Review of Mulan (1998) by Ashwin A — 05 Apr 2011

Disney marathon Part III.

Mulan is the movie that if I remember right, I've seen the most in theaters. I want to say that I saw this one at least 4 times in theaters growing up. I may be totally off about that but I saw it at least twice. I think more though. It is an excellent film. One of Disney's best.

Voice Acting/Characters: Great stuff here. I didn't feel that anyone was miscast or did a horrible job. It was all very well done. Once again the big star dominated the scene. In Aladdin it was Robin Williams, in The Emperor's New Groove it was Patrick Warburton, and here it was Eddie Murphy as the tiny dragon Mushu. He did a great job. It was an overall solid cast that did an excellent job. 9/10.

Plot: I first though thtat this film was Disney's take on the Joan of Arc story but I later found out that this story was in fact an Ancient Chinese fairy tale that Disney. It tackles new ground for Disney in that it openly deals with warfare (a Disney first) it has violent implied deaths, corpses of killed soldiers, massacring of villages, that kind of thing. But they do it all very well and the plot was very entertaining. It was a tad predictable in moments, but it was still great nonetheless. 8.5/10.

Screenplay: The best lines came out of Mushu. That's just Disney's trend, they have a supporting character whose lines just write themselves. It works very well here. Outside of Mushu and the Mushu based scenes, it does pretty well. Ni cringe worthy lines but to make the other characters stand out more, they should have focused a bit more on writing excellent lines for everyone other than Mushu (again, because his lines write themselves and Eddie Murphy probably improved half of them anyways). 8/10.

Likableness: It has lost none of its appeal. I have seen it a lot of times and I never see something in it that makes me go "wait, why did I ever like this movie?" nor has anyone who has really liked this one. It is one that I have no problem with putting in the 'Disney classic' section. Plus, Mulan is the single most bad-ass Disney girl...ever...nothing that any other Disney girl has or will ever do can beat how totally bad-ass she is. If Cinderella beat the entire Nazi army (all 7 million soldiers) with a firework, then she would be more bad-ass than Mulan. Until then, she is the best one. 9/10.

Final Score: 34.5/40 86% (N).

TRIVIA TIME: 1. When Mulan sings "Reflection" in her father's shrine, her reflection appears in the polished surface of the temple stones. The writing on the temple stones is the names of the Disney animators who worked on the film written in ancient Chinese.

2. Likenesses of the directors Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook appear as the firework attendants frightened by Mushu in the climax.

3. In the scene where Mushu awakens the ancestors, one set of grandparents worry that Mulan's quest will ensure her family loses their farm. This couple appear to be the couple on the farm in Grant Wood's famous painting 'American Gothic'. An uncredited Barry Cook, one of the film's directors, provides the man's voice.

4. Bruce Willis (Shang's martial arts model) was originally casted as Li Shang.

5. "Fa" is the Cantonese pronunciation of Mulan's family name. "Hua" is the correct Mandarin pronunciation, and means "flower". "Hua Ping" (Mulan's fake name) means "flower vase" or just "vase".

6. Chi Fu's name literally means, in Chinese, "to bully".

7. 'Mulan' was Disney's first ever DVD, released in November 1999.

8. Mulan (voiced by Ming-Na) is a female who dresses and passes as male to join the military. B.D. Wong (the voice of Shang) began his acting career as a male who dresses and passes as a female in M. Butterfly.