is a little edgier that Disney usually goes and earns the full PG-13 rating.
So will families shell out the $30 to stay home and watch this film? If tickets, popcorn, drinks and candy tallies at the movie theater are added together, one would be hard pressed to take a family of four out to the movies for less that thirty dollars. And you’d probably be going to see an inferior film. I think people will make a family night out of it and pay the extra money to see “Mulan” and they’ll be very glad they did.
Written by David Alford
Score: 93 out of 100
Parents: Yes!
Teens: Yes!
Children: Older ones, Yes! (Might want to cover eyes during the top of the bathing scene and some intense action sequences to avoid nightmares)
Tots: No!
