2020 has been an awful year as we have gone from social distancing ourselves from a deadly disease to fighting each other with guns and knives. The only bright side so far of 2020 is a viral video of a man skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac while drinking cranberry juice, 2020 in a nutshell am I right? But for me the one thing that made 2020 bad, other than everything from coronavirus to police brutality, is this year in film. 2020 has been a shitty year for films. Now I’m not saying all the films this year were bad as there were some great films. Pixar’s Onward, Universal’s The Invisible Man, The King of Staten Island, SONIC THE HEDHOG have all been some pretty great films. But then we have a disappointing Scooby Doo film, a very shitty Dolittle film and a boring Al Capone biopic. But by far the worse film of 2020 so far has been Disney’s Artemis Fowl. Okay that is a lie because one I didn’t even watch that film and two I knew that film was going to be terrible since 2019 when the trailer for the film came out. I’m talking about another Disney film that had all the hype. I’m talking about a live action film to an original animated masterpiece. I’m talking about Mulan and boy did it suck. Like I have watched a lot of bad films in my life and all I can say is at least they tried to be good. What the fuck was Mulan’s excuse. So let’s buckle up for this piece of shit and review this sorry excuse of a Disney film.
*SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD*
Okay so Mulan was directed by Niki Caro who directed The Zookeeper’s Wife and McFarland USA, both mediocre films that were nominated for some awards during awards seasons because why not. The film stars Yifei Liu (Mulan), Donnie Yen (Comander Thug), Jason Scott Lee (Bori Khan), Yoson An (Chen Honghui), Gong Li (Xianniang), Tzi Ma (Hua Zhou) and Jet Li (The Emperor). Now I don’t know much of these actors other than Donnie Yen, Jason Scott Lee and Jet Li but I trusted Disney for using lesser known actors to tell the story of Mulan and well I was wrong to trust Disney. So to get this out of the way as it will be brought up a little bit later but Disney took out a lot from the original animation so it could be more serious and less of a musical. By doing this not only are actually trying to make a live action remake but you are taking a risk by pretty much making this a more serious film but add in the fact that it’s a young girl who is trying to save her father’s life by taking his place in a war where she must prove that not only can she put honor onto her family’s name but do all of this without anyone knowing that she is a girl. Now on paper this sounds like the same film but without all the musical acts and Eddie Murphy but add in the new things like a witch who can transform into a hawk or more visuals and fighting scenes and we got ourselves a remake. Well not exactly. You see the film is still the same story just without all the fun stuff that made the animation film as successful and loved as it was. For this film all they really did was replace the fun stuff with rip offs. First off I want to talk about the villains. The original animation film we had Shan Yu, a badass leader of the Huns who is trying to take over China. He is now instead replaced by his wannabe leader of the Rouran warriors Bori Khan. Now he could have been a big part of this movie had he been the main villain, but instead we have our real main villain Xianniang, a witch with shapeshifting abilities, or ability to become a hawk or any kind of bird, and is an ally to Bori Khan. Now on paper having a female villain in the film is pretty different but its how they included her into the film’s plot is pretty interesting but also disappointing but more on that later. Another thing that was replaced was Mushu, sort of. So they took Mushu out of the movie entirely as this wasn’t a comedy animated musical film, it was a serious Disney action film. So instead of Mushu helping Mulan out in the war we instead get a red phoenix that flies over Mulan when something inspiring is about to happen to her or when something badass is about to happen. Really, like really Disney? I can understand taking out Mushu to be more serious but I mean come on like we the viewers of the film know that is legit 99 Cent store Mushu but as a phoenix.
Other than that they replaced Shang with some jock wannabe, Yao, Ling and Po are replaced with boring supporting characters with the same name that are there for comedic reasons, even though the film is trying to be serious, there is no musical scenes or songs so they replace the songs with dialogue of a certain song or a musical score of the song and they replaced the cricket for an actually character named cricket. Again I thought this film was supposed to be a remake not a rip off version of Mulan but under the Disney brand.
