Well, I'm not saying anything bad about this because it's the live-action version of the animated Mulan and a lot of people grew up watching it, actually, so when Disney announced that they were bringing her story back in live-action, I believe everyone had one eye lifted to see what they were going to do.
See, that's what's the bad thing about remakes, people always come with their guard up, I was like, ‘are they going to let me down, and will they do it like some of these live-action remakes, like? But to be honest, Mulan surprised me and I feel like if you haven't seen it yet, then you're the one that's missing out at this point.
If for some reason you don't know the story, it's about Hua Mulan, a young woman in ancient China, who's father is called to join the Emperor's army in an invasion, but he's getting old and he's ill, then Mulan decides to take his place in the army and sneaks off at night, dressed up as a man, to replace her father.
This is where the film becomes really interesting, because Mulan is not only in a war against outside invaders, she's in a war to keep her secret near her chest when all the men around her would consider her a disgrace, or worse, if they knew. All of these training scenes, all of these moments in which she is proving herself, have this double power. She's not only a good soldier, but a soldier that's trying to survive being discovered.
I found the aspect of the film that didn't rush her transformation most pleasing. You see her struggle at first, truly struggle, and you see her fail to keep up, that you laugh at her, and that you think she's the weakest of the bunch. Slowly, she begins to follow her instincts, instead of mimicking the men around her. The moment she decides to stop holding herself back, and start fighting the way she would in real life, is one of the movie's strong points, both emotionally and visually.
Then of course, there's the war. This witch girl Xianniang, who fights in the invasion with Böri Khan, is just the most intriguing aspect of the whole story to me. She's strong, intimidating, banished by her own people for being nonconforming and she finds a reflection of her in Mulan, a woman with power who has to learn to either suppress or hide it to be accepted. If I am being honest, it is their moments in the same scenes that have more emotional impact than many of the battle scenes.
Mulan's identity is eventually revealed, and this is not a shield that will guard her from the consequences, but rather that it will bring her face to face with actual rejection from the very men who she fought with. I think that section was very different for me because it's so realistic of what happens when people discover the person they were feeding lies to them in order to survive in a space that wasn't designed for them. But it is not breaking her that brings her back, it is what makes her to go back, whole, unafraid, unashamed, and in her own person, to save the very army that pushed her out.
The final battle, where she rides in wearing her own clothes, hair loose, no more hiding, that's the moment the whole film has been building toward. It's not just about winning a war anymore, it's about being seen and accepted exactly as she is, And when the Emperor himself acknowledges her, bowing to her, that scene carries a kind of quiet power that doesn't need a song or a dramatic score to land.
At the end, Mulan returns home not as a woman who sacri
ficed her family honor, but as a woman who dismantled the concept of honor itself, she's a symbol, not because she turned into a different kind of person, but because she just stopped being a fake.
If you were one of the few that slept on this because you thought it couldn't beat the original, I think you should give it a chance, lots of nice stuff about it, another Mulan, but definitely her story still.
Rating: 90/100
