Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
Mulan sits at a curious intersection of the Disney ‘Renaissance’.
It is not one of the game-changing hits that kicked off the revitalized period for the studio, like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, or Aladdin. When those films were being made, the idea of structuring an animated film in the style of a Broadway musical, with toe-tapping showstoppers dropped every couple minutes, was still a novelty. By the time Mulan came out in 1998, the novelty had worn off, especially as every studio in tone was cranking out clones that copied the look and feel and sound of those Disney films to an exactingly bland degree.
But nor is Mulan one of the semi-misbegotten misfires that curtailed the Renaissance in its infancy, leaving an open space for those gremlins at Pixar to swoop in and lay their claim on the future of animation. Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, all oddly-shaped attempts by Disney to copy what worked in their first run of hits, while pushing themselves artistically, while also trying to be even more universally appealing so as to make more money and grab some of that sweet, sweet Oscar hype. The result was movies like Hunchback, which somehow includes both an opening chase involving the villain coming thisclose to slaughtering a deformed baby, and also Jason Alexander doing Borscht Belt bits as a talking gargoyle.
And then there’s Mulan.
Adapted from the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, Mulan (directed by Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft) is the story of the titular young misfit (voiced by Ming-Na Wen; songs by Lea Salonga), unsure of her role within her strict culture. When an army of rampaging Huns scales the Great Wall and begins marching towards the Imperial City, Mulan’s ailing father is drafted into service. To save his life, Mulan disguises herself as a man and enlists herself. She is joined by fast-talking, pint-sized dragon Mushu (voiced by Eddie Murphy), determined to prove himself as a guardian spirit, and a not-so-lucky luck cricket. Together, this unlikely band must work with the handsome-but-severe Captain Li Shang (voiced by B.D. Wong; songs by Donny Osmond) to save China and their family’s honor.
Mulan enjoyed a fairly warm reception upon original release, albeit with some critical side-eye with regards to the film’s depiction of Chinese history and culture. Still, the film has quietly amassed a significant following thanks to some of its songs (particularly Salonga’s moving “Reflection” and Osmond’s “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” training number) and its depiction of a young woman forging her own path and identity, rather than conforming to society’s prescribed role. Disney’s hopes to appeal to the Chinese market were unfortunately curtailed due to ongoing bad blood between the company and the nation over Martin Scorsese’s Kundun. While Mulan was a success, the Renaissance would flicker out over the next couple of years.
Today, Disney is betting big on that following, as they are currently mounting a $300 million live action remake, directed by Niki Caro and starring Liu Yifei, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, and Gong Li. But while we look forward to that, let’s take a look back at the original film, and see if it still sings.
Next Week’s Pick:
We are absolutely on record for our love of John Woo, especially in the heroic bloodshed subgenre he more or less created, and we’re beyond thrilled that his latest has finally arrived, and you can watch it right now on Netflix — and that’s just what we’re going to do. Moving from a Chinese legend to a Chinese film, Manhunt is next week’s film club pick. I hope this is full of dual-wielding pistols, explosions, doves, slow-down cinematography, and bro-down melodrama. Watch it with us and submit your two cents!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review on any MCU film to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
Our Guests
Mulan is a Disney movie I hadn’t revisited in a long time. In a lot of ways it holds up surprisingly well. It builds on the more progressive model of Disney heroine introduced in Beauty & the Beast, as well as the more contemporary (if anachronistic) sense of humor that began with Robin Williams in Aladdin. It has a very good score, with a few standout songs (though none as memorable as the best of either of the earlier films I just mentioned). “Reflection” and the “Be a Man” training montage stand out as highlights — in no small part due to the talents of Lea Salonga and Donny Osmond as the singing voices of Mulan and Li Shang. In fact, the cast overall is quite good — Ming-Na Wen and B.D. Wong as the speaking voices of the aforementioned, along with Miguel Ferrer, James Hong, Pat Morita, and Harvey Fierstein(!).
The film is more than a little dated in some of its humor and depictions of Chinese culture/history. Also, Eddie Murphy is no Robin Williams (and his Mushu feels very much like an audition for the Donkey character he would eventually voice in the Shrek films). That said, I kind of love Cri-Kee the lucky cricket, and the action sequence in the third act is genuinely exciting. Fun fact: I’m going to Disney World next week, and to get in the mood have been rewatching a lot of Disney movies. I hadn’t initially planned on making Mulan one of them, but I’m glad I made time for it. It’s not the pinnacle of the Disney Renaissance, but in my opinion it is a lot of fun.(@T_Lawson)
Brendan Agnew (The Norman Nerd):
It’s kind of amazing that this film even exists, let alone that it works as well as it does. From the early “China Doll” production days to the question of even getting a theatrical release, Mulan probably should have been an outright disaster. Instead, Disney managed a wildly enjoyable — if somewhat dramatically uneven — cap to their run of Disney Renaissance musicals.
And I theorize that the secret sauce to this comes in right at 17 minutes, 35 seconds.
