Mulan (2020): A Dishonourable Remake (ESSAY/REVIEW) (SPOILERS)

Disney has done another one of their remakes again, and while this one has more potential than most, Film Brain finds that it misses that point by turning Mulan into a superhero story.
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[ToddTheTolerable]

Animated Mulan: Selflessly takes father's place and works hard to keep that place in the army
Remake Mulan: Born special, already better than everyone else in the army

Are new movies just written for narcissists or have human protagonists become a lost art?

[grandadmiralzaarin]

Dishonor on Disney.
Dishonor on their Franchise.
Dishonor on their Cashcow.

[chasemaddigan]

The phoenix metaphor falls apart once you realize that's not even that accurate to the Chinese take on the legend. The whole "reborn from the ashes" part of the myth? Yeah, that's a trait that originated from the Greeks. The Chinese Phoenix (or Fenghuang) doesn't have any rebirth imagery associated with it, and is more associated with harmony and peace.

[bionicleanime]

"You may LOOK like a faithful remake but you will NEVER bring the original HONOR!!"

[jamescarroll]

Why make her powerful and combative at all? The advantages that Mulan demonstrated weren't really about physical skill, they were about intelligence and strategy (using the weights to reach the arrow, causing an avalanche to defeat the hun army). It was about how her outlook and inner strength and wisdom enabled her to approach problems in a different way. Not just being a superpowered Captain China...

[McCammalot]

And apparently they filmed near Uighur prison camps in Xinjiang as well???

[CommanderZx]

It's funny how they managed to make a live action adaption less believable and cartoony than the original cartoon that it is a remake of.

[FaeQueenCory]

There's also that whole... 5ft off camera genocide happening... Which is doubly bad because Yifei apparently condones that.
The credits even thank the concentration camps for the
It's dumpsterfires all the way down on this film.

[janushunyadi]

The entire movie not just sucks, but it gets really even more disgusting once you realize the movie was made near the chinese equivalent of Dachau.

[Webshooters]

It's truly baffling how these live-action remakes as nothing but the reheated leftovers of it's animated counterpart and yet people are paying to have their nostalgia sold back to them.

What terrifies me is there's rumors of a live-action remake of Nightmare Before Christmas and I know it would suck.

[carlrood]

When discussing the original, I'd add ingenuity to the inner strength and courage argument. She used her brains to make up for her lack of physical strength. She didn't just persevere and accomplish her goals; she found her own way to accomplish them.

[wjzav]

Having seen some old Chinese Kung Fu films, the wall-running and wild jumping has always been a staple in them. In these films, learning Kung Fu basically gives you superpowers.
What Disney seems to have missed, is that even in these movies, Kung Fu always has to be learned through hard work and dedication. Hell, one of the most famous of them, "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin" shows how an average joe becomes a martial arts badass by mastering all the 35 chambers.

[voxangelaemortis]

Given that Mongols did allow females to be warriors, I think it is a pity that they did not explore that further: Mulan having to pretend to be a man in order to fight for an oppressive regime who will kill her if they find out what she's done against a group in which, if she had born, she would have been honored. Add to that the fact that, instead of making a new character whole cloth, they turned Shan Yu's pet falcon from the Disney-original into the now stereotypical subserviant shapeshifting witch miniboss, and I can only roll my eyes in disgusted disappointment. I hope the company gets good returns in China, given the changes they made in attempt at pandering to it.

[CoolMagmar]

Why every time someone tries to make a more "mature" version it ends up more cartoonish or more immature? Is that like a curse or something? Does it work like saying "Good luck" to a stage actors?

[UlshaRS]

The pandering to the Chinese market is off the scale.

[cartoonkelly]

Chi is just life force. She is alive, of course she has chi. If she didn’t have chi, she would be a corpse. This movie sounds dumb. Underutilizing Donnie Yen is a crime. You’re very good at this video essay thing. I would love to see more of these. May I suggest you do something with Hallmark movies.

[Izanagi]

Yeah, the fact they explicitly mentioned chi when in Chinese wuxia, it’s implicit and unsaid, is an issue

I also feel the fact the villains have more wuxia practitioners than the heroes doesn’t help the feel that Mulan was given her ability not having earned it

[Vernydog]

"Mulan is not a super hero ..."

Has a story like one. Does impossible things by human standards like one. Has special powers above all the others in the movie like one. Insert:

“You keep using that word. ... I do not think it means what you think it means.” -Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride.

[becuaseimbored]

I mean, what's more empowering:

An ordinary girl becoming a badass through hard work and determination

Or

A mary sue who was given magic man powers

[megarakadmea]

We have to remember that Mulan is a Confucian heroine. She represents the Confucian value of subordinating oneself to one’s family especially one’s father. She endures as a beloved Chinese heroine for her ability to break a seemingly important convention to uphold one that is far more powerful.
Trying to make her nothing more than “ra ra feminism” robs her of her spiritual power.