Now while all of those things kind of pissed me off I let it go because I was like okay it is trying to be different and more serious and maybe we can get ourselves a decent film. Not even five minutes in I wanted to blow my brains out. So Mulan as a child has powers?!?!?! Okay let me explain. She has these kung fu abilities where she can do badass shit at a young age and her family wants her to hide this ability so she can be normal and match with a man in the future. Forget the whole parent’s trying to change their child and not be themselves for a moment but why the fuck is Mulan already given badass kung fu abilities. Like again not to compare both films but in the original animated film Mulan works her way into getting stronger and better to prove that she can do what the men can do and in the end she defeats Shan Yu and proves that a woman can be a warrior. In this she fucking already has those abilities but still needs to prove that women can do what men do but her parents are like nah stop you’re flippy dip shit and go be a normal girl. Like Disney already ruined the story of Mulan by having these abilities already in the beginning of the film. How will she prove to herself that she can do more than the men and how can she prove that she can take out an army of Huns and how is she going to prove to everyone in China, including The Emperor, that a woman can do anything a man can do in battle or in war or anything for that matter if she already has abilities in the first 5 minutes of the film. Like even without comparing both films, the idea itself doesn’t work as once again it just shows that her parents are trying to protect her but at the same time trying to make her something she is not and once she goes into war she already has these abilities so what is the point of her even trying to prove something to not only herself but to everyone in CHINA!!!! Like I was frustrated with this decision as I can’t find an argument online that says this was a great idea and if someone on the street one day tells me a good reason why it was then I will change my mind completely. Anyway from there we have the same story as the original just with the added Mulan can flip on roofs and do kung fu. She gets herself ready for the matchmaker, she fails but with something new added, a spider ruins her chances of being matched instead of a cricket, pretty awesome and new right Disney. Anyway soldiers come to draft one man from every family to fight in the war; Mulan’s father has to go into war and yeah pretty much the same shit except less emotional and blander.
Okay so instead of having a 20 page paper on explaining the whole film I’m going to talk about the main scenes of the film. So we know that Mulan takes her father’s armor and sword and leaves her family without them knowing until they wake up and see her run off. They literally did that same scene except they show her first with the armor on and it cuts to the family waking up the next day knowing she is gone. Like I’m still trying to figure out where the originality is in the film but then again where is the originality in all the Disney live action films. Once at the training camp site she learns how to be a soldier while she is disguised as a boy, even though she already has these abilities and can fight already. I can’t even talk about how the characters in the training camp site or even the site itself are so boring to look at and so bland and dull because they do it themselves so I guess that part is taken care of. Let’s move on to the scene where they go into war because Khan’s army continues to advance. You know the Girl Worth Fighting For scene where everything is a happy musical scene and then it pauses and becomes a quiet sad emotional scene of the wreckage of the Hun army onto the men of the Imperial army and all we see are the dead soldiers and the helmet of Shang’s father…yeah well that scene is technically in this film except there is no musical scene and it just goes directly into the wreckage and for only one minute and then we move along. That scene in the original Mulan showed the true emotions and had great story telling and this version of the scene really is just there because it was in the original film. Like I can’t be totally upset with this but at the same time I am because they made this emotional scene seem so uninteresting and unoriginal as they could have done something new or something more horrifying to show that there was a huge wreckage and many men died. Like do something interesting and not make the moment seem so quick. Have the characters mourn and not talk about the wreckage but instead have the silence, imagery, cinematography and musical score tell the story. Like out of everything in the film at that point this moment right here, this scene in general, should have been the only thing you don’t fuck up because even if it’s like the original scene this actually felt real even if it’s just a movie. Like watching the animation version I feel like I was in that battle and I can feel the pain from the characters, but in this live action version I feel nothing and just see death that has no meaning other than soldiers died let’s move on nothing to see here.