There’s a lot of this film that veers between deadly serious and Looney Tunes comedy, and not all the cast are as rounded as the title character. However, the sequence beginning with Mulan at the feet of the Great Stone Dragon and ending with her riding away in full armor is one of the best sequences of pure expressive animation in the last three decades. You could teach a class session on animation — hell, on narrative, full stop — using those 120 seconds. It’s an empathy detonation. After that beautiful bit of purely visual storytelling set to the late Jerry Goldsmith’s driving score, the audience is in for the long haul and willing to follow Mulan anywhere.
Even if they have to put up with a few dud lines from Eddie Murphy along the way. (@BLCAgnew)
The Team
As years have passed, perhaps some have forgotten how revolutionary Mulan was when it opened. A Disney film centered around a woman of color who isn’t limited to a supporting role or a romantic storyline: girls and young women at the time knew this was something novel, even if we weren’t all aware of its exact importance.
We could see ourselves in this woman who refuses to adapt to gender expectations, dressing as a man to take her father’s place as a soldier. Certain aspects of the film have aged less gracefully (for ex: much of Mushu’s dialogue, the casting of white voice actors as some of the Chinese characters, the one-dimensional baddies), but songs such as “Reflection” and “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” remain packed with double-meaning.
The visual design in Mulan is impressive. I recall appreciating the artistry of the detail in clouds of dust or poofs of smoke when I saw it originally in the theater. That and the technique involved in illustrating the mountain fight was obvious on the big screen; it’s not nearly as breathtaking on digital/home video. Decades after its release, I still enjoy Mulan and the strength of its heroine…as well as the songs, of course. (@elizs)
This was my first time watching Disney’s 1998 animated musical, Mulan. A few of the songs sounded familiar, but it was otherwise completely new for me. In 1998, I was 16–17 and not checking out the new films released by Disney, so this one fell into a specific period of time where Disney films have no place in my nostalgia banks. For that reason, I must admit that the film doesn’t resonate with me as much as the ones I grew up with or the films released more recently. This is not at all the fault of the film.
In fact, this is a pretty standard (read as “solid” and “entertaining”) Disney animated musical, comparable to the ones I love most. The music is good, the voice cast is great, and the story is equally fun, emotional, and well crafted. I really love some of the characters and casting choices here. In fact, it seems almost certain that Eddie Murphy as Mushu the Dragon was influential to his character of Donkey in Shrek.
While I’m not sure this can ever join some of my favorite Disney classics, due simply to the timing of its release, I do think I’ll be making sure the kids check it out and I’m sure to revisit it in the future. This is a solid entry into the Disney collection that I’m happy I got to check out, even if 20 years late. (@thepaintedman)
There are moments in Mulan as good as anything Disney put out in the 90’s, individual sequences that are as beautiful/moving/emotional/funny/awe-inspiring as anything the company ever released. “Reflection” is as good an “I want” song as any in the Disney canon, and as the other Brendan noted, the moment when Mulan makes the choice to strike out for the army is a master class in conveying character and emotion with animation. Other set pieces, such as Mulan and her fellow soldiers going toe-to-toe with the Huns in the middle of an avalanche, represent new peaks in Disney’s animation. And in general, the film’s ease with gender fluidity and askance look at the typical macho bravado that informs much of American cinema, are more than welcome.
But for every thing the films does right, there’s something it gets forehead-slappingly wrong. The Huns are awful villains, and the waste of Miguel Ferrer as the main one (whose name I can’t even remember) is criminal. And while Eddie Murphy as Mushu wasn’t necessarily a terrible idea, juxtaposing him with the darker, more serious elements of the film results in a tonal dissonance that renders everything sorta flat. Disney was clearly trying to replicate the magic of Robin Williams as The Genie, but Aladdin was, in general, pitched as a broad and fun adventure-comedy, so Williams’ schtick blended right in. Mulan will cut from somber, mournful reflections on war and grief directly to Mushu and the cricket engaging in some kind of wackiness, and it’s such a jarring contrast that both moments get dinged.
That said, I came away feeling mostly positive about Mulan. Maybe it’s because these were the films I was raised on, but I continue to have warm feelings towards the look and feel of the Disney Renaissance films. Mulan is not one of the best of that category, but it does exemplify many of the qualities that made that era feel so special. (@theTrueBrendanF)
First point, I’m flabbergasted by our group’s praise for the film’s songs. If there’s one element in which Mulan most clearly exhibits decline in comparison to Disney’s preceding hits, this is it. “A Girl Worth Fighting For” and “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” are both pretty on the nose and musically dull, but “Honor To Us All” is just ear-bleedingly shrill awfulness.
Forgettable villains engage in a conflict that actually distracts from the heroine’s journey rather than actively fortify it, but the film still offers a lot to love. Mulan is a terrific protagonist, and the film’s plot inherently addresses outdated gender norms in which women are valued only by their ability to doll themselves up and provide domestic service to men. Mulan is not only tough enough to hold her own against her male counterparts, but has the moral fortitude to challenge expectations and take action on her convictions.
Add to that the visual beauty on display and the levity of Eddie Murphy’s dragon sidekick, and the overall takeaway is a solidly entertaining — though short of great — Disney animated film that straddles the distinction of “classic”. (@VforVashaw)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7olnEJC6pwU
Next week’s pick:
