![]() In the film, Hua Zhou, Mulan’s father, speaks about qi, and how Mulan has “strong qi.” This aspect of Mulan, her “strong qi,” is one of the driving plot points of her character in the film. The second most obvious error has to do with less of the story and more with the cultural authenticity of the movie. Instead of empowering femininity, the 2020 Mulan tells girls that in order to be valued you have to be as strong as a man. She becomes the hyper-masculine ideal that the original ballad was trying to fight against. She starts the film off as a strong warrior, and throughout the film outperforms her male comrades by just being faster, better and stronger. This version of Mulan rejects femininity almost completely. On the opposing side of this lesson sits the 2020 version of Mulan. But in times of danger when they are running side by side, who can tell which is female and which is male?” These lines summarize the theme of the ballad quite well: At first glance men and women might seem different, but despite these differences, both genders are competent and valid. The last lines of the poem form a metaphor that Mulan tells her visiting comrades: “The male hare’s feet are swift, and the female hare often has closed eyes. Her comrades in the army don’t even know she is female until the fighting is all over it is only at the end of the poem when they visit her at home that they realise she was a girl all along. She is a normal girl of the times, not a hyper-talented martial artist. This is the polar opposite of the original tale! In the Ballad of Mulan, the poem starts when she is sitting at her loom, weaving. She is talented in martial arts and has prodigious talent in wielding qi. From the beginning, she is different from other girls her age. The most obvious and most glaring error is how Disney handled Mulan’s story. Throughout its runtime, there are countless errors in regards to Chinese culture and the original story of the ballad. ![]() What we got instead was a film that completely misses the mark culturally, historically and thematically. As someone who is an enthusiast of wuxia style media, I was ecstatic. ![]() What the studio seemed to have in store was a wuxia -style martial arts film that was historically accurate and more serious in tone. Disney had promised a culturally accurate portrayal of the ballad, starting with axing Mushu, the comedic talking dragon, and removing the Western style musical numbers. Most Chinese people, myself included, had high hopes for this new film. It was this that gave the film its charm and appeal to both Western and Eastern audiences, and Disney’s 2020 Mulan hoped to fill those shoes even better than before. The 1998 version of Mulan captured the main themes of the original ballad: both men and women can have different but equal talents. The original 1998 Mulan was by no means a completely historically or culturally accurate portrayal of the ballad, but as an adaptation it was done well. This is the version that most people in the world, even in China, knew and loved as kids. One of the more recent ones was Disney’s 2020 adaptation of The Ballad of Mulan, a tale that Disney first adapted in 1998 in the form of an animated movie. Whether it be hyper-realistic CGI lions or live action adaptations of virtually every fairytale under the sun, Disney has embarked on several massive cinematic ventures. Everyone knows Disney Studios is on a quest to re-realize their classic movies for a younger generation.
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