Mulan (2020)

The live-action Mulan does not earn nor expect the memory of its existence. Conversations about political lead-actresses, musical omissions, or even accurate representation are lost in the void of a lackluster consumer product that cost $200 million and drags for 2 hours. The first goal of a film as a piece of art and a marketable product is to trick the audience into forgetting the hundreds of hours and people that work to fill those 2 hours. A film is supposed to entertain, and if it fails it is no film at all.

When Disney announced their approach to the Mulan “Live-Action-Remake,” I had high hopes that it would be different, that it would be worth watching. A Mulan without Mushu, musical numbers, or Li Siang is not the Mulan we know and love, and that is why I was excited. What was the point of 2019’s The Lion King? Nothing was different. 2019’s Aladdin even used Will Smith as a puppet to re-animate Robin Williams’ stand up. Up to the planned release of Mulan, I had only reservations for Disney’s live-action studio. Now, after watching it, I can confidently say that Disney is willing to rob us of $30 during a global pandemic, and in return, offer an unfinished collection of scenes poorly edited with sound mixing built for a theater rather than a streaming platform on a TV. The live action remakes of the Disney classics seem to consistently lack passion or interest in reviving the past, all they want to do is dig up the grave and steal the jewelry inside—and the worst part is, they trick us into paying them for it.

Strangely, this film relies heavily on practical sets and costumes rather than massive CGI set pieces. Yet because of this dedication, the film feels smaller than the rest of the recent Disney releases; it resembles more of a play than a blockbuster. It feels cute, but I started questioning where the $200 million was spent. Over time it begins to look and sound cheap. Halfway through the film I realized the camerawork resembled a nature documentary more than a war film—something I do not think the filmmakers intended. The camera is pulled back to give a distant perspective to everything, accidentally creating a divide between the audience and Mulan the size of a canyon. To fix this, the camera zooms in on characters’ still faces to offer an artificial beat of emotion—and when it is not focusing on the actors’ faces, it uses slow motion with the action. A lot. Either Disney wanted to fill the 2 hour runtime with the least amount of footage, or the creative team wanted to possibly pay homage to Chinese/ Hong Kong action films? I personally have not seen enough Chinese cinema to see the parallels, but for me personally, nothing is more disconnecting for an audience with the energy of the story than slow motion. It directly breaks the flow of events between them, forcing their hands apart in an attempt to create a sense of wonder that often falls flat.

The sound design is terrible. The dialogue of characters in large rooms sound like they are whispering right in your ear, while the camera frames them at the other end of the throne room. The music is stifled under the competing audio signals, being let out only to shine in sparse scenes with a bland symphony-composed score. And I know this is really nit-picking, but when a horse is swimming through an avalanche, why is the sound effect playing a set of hooves clicking on stone? The sound mixing brings all of the flaws to the front of the scene, and I can only assume the mixing was intended for a theater screening, and they did not have time to adjust for television speakers when they shifted to releasing the major blockbuster to Disney+.

There are four scenes that are worth their screen time in this film.

The first one is when Mulan is being tested by the matchmaker, which is heightened in this version because it is not a cricket acting outside of her control that ruins Mulan’s chance to gain honor, it is her willingness to risk her future to take care of her sister.

The second one is Mulan constantly taking the night watch at the training camp so she does not have to shower with the men and be revealed as a woman; every scene involving her escaping her discovery is intense, understandable, and even terrifying to some degree because of how vulnerable she is as a woman in a man’s world.

The third scene is when her commanding officer interrupts her confession to confess himself how loyal and manly Mulan is (as Hua Jun), which pushes Mulan to accept his proposal that she (he) will marry the commanding officer’s daughter after the war. Mulan wants so desperately to be a warrior that when the commanding officer applauds her manliness and rewards her for it, she represses her true self fully and commits to the facade she created. In that moment, she would rather believe in her own lie than be what society sees her as, and this tragedy carries through the rest of the training camp portion of the film.

The fourth scene is Mulan’s father seeing her return from war. She apologizes and accepts the punishment for taking his armor, horse, and the family sword. Instead of giving him honorable gifts like in the original film, she admits that she is a thief and it is because of her that their family has lost every honorable possession to their name. Mulan’s father does not reject the honor earned by her daughter for love like in the original, he rejects her mistakes and even his own honor for love. He would rather be a peasant with no name and be with Mulan than the Emperor without her. Not to mention Tzi Ma plays the father and is the best actor in the film.

Whatever caused the production of this film to release such a haphazard end product has yet to be released, but I can only assume that it was a looming deadline that met multiple rewrites and setbacks due to studio interference, test-audience reactions, and a global pandemic that more than likely upended the post-production process entirely. If this film was my responsibility, with the same team and budget, I would jump the shark and rely on contracting the footage to a CGI company to add more flare in the action. For me, bad visual effects are better than slow motion, and with the action scenes being worked on by another company I could focus my full time on the sound mixing and editing to make sure every scene is at the right moment, beat, and length. What it all boils down to is time, and this film ran out of it early in its development.

Overall, Disney decided to take a comedic musical that contained powerful beats of terror in the heat of war and remade it into an emotionless zombie that limps across the screen begging for your wallet. The failed landing was likely a result of a rushed post production, and in an ironic twist… I probably did not have to write this review until the film came out in December for free. I chose to put an expensive deadline on this review, just like the film, and because of that my own review is just as bloated and unorganized as the subject it is referring to. Luckily for you, this review is free. Looking back, I realize that I have never paid so much money for such a waste of time, and that is truly my fault. I hope you do not make the same mistake. Please, just watch the original. It is 30 minutes shorter and actually remembers to show every scene with great sound design and amazing music.

The middle section of the film involving the training camp is the best section and the most watchable. There are glimpses of character chemistry with the other soldiers, and, although, they are shoved the background once they leave for war, they bring a refreshing change of pace whenever they are on screen.

The grand average score calculated from the 75 scenes:

5.63/10