First of. They completely removed Mushu and Shang. As well as changed the name of the main villain. Honestly, Bori Khan sounds nowhere near as epic and badass as ShanYu. Excuse the spelling if it's wrong. I'm too much in the groove to go look it up. But I'm probably correct and if not, I'll edit it later. Back to the stuff they changed - not for the better.
I could have accepted the switch from Mushu to the Phoenix, sure, why not. But captain Shang was the best character from the whole thing! Him being replaced by an unknown random soldier? Sorry, but I'm not buying it. Honestly, when I hear the words Live-action remake, I kind of expect the plot to stay the fuck the same! At the same time, I understand that some things that are easy to animate might be really hard to do with special effects. Yet! When it comes to Mulan, the only thing that really needs serious special effects is Mushu. And possibly crickee. But that's a different story.
Next. Why would they even put the Witch in! She brings nothing to the story, only muddles it up. And that stupid redemption sub-plot? Nope. It would have been more interesting if she killed Khan near the end of the movie and turned into the ultimate villain. Also, shapeshifting into a bloody bird?! Again, nope. But again, I'm biased. As right now, I'm watching a Chinese drama - Guardian - and there's a tribe of raven shapeshifters. Yeah, maybe I picked the wrong time to watch Mulan, but I can't help it! I blame The Untamed!
Which brings me to another issue I have with this new Mulan. Qi. When it was first brought up in the movie, near the beginning when Mulan is chasing a chicken, I was like "Sure, great. Maybe we will see swords moving on their own or the characters flying on their swords!"
But nope. Barely anyone uses their Qi and even if they do, they use it in such a way that makes you doubt they are even using it at all. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Mulan, climbing that hill with those water buckets. I kept expecting them to fly back and forth, control their swords without touching them! I kept expecting proper sword cultivation, or at least something similar to what we see in The Untamed. But nope. They use it to dodge arrows and kick spears. And climb hills. That's it. But guess that's what you get when you watch something set in ancient China not made by the Chinese.
I should mention that they removed all the songs. Which... On one side is good, but! I mean, at least by removing them, they didn't butcher them like they did Scar's song in the Lion King remake. At the same time, those songs served a purpose. All three of them - Reflection, I'll make a man out of you and A Girl worth fighting for. Well, four, Honor to us all - I almost forgot about that one.
So yeah, I think they should have left those songs in. The exact way they were in the original. No butchering of them. Like I said, by removing them, at least they didn't butcher them, even if it means the movie lacks something important. I mean, they trained an army in a song. And A Girl worth fighting for was a way for them to skip the travel time in an artful way. And tell us something about those three fighters. They all served a purpose. And what does the new Mulan do? The movie has some of the cast recite the lines from the songs. Which is lame.
So yeah. Many problems with this movie. Like I said, if you don't know the original Mulan and haven't seen any actual Chinese dramas, you might think this is an okay action flick, but being familiar with either of those two makes it impossible to properly enjoy the movie.
And I totally miss the Emperor Out moment from the original where he gives Mulan a medal near the end of the movie. Sure, it's a small thing, but I miss it. It was great.
What did you think of this new Mulan? Have you even seen the movie yet? Are you going to? And if you have already, what did you think? Did you like it? Did you hate it? What pissed you off the most?
Tell me!
~AnnElfwind
Written on the 14th of September, 2020
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