Movie Review: Mulan
With Disney's live action rendition of Mulan coming early next year, I thought I'd do a review on the original animation. Mulan is one of my favorite Disney movies, if not my favorite. It has some of my favorite songs and my favorite characters.
Warning! Spoilers Ahead.
Mulan is set in ancient China around the time that the Huns invaded China. Mulan is at the age where she needs to find a husband, but the matchmaker says that she will never bring her family honor because of who she is and an accident that she caused. Later, it is announced that one man from every family must fight for China in the war against the Huns, and her father has to go despite having fought once already and being too old and injured to fight. Mulan makes the decision to go in his place and masquerade as a man to save her father from the war.
My favorite thing about Mulan is the message behind it. A lot of people doubted her and told her that she couldn't bring the family honor because she was a girl who couldn't find a husband to marry. And then she came back and saved all of freakin' China and proved everyone wrong, and showed them that she can bring honor to her family without having to marry someone.
Another thing I liked was the songs. My favorite is "Let's Get Down to Business" just because it's so upbeat and is a whole montage of the soldier's training and shows how they all went from being bad at everything a soldier needs to be good at, to being the best at it. Another song I like is "Reflection" because that is Mulan's song. That is the song that she says that she doesn't like who she is and decides to do something so drastic it could kill her, just so that she will be the person she wants to be. And she does it.
The characters in Mulan make the movie the movie that it is. My favorite character is Li Shang, the captain of the Chinese army. He trains the soldiers to be who they are, and really learns to accept Mulan for Mulan, rather than just liking Mulan when she was masquerading as Ping, her male counterpart. Another character I enjoy is Mushu. Though his entire reasoning for helping Mulan was completely selfish, he did it in a way that did lead Mulan to saving China. Mulan, obviously, makes the movie the movie that it is as well. Mulan is a legend of China, and the new Disney movie will be more historically accurate than the animation, but the animation still shows Mulan as a powerful female character. Her motives are based entirely around saving her father from death in the war, and are aimed at bringing honor to her family in her own way.
The new Disney movie, as I said before, is going to be more historically accurate, with no songs, no Mushu, but does have Mulan still kick ass. I'm very, very excited for the remake to come out, and while I am sad that Mushu won't be in it, I understand the reasoning for it. In the end, being more accurate to the original Chinese legend is more important than the mini-dragon sidekick (sorry Mushu, love you forever).
Warning! Spoilers Ahead.
Mulan is set in ancient China around the time that the Huns invaded China. Mulan is at the age where she needs to find a husband, but the matchmaker says that she will never bring her family honor because of who she is and an accident that she caused. Later, it is announced that one man from every family must fight for China in the war against the Huns, and her father has to go despite having fought once already and being too old and injured to fight. Mulan makes the decision to go in his place and masquerade as a man to save her father from the war.
My favorite thing about Mulan is the message behind it. A lot of people doubted her and told her that she couldn't bring the family honor because she was a girl who couldn't find a husband to marry. And then she came back and saved all of freakin' China and proved everyone wrong, and showed them that she can bring honor to her family without having to marry someone.
Another thing I liked was the songs. My favorite is "Let's Get Down to Business" just because it's so upbeat and is a whole montage of the soldier's training and shows how they all went from being bad at everything a soldier needs to be good at, to being the best at it. Another song I like is "Reflection" because that is Mulan's song. That is the song that she says that she doesn't like who she is and decides to do something so drastic it could kill her, just so that she will be the person she wants to be. And she does it.
The characters in Mulan make the movie the movie that it is. My favorite character is Li Shang, the captain of the Chinese army. He trains the soldiers to be who they are, and really learns to accept Mulan for Mulan, rather than just liking Mulan when she was masquerading as Ping, her male counterpart. Another character I enjoy is Mushu. Though his entire reasoning for helping Mulan was completely selfish, he did it in a way that did lead Mulan to saving China. Mulan, obviously, makes the movie the movie that it is as well. Mulan is a legend of China, and the new Disney movie will be more historically accurate than the animation, but the animation still shows Mulan as a powerful female character. Her motives are based entirely around saving her father from death in the war, and are aimed at bringing honor to her family in her own way.
The new Disney movie, as I said before, is going to be more historically accurate, with no songs, no Mushu, but does have Mulan still kick ass. I'm very, very excited for the remake to come out, and while I am sad that Mushu won't be in it, I understand the reasoning for it. In the end, being more accurate to the original Chinese legend is more important than the mini-dragon sidekick (sorry Mushu, love you forever).
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