Movie Reaction: Mulan

Formula: (Mulan - Disney Renaissance) * Pirates of the Caribbean

No, I didn't see Mulan in a theater, so calling this a "Movie Reaction" isn't quite accurate*. I paid $30 to see it though, so it counts as far as I'm concerned.

*Yeah, I do realize no one really cares about how to define my different kind of Reactions.

The important part about any of these Disney Live-Action remakes going in is mentioning one's relationship with the original. It's striking how much my personal connection to the animated counter-part defines how I feel about the new movie. As it turns out, I care less about Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and The Jungle Book than Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, so it's not a surprise that I had more complaints about the latter three remakes than the former three. I wish I could say that I rate all movies objectively, but I'm not that foolhardy. It makes sense too. If I thought a movie worked one way, then changing it means there's a lower chance it will work as well. It's like getting a 90% on a test and changing the answer. Sure, it's possible you improve the grade, but odds are you'll lower it.

The 1998 Mulan is not a sacred text for me. I remember liking it. The songs were good. Eddie Murphy was funny. The animation was cool. I haven't seen it in nearly 20 years though. I maybe only saw it 2-3 times. I have nothing against it. It just didn't make the same impression on me as it apparently did on many others, so this was one of the Live-Action remakes I thought had the most potential to be good. And frankly, I think Disney made a lot of the right decisions on it. They dropped the music*. They turned it into a PG-13 Pirates style action movie. They stuck with a Chinese (or at least Asian - I haven't checked everyone) cast. They didn't sneak in a Matt Damon or Tom Cruise. It was one of the movies I was looking forward to the most this Spring in a more innocent time.

*Look, I like the music too, but all of the movies that have tried to include the songs have badly failed to match up to the original numbers. Animation just gives more options for showstopping numbers.

The core story is still intact. Invaders from the north are attacking China. The Emperor (Jet Li, who has finally aged) requires that every family supply a male to enlist in the army. Mulan (Yifei Liu) is the oldest daughter of Hua Zhou (Tzi Ma), who has no sons. Since Mulan has never been the subservient wife type, she secretly takes her father's place in the army, pretending to be his son. While in disguise, Mulan becomes a respected soldier in the army. When her identity is eventually revealed, her commander (Donnie Yen) must decide if the rules are more important than accepting the value she adds to the Emperor's army. But, this time, there are also witches.

I think a lot of the criticisms I've heard for the movie are fair. The movie is a little too self-serious without Mushu's comic relief. The lack of music makes it lifeless at points. The plausibility of no one figuring out Mulan is a woman is more questionable in live-action. The movie treats chi like midiclorians (that's not a good thing).

Still, I liked this movie. Yifei Liu is a good Mulan. She really sells the physicality of the character. The big addition to this movie is Gong Li as a shapeshifting witch helping the enemy. First of all, she just looks cool. Secondly, she adds a new flavor to the story. Also, I'd just like to point out that I don't know Gong Li from anything else and was shocked to learn she was 54. The reason why the witch isn't out of place is because Mulan happily leans into its martial arts movie lineage. Battle scenes are packed with wall-running, horse jumping, and spear kicking. At that point, they might as well add a witch. This would've been a fun movie in theaters for that reason.

I have a hard time with a certain kind of Chinese-style cinema. It's hard to distinguish self-parody from a ham-fisted homage. This martial arts action style can look a little silly at times. Maybe that's just because I'm not used to it. I haven had decades of being barraged by Chines films the way the rest of the world has with American films. At times though, I wonder if this movie is someone doing a poor-taste approximation of the Chinese style. Among the topline creatives involved in this movie, I don't see anyone involved with Asian cinema. While I get that Disney likely picked from in-house people, it seems strange that they wouldn't pull in more people with an understanding of that kind of cinema when that's the kind of movie they were making. As a result, the action sequences were good, but they could've been better.

I'm not here to say that Mulan is or isn't worth the $30 (divided by the number of people with your password) to watch now instead of December. That's between you and your checkbook. What I can say is that it was nice to see a new, big, well-produced event movie. I haven't seen one of those, depending on your definition, since The Rise of Skywalker. Mulan is imperfect. Diehard fans of the animated movie will have trouble getting over what it's not. It's certainly part of a worrisome and short-sighted strategy of Disney's, investing in retreads rather than developing new properties. The movie itself is perfectly fine though. It's entertaining. It makes an attempt to be different than the original. The cast is good. I even love that Ming-Na (the voice of 1998 Mulan) gets a cameo. This is the movie I hoped it would be. It met my expectations. 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend