Mulan (1998)

reviewed by
Jon Turner


MULAN
A Film Review by Jon Turner
Posted June 23, 1999
Rating:  ***** out of *****

After the outrageous disappointment that was HERCULES, Disney animation has recovered. MULAN is positive proof of that. And no wonder! This film has been a pet project at the Disney Animation Studio in Florida for five years, first named China Doll, and at a staggering cost of $100 million. The result is a delightful, exciting piece of entertainment to come from the Disney studio. On my top ten favorite Disney films, MULAN is my second favorite Disney film of all time, next to THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME.

The film opens with a stunning view of the Great Wall of China. On the top, we see a soldier pacing back and forth–until the Huns and their leader, the ruthless Shan-Yu breach the wall. General Li informs the Emperor of this, and he commands him to send parchments to every family in China, searching for men powerful enough to defeat the Huns. Meanwhile, Mulan is running late to her meeting with the Matchmaker, and once she arrives on her horse, Khan, her mother wastes no time in getting her bathed, powdered, and dressed up for her meeting. Her grandmother even gives her a cricket named Cri-Kee, just for luck. The meeting, however, turns out to be a disaster, and the Matchmaker tells Mulan that she will never be able to bring her family honor.

Heartbroken and convinced that she has dishonored her family, Mulan leads Khan home and sits in the garden all by herself. Her father, Fa Zhou, comforts her by showing her the blossoms in the garden, including one that is late. `I'll bet that when it blooms,' he says, `It will be the most beautiful of all.' Then, Chi-Fu, the Emperor's aide, rides into the village, announcing the invasion of the Huns and says that one man from each family must serve in the Imperial Army. Fa Zhou agrees to come, despite an injury he had suffered in an earlier war.

Mulan, however, knows that if her father goes into war, he will never be able to return. So that night, she decides to steal her father's armor and disguises herself as a boy to take her father's place. When her parents and grandmother find out that she's gone, they start praying to the Ancestors for help. Besides, they know that the penalty for a woman impersonating a man is death!

The Ancestors heed the Fa family's prayers, and summon a disgraced little dragon, Mushu, who had failed to be a Family Guardian and since then, wants a second chance, to awaken the Great Stone Dragon to send Mulan home. Mushu goes outside to do so, but instead accidentally breaks the statue! He then decides to go after Mulan and make her a war hero so that he might be able to regain his post as a Guardian. Aided by Cri-Kee, Mushu finds Mulan in the forest, pondering over how she is going to get into the camp.

Mushu tries to help Mulan out by advising her how to act like a man in the army, but the first thing he does is cause Mulan to start a battle between the soldiers. When the army's captain, Li Shang, appears, everyone blames Mulan for the trouble. Shang orders the army to clean up the mess that they made in the fight, and asks who this `newcomer' is. Mulan changes her name to `Ping' to save her identity so that she would serve in the army (but not before she struggles for such a name; one of the film's funniest sequences).

This leads to a song, `I'll Make A Man Out Of You', where Shang teaches the army discipline and strength, by having them tie a bronze disk to each wrist and attempt to climb a tall pole to retrieve an arrow. Everyone fails, including Mulan. Shang is ready to dismiss her, but Mulan tries one last time by tying the disks together and using them to pull herself up the pole. Then, the army, inspired by Mulan's strength, works hard to improve their military skills to be ready to confront Shan-Yu. In doing so, Mulan makes friends with three comic soldiers–the huge Chien-Po, the tall, skinny Ling, and the short, gravel voiced Yao.

However, Mulan remembers to cover her true identity, especially when she goes off to bathe in a lake. However, her friends come along, throwing off their clothes! Mushu covers Mulan's disguise by diving into the water and biting Ling. `Snake!' Ling shouts, and they hop onto a rock while Mulan escapes, commenting, `I never want to see naked men again!'

In the meantime, Chi-Fu, unimpressed by Shang's efforts to make a great army out of these `boys', is prepared to make a criticizing report to the Emperor. Not about to let his plan go wrong, Mushu creates a fake letter to Chi Fu from Shang's father, General Li (with the help of Cri-Kee, of course), saying that they are needed at the front.

Chi Fu falls for it, and the next day, Shang and his troops march off to war, singing about a `girl worth fighting for' when they encounter a burned down village. Among the destroyed houses and dead bodies, they find General Li's helmet–and know at once that General Li is dead! Shang then orders the army to make for the Imperial City by going through the Tung-Shao Pass, hoping to arrive before the Huns do.

As they cross through the pass, however, they encounter Shan Yu and his army. They fire cannons at the Huns, hoping to destroy them, to no avail. The situation takes a turn for the worst when Shan-Yu and 10,000 Huns begin charging down the mountainside. Mulan defeats the army by firing the last cannon at the mountaintop, causing an avalanche. The wall of snow burries the Huns and Shan-Yu, but then it comes right towards the Chinese army! Mulan rescues Shang from the thundering snow, who says that Mulan has his trust because of that.

At this point, Mulan faints from a wound that she has suffered from Shan-Yu. She is cared for by the medic, but then, her identity is revealed! But instead of killing Mulan, Shang throws her sword down, repaying Mulan for saving his life. Then, the army leaves her in the snow and moves out.

Mulan is heartbroken, and Mushu, finally admitting that he had risked her life to regain his position as a Guardian, suggests telling Fa Zhou the truth. Mulan is about to, but she hears, from the distance, that Shan-Yu and his toughest warriors have survived the avalanche and are heading for the Imperial City!

