Mulan is able to resume her former life because she knows who she is. She is able to assume the identity of the soldier Hua Hu, all the while remembering who she actually is, and is then able to pick up her life where she left it by applying her make-up and putting on her old dress.
While unconscious in the medic's tent, Mulan's gender is discovered and she is ousted to the rest of the troops. Chi Fu pressures Shang to execute Mulan immediately, but Shang, though angry at Mulan for her deception, refuses to kill her.
As the reinforcements solemnly leave the mountains, they are ambushed by the Huns, but Mulan cleverly uses a cannon to cause an avalanche, which buries most of the invaders. An enraged Shan Yu slashes her in the chest, and after the avalanche subsides, her deception is revealed when the wound is bandaged.
After the war ends in "The Ballad of Mulan," Hua Mulan returns home where she reveals to the army that she is a woman. The Disney animated movie reveals Mulan's identity after she is injured in battle. This discovery prompts Li Shang to consider executing her.
Mulan impersonates a man so that she can take her injured father's place in the Imperial Army during the Hun invasion. Mulan fortifies masculine stereotypes of men and feminine stereotypes of women and portrays the difficulty of breaking these traditional gender roles.
Defy Gender Expectations (and Embrace Your True Identity)
By cross-dressing as a man, Mulan not only defies gender expectations, she also represents the fluidity of gender itself. It's important to note that Mulan is not portrayed as transgender.
The main complication in both versions is that Mulan has to disguise herself as a man so that she can join the army and save her father from conscription. However, she is soon revealed as a female, and this causes further complications as only males can be “warriors”.
When a bad fever swept through the army, Mulan, the General of the army was also affected by it along with other soldiers. The doctor who came to check her learnt she was a woman when he came out of her tent and told the soldiers about it. Thus the soldiers came to know about Mulan's real identity.
For instance, a specific discrepancy in the original film is regarding Mulan's family name. It was changed from what it is commonly known as “Hua” in Chinese households to “Fa” in the film to create a character more comfortable for American audiences.
Mulan defies all odds laid against her, joins the army disguised as a man, and proves that her physical and mental abilities not only match the men's, but usurp them in many cases. She saves the fate of her country using her cunning and courage, and gains the respect and admiration of society.
Her desire to be there for herself drives her training and determination as she is no longer fighting only for others but also for herself. Mulan shows us that while it can be easier at times to think about the happiness of others rather than your own, it rarely stops there.
In the animated film, Mulan's greatest weakness is entirely physical: she simply does not have the capability to do things like carry two bags of who knows what on a hike which leads to Shang kicking her out of the army.
At the end of the animated Disney movie, as in nearly every version of Mulan written since that sixth-century ballad, Mulan goes back home to her family to resume her life as a daughter, and she picks up a respectable husband for herself. Her days of rule-breaking are behind her.
In the end, she overcomes various challenges and proves her worth, not only in saving the Chinese empire and bringing honour to her family, but also in securing a love interest and therefore a promising future marriage.
Mulan teaches a whole generation of girls to keep dreaming and striving even when times are hard. She teaches us to conquer obstacles head on and achieve exactly what we want to even through trial and error and learning from our mistakes.
Mulan (disguised as Ping) was injured while in a battle in the mountains from when she got slashed with a sword by Shan Yu (the villain) and then while she was recovering from her injuries, her bandages on her chest showed who she really was.
After the avalanche, the Imperial Army cheers for "Ping" for defeating the Huns; however, just as "Ping" receives an injury, the Imperial Army then notices that "Ping" is actually Mulan in disguise, causing Mulan to be banished from the Imperial Army.
When Mulan is told by her family to enter into an arranged marriage, her face falls. But she accepts the decision, solemnly pledging: “I will bring honor to us all.” This is one of the opening scenes in Disney's new “Mulan” – a live-action remake of its popular 1998 animated film – released on September 4.
"Written in Stone" is a song that was written for Disney's 1998 animated film Mulan, but was cut from the film when its composer Stephen Schwartz left the project.
Sean Bailey, Disney's president of film production, recently responded that “Although Mulan was filmed almost entirely in New Zealand, in order to accurately depict the unique geography and landscape of China for this period drama, the producers chose to film some scenery in 20 locations throughout the country, ...
98° fans, however, will be disappointed to know that there is no new version of their "True to Your Heart." Though not mentioned by Caro in her interviews, another reason that it was decided to cut the songs is to sidestep the more problematic elements of the original soundtrack of Mulan.
Moana as she appears in Moana (2016). Inspired by Polynesian mythology, Moana is depicted as the strong-willed daughter of a chief of a Polynesian village, who is chosen by the ocean itself to reunite a mystical relic with the goddess Te Fiti.
The hair-cutting scene is a powerful fan-favourite moment that sees Mulan deciding to take her father's place in the imperial army by pretending to be a man in order to save his life. Mulan cuts her hair, which many fans see as her shedding her feminimity and taking on a more masculine look.
What would happen to Mulan if they found out she was a girl?
Both in the movie and the ballad, Mulan pretends to be a man. This is because, if the army found out she was a woman trying to fight, they would kill her. However, there is historical evidence that there were female warriors around the time the ballad was written.