I honestly want to move on to when Mulan is face to face with our main antagonist because there dynamic is probably the most different thing of the film from the original. Xianniang mocks Mulan for pretending to be a man as she believes that she will never be accepted as a solider because she is a woman and from there Mulan decides to remove her male disguise and go back into the battle as herself showing off her archery skills and she triggers an avalanche that buries Khan’s army. So already that itself is actually something different minus the avalanche part but there is something different and new. Now the execution on film wasn’t done great but I respect the fact that the main villain, who is a woman, knows of Mulan’s true identity and she tells her that she will never be accepted in the battle because of her gender. Now as a whole I kind of liked this part of the film’s story because it is different and Mulan was able to show that she doesn’t need to be a different person to fight in this battle, so she let’s go of her fake self and returns to battle as herself and shows how badass she can be. But on the other hand as much as I kind of like this moment in the film let’s not forget that it’s still the same story and we were going to find out about the true gender of Mulan regardless but I like that it was done differently. Anyway soon after Mulan is thrown out of the army because she is a woman. As she is returning home she is confronted by Xianniang and we learn her story of how she was shunned by her people and that Khan treats her as an equal even though in the film we learn that she works for him…so how is that being treated like an equal working out??? Let’s fast forward a bit so Mulan returns to the soldiers and they continue the battle with Khan’s army. Khan tries to kill The Emperor but Mulan stops him and he shoots an arrow at her but, SPOILER ALERT IN CASE YOU CARE FOR THE FILM, before it hits her Xianniang shapeshifts into a bird and takes the arrow for Mulan as she felt sympathy for Mulan still fighting alongside the men even after they threw her out of the army. Mulan kills Khan, her army wins and she is given a job as personal guard, she declines and returns home to her loving family who now accept her for who she is.
So after pretty much telling the whole film in one review that is 2020’s Mulan and as you can see I wasn’t kidding from earlier when I said Disney literally took everything from the original animation and either replaced stuff with stupid things or took stuff out just because it wanted the film to be more serious. But the biggest problems I had with this film came with the unoriginality. The acting itself was bland as even the more experienced and highly profiled actors like Donnie Yen and Jet Li couldn’t save this movie. But it’s not just the acting as the emotions in the characters faces when it comes to certain emotional moments like the wreckage of the fallen soldiers or Mulan when she finally does show her true identity, these moments are supposed to make not just the viewers at home feel something but the characters themselves. Like once again when I watched the original film with the wreckage of the fallen soldiers scene after Girl Worth Fighting For musical scene I felt the pain and sadness from the characters, I felt the heartbreak from Shang and I could feel the emotions from each character on the screen, this film I felt a yawn and saw nothing come from both myself and the characters. Now the film did have some good establishing shots but it honestly doesn’t help the fact that they are then ruined by terrible editing and one of the worse CGI I have ever seen in a film. Now if I am not mistaken this film had an extra six months to fix the CGI or some scenes, clean some stuff up so it could be a better film and honestly those 6 months of the film not being seen in theaters could and should have been used properly to fix this damn movie because it has many flaws and they are not hard to find. From beginning to end you can see the amount of terrible editing choices this production team made and you can see the terrible CGI when it came to fight scenes or just scenes when Mulan is using her “skills and abilities”. Plus don’t get me started on the fact that Disney thought I was going to pay 30 bucks for this piece of shit live action remake that makes Lion King look like a Best Picture nominee. If you paid 30 dollars to see this piece of shit I feel sorry for you because you wasted your money on something that could have been free on Disney Channel. Hell I wouldn’t even pay a standard ticket price for this movie because that’s $17.50 wasted that I could of used on some better piece of shit film or at least a decent independent film from A24.
