Mulan (1998)
Directed by Tony Bancroft
When Imperial China calls one man from every family to defend the empire from invading Huns, a young woman disguises herself as a soldier to take her ailing father’s place. Facing ruthless invaders, brutal training, and the risk of execution if discovered, she must decide who she truly is— and what she’s willing to fight for.
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8 films that influenced Mulan
What critics say influenced Mulan
“Hunchback” was TOO serious, without enough humor to balance it; “Aladdin” and “Hercules” were very funny but with little depth; even the classic “The Little Mermaid” had little to offer in the way of serious themes or morals.
Arguably the most mature of the eight "new wave" (post- 1988, beginning with The Little Mermaid ) films, Mulan effortlessly blends serious, comic, and cute elements into a whole that should entertain the majority of movie-goers, regardless of race, gender, or age.
The last couple Disney films (although all good) have not attained the "classic" status of, say, The Lion King or The Little Mermaid.
Scarlett, as played by Oscar-winner Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, lit up the screen with her luminous features and explosive temperament; and Mulan, a young Chinese woman who lived 2,000 years ago, shared Scarletts independent nature and courage at least as depicted in Disneys fascinating and artistically animated movie of the same name.
In a scene where the Hun troops sweep down the side of a snowy mountain, I was reminded of the great battle sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's "Alexander Nevsky.''
Mulan (voiced by actress Ming-Na Wen, from "The Joy Luck Club" and TV's "The Single Guy") is a big-time tomboy who, when China is invaded by the Huns, steals her crippled father's marching orders and takes his place on the front disguised as a boy.
Mulan herself (drawn to resemble The Joy Luck Club's Ming-Na Wen, her speaking voice) is a winner, and the story is designed to appeal to both boys (lots of action) and girls (a woman in the middle of all that action, plus a little romance): few summer movies will surpass it.
(Ming-Na Wen of "The Joy Luck Club" provides the speaking voice of Mulan.)
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Ever since the financial bonanza of The Lion King, Disney has been cranking out one forgettable animated feature after another, including such pedestrian fare as Pocahontas.
And then there's the more politically correct "Pocahontas," whose heroine's search for the one true path forges a temporary peace pact between her people and British settlers.
“Hunchback” was TOO serious, without enough humor to balance it; “Aladdin” and “Hercules” were very funny but with little depth; even the classic “The Little Mermaid” had little to offer in the way of serious themes or morals.
It's clear that, in his vocal characterization of the dragon, Eddie Murphy is trying to top (or at least equal) Robin Williams' genie from Aladdin .
Murphy brings the same quality to this film that Robin Williams brought to Aladdin - a kind of manic, self-aware comic tone where the jokes whiz by at lightning pace.
Throughout the ‘90s, there wasn’t a culture Walt Disney didn’t commodify for the masses, beginning with 1992’s Aladdin and its cast of sniveling, tiger-loving Arabs (even the film’s Tiger Beat leads were bogus) and ending with 1998’s Mulan.
Mushu is an African-American take on Aladdin's Genie, The Lion King's Timon, and Hercules's Philoctetes; the one-dimensional Shan-Yu descends from Pocahontas's Governor Ratcliffe, The Lion King's Scar, and Hercules's Hades.
One, a cricket named Cri-Kee, is not around much, but the other, a midget dragon guardian named Mushu, is voiced by Eddie Murphy and positioned as precisely the same kind of crowd-pleaser Robin Williams was in "Aladdin" and James Woods in "Hercules."
Who'd have thought that Victor Hugo's sprawling epic The Hunchback of Notre Dame could be transformed into the story of a misunderstood teen, or that the Hercules legend could be purged of any reference to adultery, or that the tale of Pocahontas, involving a 27-year-old British captain and a 12-year-old Algonquin girl, could be the basis for a love story?
She’s not a generically feisty, play-by-your-own-rules, who needs men? kind of gal like, say, Belle in “Beauty and the Beast.”
Even Khan, Mulan's noble black steed, looks recycled: he's the same Uccello-inspired equine we saw in Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback (Achilles), and Hercules (Pegasus).