Why is Disney making all of these live action remake of the company’s classic animated movies? Well, they seem to sell tickets, and they can be produced a lot more quickly than the animated versions from the looks of things. The results thus far is the majority of them tend to be at best “meh” and even then, many of them if they aren’t outright pointless, they came from Tim Burton and that man hasn’t been producing too many movies worth seeing in quite some time. As such, I had no intentions whatsoever in paying $30 to see a live action Mulan, a movie I would probably only watch once anyway, on Disney+ when I could just wait a few months and see it anyway.
That’s what I did. And, quite frankly, I think I made the right call.
The movie does more or less follow the same plot as the animated original, based as it is on Chinese folklore. Young girl Mulan (thirtysomething Yifei Liu) isn’t really all that girly, a problem in a traditional Chinese village where her only real value is as a potential wife to a good husband, decides to take her father’s place when a conscription act needs one man from every family to come serve the Emperor in the face of an invasion. Mulan’s father (Tzi Ma) can barely walk and would obviously not survive the war. Mulan, however, has some skills that soon allow her to stand out with the other recruits as she poses for a man. She proves herself on the battlefield, her true gender is revealed, she’s initially sent away, but she comes back and leads the soldiers she’s gotten to know, including a love interest, to victory and gains great honors for herself and her family. She has a trip to the matchmaker, a potentially embarrassing moment while bathing, and there’s an avalanche.
Now, to Disney’s credit, this one is not nearly as slavish a remake. The movie removed the songs (well, the songs may get a reference in the dialogue but there’s no singing), there’s no Mushu or other anthropomorphized animals, and a few other of the more openly comedic elements was removed for what was, sadly, more of a standard action movie. Animated Mulan saved the day by being clever and quick on her feet. Live action Mulan can harness chi, an energy field generated by all living things that allows some people to do impressive, magical feats.
I’d say, given the description, the movie ripped off George Lucas right down to the wording of what chi is, but let’s face it: it’s more like Lucas stole the idea of the Force from various Asian philosophies.
Now, that doesn’t mean the movie can’t still be good. Sure, Mulan isn’t as clever, and that’s something of a shame, but the movie did use an all-Asian cast, three of the four listed writers are women as is the director, and the cast includes the likes of Jason Scott Lee, Gong Li, Jet Li, and Donnie Yen, and Yen, as Mulan’s commanding officer, even gets a little impressive sword work in on during a training scene.
But then movie just feels so lifeless. As impressive as the fight scenes often are, I think the older version where Mulan causes an avalanche by using the last rocket works a lot better than the method she uses here. Once again, Disney remake a movie that didn’t need a remake. The original may not have been my favorite of the various Disney animated movies, but it didn’t really need a remake, and this one hardly justified its existence.
Grade: C+
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