Nearly 10 years ago, Disney announced that they would finally move forward with a live-action remake of Mulan.
The animated musical adventure was a huge hit when it was released in 1998, but by 2015, it was nearing the peak of unrest over race, transgenderism and sexual harassment in the workplace.
This Mulan is not the liberal feminist icon we’ve been told she is, more Joan of Arc than Captain Marvel, driven not by ambition but by love.
In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a good time for an American company to tell a story set in ancient China and inspired by a well-known Chinese legend — nor was it an ideal environment to cast a heroine who disguises herself as a man to join the imperial army and fall in love with her superior officer.
“Inappropriate” Love
From the start, there were rife online calls for white artists to be excluded from the project, and Disney tried to pitch in but was unable to get its original pick for director, Ang Lee, to direct.
Captain Li Shang, who played Mulan’s love interest in the original, was replaced with two new characters in response to the #MeToo movement, with producer Jason Reed explaining, “We felt it was deeply uncomfortable and inappropriate to have a commander in chief become the object of a sexual romance.”
This angered LGBT activists who, unbeknownst to the world outside their community, had claimed Li Shan as a “bisexual icon.” The filmmakers’ attempt to conform to one moral movement led to accusations of “erasure” by another.
Politics and the pandemic
Mulan was finally ready for release in early 2020, but by then another problem had emerged: It was revealed that some of the film’s scenic B-roll had been shot in the northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the notorious site where the government set up re-education camps for Uighurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in retaliation for terrorist attacks by Sunni separatists.
Western governments and various NGOs called on Disney to condemn China, and although Disney refused to back down, China found Disney’s lukewarm defense insulting and instructed state media not to cover the film’s domestic release.
The final, and perhaps most devastating, setback had to do with the film’s original release date, in March 2020. Though Disney managed to pull off a standard gala screening in Hollywood, COVID-19 and the resulting lockdowns scuttled plans for a general release.
By the time Mulan finally hit multiplexes in July of that year, Disney Desperate to solve the problemhad done almost nothing to promote it.
Not awake? Go bankrupt.
Those who have reviewed the film seem to have done so largely through the mundane lens of identity politics, limiting their thoughts to the political context surrounding the film rather than the story itself.
Critic Jonatan Itkonen’s negative response was typical: “Mulan is a film that can best be described as a ‘what if’ exercise — if the script had included input from actual Chinese people.”
Disney initially wanted an Asian director, and the cast and crew were nearly 100% Chinese—so Chinese, in fact, that lead actress Liu Yifei sparked controversy by denouncing the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement in 2019. Given the strict and contradictory demands at the time, it’s no wonder that “Mulan” lost points for being Asian. Too Chinese.
Secret success
In retrospect, I think its harshest critics owe Mulan a reevaluation, or even a full apology.
I saw the film with my family this week and was blown away by how fantastic it was – visually and audibly stunning, and the physicality of the acting brilliantly incorporated elements of the Chinese kung fu film tradition.
The makers have toned down the zany parts of the animated film for a more serious production, which in fact brings the story closer to the epic source material, The Ballad of Hua Mulan.
Particularly striking was the film’s emphasis on honor, virtue and the distinctively Chinese notion of filial piety, with Mulan risking death not for her own “self-realization” (a common motivation for modern heroines) but rather to protect her father and father of the nation, the Emperor.
When she reveals her true identity to the men in her unit, they reject her, and a shapeshifting witch-warrior on the opposing side (a creative reinterpretation of the hawk from the animated film) offers her a sense of solidarity in this cold moment of ostracism.
Mulan rejects her, saying, “I know my place. It is my duty to fight for the kingdom and protect the Emperor.” The sword she holds, stolen from her father, has three Chinese characters engraved on it: “loyalty, bravery, and truth.”
After she saved the emperor, he gave her a new sword, which was inscribed with the additional virtue of filial piety.
This Mulan is not the liberal feminist icon we’ve been told she is, more Joan of Arc than Captain Marvel, driven not by ambition but by love.
And this love encompasses her country and her family. Americans haven’t seen a film so full of unvarnished national pride since “The Patriot.” “Mulan” made me hopeful that one day we might be able to harness the vast resources of Hollywood to celebrate our own founding myths. I am inspired by that possibility.
