No." 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.
Mushu was seen as trivialising the Chinese culture
USC Professor Stanley Ronsen also told The Hollywood Report that the character was seen as a trivialisation of the culture in China. “Mushu was very popular in the US, but the Chinese hated it,” he said. “This kind of miniature dragon trivialised their culture.”
Mushu was once a guardian spirit of Mulan's family, but he has been demoted to the unappreciated position of an incense burner and gong-ringer for the deceased Fa ancestors ever since he failed to protect a family member, a soldier named Fa Deng, resulting in the soldier's demise by decapitation.
"Using it as a silly sidekick didn't play very well with the traditional Chinese audience." But perhaps the most significant reason why the new Mulan film features a phoenix instead is due to the symbolism of the mythical bird for Chinese women in particular — or at least according to Caro's vision.
A clause in Eddie Murphy's contract for doing Shrek 2 (2004) forbade him from reprising the role of Mushu in this film, therefore having his other voice actor Mark Moseley (a man best known for filling in for Murphy's characters like Mushu and Donkey in their TV and Video Game appearances) fill in for this film.
They Got Rid of Mushu in Mulan?! | WHAT THEY GOT RIGHT
Why was Mushu controversial?
Believed to have been written out of the film due to being "deemed culturally inaccurate and racist", some academics and culture critics defended Disney's decision to remove Mushu, describing it as their attempt "to represent Chinese culture and history in a more authentic manner".
Although Mushu and the phoenix are both guardians of the ancestors, and both are stone statues brought to life for Mulan's protection, the phoenix is never a true replacement for Mushu. Mulan and the phoenix never really interact, compared with Mushu's constant involvement in the animated film.
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.
Mulan star Liu Yifei's comments supporting Hong Kong police sparked criticism of the film, which quickly led to a call for boycotts among Hong Kong pro-democracy protestors, as well as Thai and Taiwanese activists, among others.
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.
Mushu, at last, is restored to guardian status in the family temple. Mulan thanks him for his help in her adventurous plan, and the ancestors celebrate that the Fa family is complete again.
The issue was that Mulan was partially filmed in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, in close proximity to detention camps for Uighur Muslims, and Disney gave credit to “publicity department of CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomy Region Committee” among other entities.
However, the character was cut from Disney's live-action remake. The producer Jason Reed cited the #MeToo movement as the reason. Cutting Li Shang, a character who means a lot to LGBTQ Disney fans around the world, was a huge missed opportunity for Disney.
Also, the fact that Mushu is a dragon may be a nod to the fact that, while Mulan is a mighty force on her own, she requires a little bit of guidance to be whole and achieve her goals. Ultimately, this would mean that Mushu couldn't awaken the Great Stone Dragon because it was awake all along.
General Shang asks Mulan for her hand in marriage, and she happily accepts. Mushu is initially thrilled about the engagement, until the ancestors inform him that if Mulan marries Shang, his family ancestors would become her guardians and Mushu will lose his job.
Disney's classic 'Mulan' flopped in China because audiences didn't think the heroine looked Chinese enough. Although Mulan is the only Disney Princess of East Asian descent, the original Mulan cartoon was a massive flop in China.
The boycott centers on two Chinese issues: The treatment of Uyghur Muslims in China's Xinjiang region -- where some of the film was shot -- and China's crackdown of freedoms in Hong Kong.
In 1996, Disney was banned from China over Kundun, a Martin Scorsese film featuring repression in Tibet and sympathetic to the Dalai Lama. After initial resistance, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner apologized, saying it was "a form of insult to our friends."
USC professor Stanley Rosen said the character was seen as trivializing Chinese culture by Chinese moviegoers. "Mushu was very popular in the U.S., but the Chinese hated it," they said. "This kind of miniature dragon trivialized their culture." "You have to deliver on the war of it," Caro said.
Scholarly consensus is that Mulan is a fictional character, probably developed in Northern China in response to the greater independence women enjoyed there, whose legend was then revised in succeeding eras to reflect the values and challenges of the times.
Following widespread outcry, director Niki Caro explained that the reason the scaly red sidekick was left out of the remake was a commitment to "the realism of [Mulan's] journey."
Mushu, the wise-cracking sidekick dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy, and Li Shang, the captain of the Imperial Army and Mulan's mentor, voiced by B.D. Wong. Among those who love the original, there are sure to be some questions as to why these seemingly pivotal characters were removed.
If any of you watched Mulan 2, for exapmle buying it on DVD, Mushu turns evil after losing his pedastol, so he tries to tear apart Mulan and Shang, which worked.
