I have no idea how much Mulan cost Disney to make but it's obvious from the spectacular production values that they spared no expense. The colors and lively and sumptuous, the sets are detailed and gorgeous and the costumes are spectacular. I only wish the film was as emotionally as satisfying as it is to look it.
I never saw the original animated Mulan, so I can't know how this compares to the original. In fact, the one thing about Mulan that always lingers in my memory is the fact that its female empowerment message so troubled a then up and coming Mike Pence, that he felt the need to write a now widely ridiculed op-ed condemning it.
I assume like most Disney movies of its time that it was both a musical and an action comedy with a message. The new version has no song, next to no comedy but some action and certainly a message -- and it may be weaker for it. The message, don't get me wrong, is great. But it's delivered with no sense of joy or inspiration, just sort of matter-of-factly.
Perhaps I am far from the target audience, and if this new Mulan inspires a new generation of girls I'd be thriller, but Liu Yifei is allowed so little range of emotion in the title role or complexity that I found it hard to get invested in her journey. Being determined is admirable but it doesn't make for a fully fleshed out person worth rooting for. A little humor or quirk might have gone a long way here, but with the exception of one charming scene involving a matchmaker this movie is more interested in hitting its narrative beats in a predictable fashion.
This is a shame, because of all the recent Disney live action reimagining of their beloved animated properties, this one seemed to show the most promise. It had a terrific international cast, including a scene-stealing Gong Li and Donnie Yen and it at least appears to be not quite as slavishly devoted to its source material -- all good things.
But it seems to be more committed to a solemn tone than an invigorating one -- although a handful of its action scenes are spectacularly staged. It's not a bad film by any means but it is also not remotely fun enough to be a great one.
Disney has been indulging in a kind of creatively bankrupt cannibalism for the last five years or so. They have their tentpole Marvel and Star Wars moneymakers -- which may divide fans but have at least been interesting and sometimes even brilliant. But when it comes to their own legacy content they seem eager to simply rip off nostalgic fans by presenting them with films they've already seen barely altered.
The sad reality is that these movies have been making money hand over fist: Aladdin was the biggest hit of Will Smith's career, the 'new' version of The Lion King managed to outperform the last Star Wars film and Beauty and the Beast is within the top 20 highest grossing films of all time (unadjusted for inflation). So there is no incentive for Disney to stop this, even if it is so nakedly cynical and creatively moribund.
This one even fooled me. I'd had no interest in those earlier live action remakes, but this one looked to be a marked improvement over its predecessors. In some ways it is -- its definitely a mature and well-crafted film that is culturally sensitive and that strikes the right chord about its gender politics -- but it's missing a huge key element: personality.
It's probably not a good sign where the most memorable performance in your movie comes from the second banana villain (Gong Li) and when you find yourself dozing ahead of the film's big climax, as I did. In fairness to the movie, it could and should have played better on the big screen, which the coronavirus has deprived us of.
It could have been and probably would have been a massive hit (although I am sure Disney Plus will recoup its costs with their pricey at home rental fess, and I would have liked to have seen that, even if I have my reservations about the movie, because big budget all-Asian cast films are so rare and it success could have led to many more, potentially better films reflecting the diversity of the culture.
In many ways, Mulan's place in history is secure for that reason -- its unorthodox release may very well represent the future of how we see movies if hopefully not the way that we make them.
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