Movie Review: Mulan (2020)
By Hansi Zhu
After a 5-month-long delay and years of anticipation, Mulan returns to the silver screen as a swashbuckling martial arts epic streaming exclusively on DisneyPlus Premier. Plucked from the original 1998 Disney animation, our beloved titular character has kept her wit, grit, and dignity—only this time she possesses an unparalleled amount of qi, the “life energy” which is believed in Chinese culture to be a vital force that exists within all sentient beings.
In this reimagined adventure directed by Niki Caro, Mulan’s qi materializes in the form of a superhuman capacity for the martial arts. The film, like the animation before it, is based off of the Chinese legend The Ballad of Mulan. The story follows daring and family-devoted Mulan (Yifei Liu) during the attempted siege of 15th century China by the Rouran Army as she disguises herself as a man and secretly takes her ailing father’s place to fight in the Imperial Chinese Army. The Rouran arrive as an assembly of brooding horsemen led by a hulk of a man named Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee), the main antagonist reminiscent of the animated version’s Hun Army leader Shan Yu (Miguel Ferrer).
Like most war villains catered toward adolescents, Khan’s motive for attacking the empire is to avenge the previous death of his father. His screen presence is largely subdued, however, by his more flamboyant co-conspirator: a shapeshifting witch named Xianniang (Li Gong) who is driven by the (Disney-typical) desire to be accepted for who she is. A new addition to the storyline, Xianniang is enigmatic, bewitching, and intensely perceptive—exactly the antagonist that the film needs to bring sufficient nuance to its characters. Yet although Xianniang brings a fresh sense of excitement to the story, her existence counteracts all of Disney’s claims that the live action would strive toward an accurate rendition of Chinese culture; in many ways, the nature of her superhuman powers further establishes the exoticism associated with Chinese culture in American media.
Cinematographically speaking, Caro checks all the boxes for a decent filmmaker’s handiwork. Her scenes are brought to life by full-toned instrumentals that pay homage to the original 1998 soundtrack, a clever move considering the emotional ties that most of her viewers undoubtedly have to the songs in the musical. Her screenplay is vibrant and engaging, characterized by swooping, all-encompassing shots that bring an otherworldly beauty to every scene. She uses a bright color palette that accentuates the natural allure of the Chinese landscapes she films, successfully rendering the most eye-appealing videography to her abilities.
Given the live action aspect of the film, it is not surprising that Karo’s Mulan is more profound and mature than its earlier counterpart. As expected, Mulan tackles female empowerment with badass scenes of women in battle and holding their dignity, but also by giving Mulan and Xianniang ample screen time to just speak their minds. It was a critically smart decision that Caro made to hone in on the emotional development of her characters. While the action-packed, adventurous 1998 animation had its fair share of individual character development, it did not offer moments for the characters to indulge in their emotions as Caro’s did. From a racial perspective as well, time to show vulnerability is extraordinarily valuable, as the American film industry has historically deprived viewers of screen time specifically dedicated to the emotions of Asian characters.
There is also an occasional focus on Mulan in her own simple state—thirty seconds of horseback riding or a couple shots of mesmerized portrait shots—that emphasize her sheer beauty. In an industry deprived of positive renditions of people of color, this positive
On another note, the laudability of Caro’s depiction of qi is more questionable. Her portrayal of it as a tangible force is undoubtedly creative—she manages to present the concept in a viewable and easily understandable form—but her mistake lies in her allusions to Western magic. It makes qi more easily consumable to her largely American audience, but it also pushes it toward an exoticism that demolishes the progress made by previous Asia-centered films toward accurate cultural representation, which further desensitizes American media to the universal humanity of Chinese culture.
A couple sets also look overly romanticized, as though Chinese culture was merely used as an inspiration for eye-appealing backdrops. Most notably, the film depicts Mulan’s family living in a tulou, a circular type of rural dwelling which, though beautiful and awe-inspiring, is not geographically nor historically native to Mulan’s homeland in the Ballad.
I spent the majority of it engaged in an internal struggle between being thrilled at the Chinese faces and empowered women on the screen and being disappointed in my culture being used as an accessory. Despite Caro’s insistence that the film is “a love letter to China,” using Chinese culture as inspiration to exercise one’s own creativity does not do the culture justice. Instead, it sends the message that Caro is prioritizing the emblematic themes of Disney and her own artistic vision over the culture she seeks to praise. This feels both reductive and exoticizing.
If you’re searching for cinematic shots, nostalgia, and more-than-surface-level characters, give Mulan a chance. But if what you desire is redeeming Chinese representation, then wait a couple years for a new film with a production team that contains at least one person with lived cultural experience. Even from just a couple of gratifying scenes in Mulan, I can tell that the wait will be worth it.