'Mulan' Director and Cast Break Down a Fight Scene | Notes on a Scene | Vanity Fair

'Mulan' director Niki Caro and castmates Liu Yifei and Yoson An break down the scene where Mulan and Honghui meet in battle for the first time. Caro walks us through her vision for this action sequence frame by frame.

Mulan releases September 4 to Disney+



ABOUT VANITY FAIR
Arts and entertainment, business and media, politics, and world affairs—Vanity Fair’s features and exclusive videos capture the people, places, and ideas that define modern culture.

[aliceroared]

Yoson was good as Shang’s replacement, he did his best with the lacklustre script

[sisiasian]

When Yoson first appears on screen, his smile and his voice he....he. wow

[jess]

it's a shame they didn't get a chinese female director to direct this. mulan is such an empowering story for chinese women which can't truly be appreciated or understood if you haven't grown up with the culture.

[Lone_traveller_earthling]

Mulan's father's loyalty and love towards his family... Especially his daughters was very heart touching.

[amalilconfused]

The cast had great potential but they were given a terrible script. Too plain to be the the live action of the animated film and too emotionless to be the Disney version of the Mulan (2009) with Zhao Wei.

[DamienKazanFilmmaker]

The camera effect she mentions with chromatic aberrations and distorted blur around the image is called the Deakinizer, because invented by Roger Deakins for the film ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’, the effect has since been used in various movies.

[margaretoquias]

I love how at 4:39 they just paused the video to draw on their faces HAHAHAH

[happinessst]

Why hire a director that had NEVER done any action movie to do a big budget movie($200 million)?!! And Disney hire writers that not one of them were even Chinese! Looking at this director Niki Caro, there's NO WAY I would hire her to make this action movie! Should have hired a Chinese director! Finally, Mulan should have been in Chinese language with Eng subtitle like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon!! Everyone was fine with that! Very disappointing!!

[joj]

Yoson looks handsome. I really love his voice too. Very manly. Hope I can see more of him.

[suminalee]

This movie was pure orientalism. no understanding of north east asian culture.

[xxianmoon]

Yifei is a little reserved here, yet when she moves she's so elegant

[kingtay]

i really love Yifei's voice. so soft and charming. i live.

[marcosvarelavazquez]

Interesting break down. This is actually one of the few well written and recorded scenes, it is a pity the rest of the movie is not...
SPOILER
This scene, despite being so fantastic, lacks emotion and impact within the film because Mulan didn't need to train in order to perform this battle, she gets to do it thanks to her having a lot of chi since she was born (a stupid way of saying she has "powers") So the scene which should show the character growth ends up being just a mere show off.

[Dreamng]

i absolutely love the original however the remake was very disappointing. As an Asian woman I would have liked to see an Asian woman direct this movie or even just more asian representation behind the scenes. Very unfortunate, because there are some pivotal moments in the animated film that i would have loved to see in live-action.

[aspire]

Is there someone cleaning out comments about the lead actress and her stance on Hong Kong? It’s surprising no one has made this comment with the amount of support for boycotting this movie.

[Lora]

Who wanted them to end up together in the movie :D

[girlonthemovie]

Disney Take note to Directors: Don't remove the musical.

[Anonymous-cnzl]

Yoson An is so charismatic in this movie. I almost slurped when he took off his clothes 😚😋

[sam.d]

I already watched the movie and had goosebumps when they played reflection as bgm when she's throwing all her armors

[tinabahena]

When the director was complimenting her she got shy lol so cute. She’s beautiful and strong and graceful. I really wish I could see the movie