Mulan then decides to go to the Imperial City and warn the army. But when she tries to tell Shang, he refuses to listen. When he goes up to the emperor, presenting Shan-Yu's sword, a falcon snatches the sword and carries it back to Shan-Yu, on the palace roof. The Emperor is then captured, but Mulan comes up with an idea, and convinces Ling, Yao, Chien-Po, and even Shang, to help out. They disguise themselves as women so that they can sneak into the palace; they take out the guards while Shang races to save the Emperor from certain doom. Mulan and the others help rescue the Emperor, and she outsmarts Shan-Yu by leading him onto the palace roof where Mushu sends a rocket careening into him. The rocket carries Shan-Yu to the fireworks tower, and there is a tremendous explosion.

When all is calm, the Emperor thanks Mulan and offers to make her a part of his council, but Mulan, having been away from home for too long, says that she must return. Before she leaves, the Emperor hands her his pendant `so that your family will know what you have done for me,' he says, and the sword of Shan-Yu, `so that the world will know what you have done for China.'

Mulan returns home to Fa Zhou, presenting the Emperor's gifts to her father, but Fa Zhou instead says that the greatest gift and honor `is having you for a daughter.' Even Shang realizes how special Mulan is, because he follows her all the way home. Mulan invites him to stay for dinner, and he agrees; at the family temple, Mushu has finally regained his position as a Family Guardian.

MULAN is truly one of Disney's better animated films. Everything about this movie is almost quite excellent. The artwork is authentic and beautiful, the story dramatic and meaningful, the characters effective and well cast (They used mostly Asian actors, except for Mushu, amusingly voiced by Eddie Murphy), and the music is just great.

The best scene in the whole film is where the Huns charge down the mountain and battle our heroes. The computer generated animation is absolutely great and almost reminds me of the stampede scene from THE LION KING. What I really like about the film, though, is a lot of things. The heroine is more, well, heroic than most other Disney `heroines', first of all. It's easy to understand her emotions and feelings, especially when she is upset about the disastrous meeting with the grouchy Matchmaker. So when she finally saves China from Shan-Yu and his Hun Army, it almost made me want to stand up and cheer! Second, I really LOVE the way Disney took advantage of the sound of silence throughout the film. It enhances the drama throughout the story. For example, in one scene, we hear silence as Mulan and her family are eating dinner, but then the silence is broken when Mulan says `You shouldn't have to go!' to Fa Zhou (wonderfully played by Soon-Tek Oh). Third, there is no romance in the story at all. That is a smart move on Disney's part, because in every Disney animated film (except for a few, I guess), they have just basically told the same love story over and over and over again: here they just give a little hint of it at the end. Finally, I love the way the film switches emotional gears. One moment you feel like crying for Mulan when her identity is revealed in front of Shang and exiled from the army, then the next thing you know, you will find yourself laughing hysterically at Mushu's wisecracks. This thing has worked in THE LION KING, and here Disney has made another film equivalent to that same film.

The music itself is something really worth describing here. The songs by Matthew Wilder and David Zippel aren't as memorable as those in, say, THE LION KING, but they are above average and better than the snappy, yet unmemorable gospel songs in HERCULES. Some have complained that the worst song in the film is the song over the closing credits, `True To Your Heart', saying that it is out of character and has nothing to do with the story. Okay, so maybe that song doesn't have anything to do with MULAN, but… it is both enjoyable and links well to the message of the story. You must be true to yourself. That is another thing I loved about MULAN, not to mention it's tear jerking ending. But the very best thing about the music is the underscore written by Jerry Goldsmith. After the unoriginal, recycled underscore from HERCULES, Goldsmith uses his theory and powers to create an evocative landscape of China, not to mention the exciting cue over the Hun Battle scene (WOW! What a cue!). The score is SO great, it's easy to forget that you are watching a Disney animated film. By the way, the score was nominated for an Academy Award (which was good news for Disney, since their last animated feature, HERCULES, failed to get nominated for Best Score, despite a Best Song nomination for `Go The Distance'). Too bad it lost to SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, though.

There are a few minor things I could criticize, such as ridiculously executed scenes (i.e. The Huns being buried in a snow avalanche and coming out unscathed. Since when is this realistic?) and Mushu at first seems American, but later on, as the film progresses, he becomes more connected with the story. But such criticisms seem so laughable since this is one of Disney's truly better films.

Overall, I enjoyed MULAN very much, having seen it six times in the theaters, and so did many people and critics who went to see this film. Roger Ebert called the film `an impressive achievement… ranking it up there with THE LION KING.' and USA Today was really impressed by the whole film, due to its beautiful artwork and a truely heroic main character.

But not everyone liked MULAN; Janet Maslin of The New York Times was not impressed. She condemned the film as `the most formulaic and inert of all Disney movies… raises the bar for violence of children's television.' Excuse me, Ms. Maslin, but who are you to say that this film raises the bar of violence for children's television? `The most formulaic and inert of all Disney movies'? I don't think so!

Even The Los Angeles Times had plenty of quibbles about this film, stating that, though Mulan is a good female role, the story, music, and the characters were formulaic. Geez! What was his problem?

As for box office receipts, the film did not get off the ground in China, partially because people were outraged at the way Disney changed around the character of Mulan, and of motion picture piracy that had happening in China for quite a while. Elsewhere, however, MULAN proved to be a bigger hit than THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and HERCULES (both which landed at $100 million domestically), grossing over $120 million domestically. It went on to gross $116 million in the Non-USA, totalling the film's worldwide box office gross to a stunning $237 million. And so it was that MULAN proved to be the beginning of a whole new era for the Disney studio. It remains a modern masterpiece to this day, and should be honored by generations to come.


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