Fa Mulan, an adventurous and active young woman, hopes to bring honor to her family. She is sent to a matchmaker to demonstrate her fitness as a future wife. However, after multiple mishaps, the matchmaker deems Mulan a disgrace to the family.
About this DVD: To save her ailing father from serving in the Imperial Army, a fearless young woman disguises herself as a man to battle northern invaders in China.
For children, Mulan demonstrates the positive aspects of never giving up, not being restricted to gender roles and the importance of family and honor. These aspects of the film are more in keeping with a traditional Chinese perspective on cultural value, such as the importance of family and honor.
The roles of men and women should not be seen as limiting or as limitations. The story of Mulan proves that. Mulan behaves as a man to join battle and her male battle mates dress as women to serve as decoys. Mulan teaches us that gender roles are simply well-too-accepted stereotypes (that can be broken).
EVERYTHING CULTURALLY RIGHT AND WRONG WITH MULAN 1998
What is Mulan's weakness?
Mulan's Character
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.
Disney wanted to create a film with an Asian character and delegated it to the relatively new and inexperienced Florida Studio to produce their first feature film after they successfully aided in the animation for other projects such as Aladdin.
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.
Under the idea that boys are preferred to daughters in ancient China, Mulan can join the army for her father and eventually become a heroine. Disney incorporated this idea of equality between men and women into the film, fully showing the equality of the people and strong national consciousness.
China blocked the release of Disney's animated “Mulan” for eight months in the late 1990s after the company backed Martin Scorsese's “Kundun,” a film seen as sympathetic to the Dalai Lama. The animated “Mulan” bombed in China as a result.
Fa Mulan is a young woman who is willing to give up her life to save her father. She enters the army as a man named Ping. She faces the worst enemy China's ever seen, the Hun leader Shan-Yu, who has an army willing to destroy anything in their path.
In 1998's Mulan, Imperial China is invaded by Shan Yu and his Elite Hun army - who are based in part on Genghis Khan and the Mongol empire and also on Attila the Hun - and Mulan is forced to join up in the place of her aging father, disguising herself as a man to allow her conscription.
Even though Mulan sacrifices herself by leaving for war and disguising herself as a man, the repercussions of her actions if caught prior to winning the war could still be great—it could lead to an execution and bring dishonor to her family name.
One of them is Mulan's internal conflict of whether or not embracing her lifeforce would bring dishonour to her family. Her true identity is not challenged. In this movie, her power makes her as capable as, and perhaps even stronger than, the others in the training camp.
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.
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.
Many even believe Shang was attracted to Mulan when she was presenting as Ping. For Honghui, that could have been the case, but we don't really get to see his attraction to Jun or Mulan flourish before the credits roll. So is the live-action film better off without Mulan's true love? Not exactly.
Dark dynasty behind the 'real' Mulan, where girls as young as 13 were married off, forced into prostitution and crippled. A CRUEL, distant dynasty where girls as young as 13 were forced into marriage and sold off for sex... it sounds an unlikely inspiration for a Disney classic.
While "Mulan" is only loosely based on the mythical tale of Hua Mulan, China's official Xinhua news agency said she was too "foreign-looking" in her Disney incarnation and "her complexion, disposition, and manner of behaviour were different from an [authentic] Chinese character," the BBC reported in 1999.
It dates all the way back to 386–581 AD at least, likely beginning in oral retellings and being written down significantly later. Unfortunately, with almost no way to verify its authenticity, no one knows if there is any truth behind the story, or if it comes from a place of fiction.
Though the director shared that Mushu was removed to allow Mulan to better enhance her relationships with her fellow soldiers, his absence may have also been more about not offending viewers, who found Mushu to be insensitive in the 1998 animated feature.
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”.
