When the Emperor of China issues a decree that one man per family must serve in the Imperial Chinese Army to defend the country from Huns, Hua Mulan, the eldest daughter of an honored warrior, step...
Another in the long list of beloved animated Disney flicks eventually adjusted to unwanted live action flicks, I was going in hoping for “Mulan (2020)” to be the biggest surprise out of all of them because seriously, how aggressively long will it take for Disney to get to a point of actually giving a shit? But I digress, for the culmination of results this live action remake garners is actually one of both attainment and disappointment. Six plus years of mediocre to crappy live action remakes and Disney still doesn’t seem to be able to check all the boxes for creating a wholesome remake despite trying to put their best foot forward and somewhat succeeding here.
While it is beautifully shot and directed most of the time, some shots feel a little too tight while the editing was completely overdone ever chance it gets, giving the film a framerate and unneeded glossy texture that makes it feel less authentic and highly frenetic. Liu Yifei handles both seriousness and jest well enough but she only gets very few chances to show off all while the rest of the cast are only around long enough to provide brief pops of color, not much time was put into developing the characters or the villains for that matter, action sequences can be entertaining thanks to the choreography but nothing really eye-popping about them comes to mind, the costume design is bright, dramatic and historically accurate most of the time, both the music and visuals are vibrant and , its messages of female empowerment, bravery, identity and devotion to family isn’t anything new in the writing department and it is particularly moving given the changing, uncertain world we live in now but the repetitive amount of times it is glossed over taints the manner of importance it’s supposed to give off and the actual nuts and bolts within the plot itself, while following the same narrative structure as its ‘98 predecessor, loses it’s forward momentum very early on and just slugs the rest of the way through......
I think that’s my main concern with this film: it sets the bar way higher over Artemis Fowl and The Lion King as far as I’m concerned but the film doesn’t quite know if it is a historical epic or something more magical and it struggles to find a tone and balance that allows it to be both. And even then, the atmosphere and charm that embodies the original that the remake itself is basing itself off of is almost nigh-nonexistent to the point where I can see a bunch of people getting alienated following the direction they take Mulan’s arc.....or the lack thereof.
On one hand, I can applaud Disney and the rest of the cast and crew for taking liberties with the source material and updating the best way they knew how but their means of doing so was via subtraction: zest, atmosphere, appeal, most of that feels lesser here. On the other hand, as much as I want to say ‘Pack up, go home, you’re through’, the sheer fact that it doesn’t piggyback off the original and tries to adapt a more appropriate adaptation for the story and ballad it’s based off of gives off the impression that they did, in a way, try. But then again, try isn’t enough.