Like this film is literally the same movie as the original animated Mulan and you know what so are all the other Disney live action remakes because let’s face it when Disney says live action remake of their classic animated film it’s just there animated film remade into live action and they’re going to make tiny differences in the film. Here are some examples as for Lion King it’s the same movie but with new jokes from Timon and Pumba, a half ass scene for Be Prepared and emotionless lions. For Beauty and the Beast Lefou is a homosexual and Beast has his own musical number. For Aladdin Jasmine is more independent and we have a Robinless Genie with the Will Smith charm. But here is the thing though I like those live action Disney films because they kept the Disney magic and charm that they were known for. Sure they weren’t remakes and just a copy and paste cash grab film but they still were enjoyable and had some soul. Mulan however took out that charm and was the same film just without everything fun. Instead they could have remade the entire film but kept the film’s story of Mulan and instead of using the same story of the animation they literally change it up, have the girl power moment between the villain and Mulan and still have a decent Disney film that is literally a “remake”. But instead it followed the same pattern and made the same film with less emotion and no charm and destroyed the reputation of Disney’s original Mulan. Like I felt hurt from this film, not because it was bad but because it could have been something good. But then again I knew from the first trailer that it wasn’t going to be good, that it was going to be bad and it doesn’t help that it was trying to remake a movie that we have seen already and I feel like a broken record at this point comparing the two but let’s be honest even if I didn’t and the original Mulan never existed, this film still would suck for everything I have said before this sentence. Like I looked online and at this moment Rotten Tomatoes has a 74% rating for this movie and let’s hear what professional critics not like myself said.
Empire’s Beth Webb said “Niki Caro’s boldly re-imagined, battle-laden saga belies its Disney status and spotlights the multifaceted star power of Liu Yifei. The result is a live-action remake done right”. Christy Lemire on RogerEbert.com said “Its origins dates back centuries, and its animated predecessor is beloved within the 90’s Disney canon, but the latest version of Mulan couldn’t be more relevant, vital and alive”. Finally we have Ty Burr from the Boston Globe who said “In the end, Mulan 2020 stands out as an inspired oddity: A re-envisioned remake that improves on the original even as it owes everything to movies that have come before”. There are many more positive reviews but all I need to say is WHAT THE FUCK WERE THESE PEOPLE WATCHING!!!! Did I watch a different live action remake or something because this movie sucks and it is boring and it defiantly is not anywhere as better as the original animated film. And this is coming from an inexperienced regular person like myself who is making his first credible review online. This movie literally tarnished the magic that Disney has because when it comes to animation Disney is the gods, but when it comes to live action you either get a successful blockbuster hit or a shitty live action remake of bland actors trying to re-imagine the story of Mulan and add nothing new into the story except boredom and disappointment. Honestly Disney, Dishonor on your company, Dishonor on your production team, Dishonor on your cow. I have never seen a live action remake from Disney as bad as this one and this is coming from the guy who likes the live action Lion King remake, even though it was copy and paste and added nothing new really except some lines and maybe a few scenes. 2020’s Mulan is not only the worst Disney live action remake of all time, but it is the worst film of 2020. Like I didn’t even talk about the problems the film faced behind the scenes with the Chinese government and with China itself after the main star of the film supported the police brutality in China, but I don’t need to because the film tarnished itself enough. 2020 might really suck but trust me I rather watch a movie about the year 2020 before I watch this attempt of a film ever again.
Honestly here my final thing I’m going to say about this film. While it may have had a serious tone, in the end it was dull and boring mixed with uninteresting characters and fight scenes that were disappointing with the terrible editing and CGI used for this film. The main star of the film is just plain soulless in the film and the villains of the film are one dimensional and bring nothing new into the table. This also was no remake and more of an updated version of an already well developed film but just adds and subtracts the main reason why the original film was good. I feel like if they actually went all out and made this a serious film with the characters speaking Chinese and we had an actual action Disney flick of Mulan then maybe this film would had been good. Instead we are left with this pile of garbage that rotted onto Disney+ and almost into theaters worldwide. There really isn’t anything good about this film and if I could be really honest for a moment I feel like this film as a whole is a disgrace to Chinese culture and China itself. Good job Disney on destroying a legacy of a great animated film with this horrible attempt of a live action remake.
Final Review: 0.5/5 Stars, 9% out of 100.
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