Mulan (2020)

 Score: 1.5 / 5

An ungodly waste of resources, Disney's live-action remake of Mulan may make fans of people who just want an escapist action movie. Anyone else is in for a rough ride. One could argue that its classic -- and still surprisingly unique -- narrative needs little fixing up, and that any new adaptation is welcome. That may be, and I found myself occasionally caught up in Niki Caro's new vision. But it constantly flirts with our expectations through references to the 1998 animated masterpiece, and I feel fully justified in unfavorably comparing this flick when it exists as an act of comparison.

On a positive note, this movie is beautiful to watch. The actors are uniformly talented, and Yifei Liu gracefully and absorbingly carries the film as Hua Mulan, the girl who follows an imperial conscription order in her father's place to save his life. Impersonating a man to join the army, she endures the trials of training camp, allowing the film some moments of welcome levity amidst its high stakes. Ultimately, she saves her battalion and then the emperor himself from Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee) and his Rouran invaders. All characters are dressed in gorgeous costumes that showcase the range of experiences Mulan has to go through to be recognized by men in her culture; from her colorful dress and makeup as she meets with her matchmaker to binding her chest and donning silver armor, her identity and fate are determined by how she presents herself, and this movie draws special attention to her sartorial performance.

My anger with this movie, however, is in its inability to exist apart from its own reliance on the original. While some may be grateful that this remake differs slightly from its animated source material, I'd argue it hews too closely to be imaginative while making superficial changes that challenge its own reason for being. Its filmmakers decided to do away with its musical numbers and its magical characters (such as Mushu and the family ancestors) in order to make the film more realistic and more true to the ancient Chinese legend. I'd love to see that movie. I'd also have loved to see a more or less exact remake of the earlier film. We got neither.

Inexplicably, this film does not hew close to reality, revealing the creators to be untrustworthy by their own rationale. Mulan's fighting is distinctly implausible, as she cartwheels and flips her way around before kicking spears dozens of yards away for killing shots. People catch arrows with their bare hands. A phoenix follows Mulan around and helps her occasionally. And the secondary villain is a witch named Xianniang (Gong Li) who turns into a falcon among other magic tricks. What about any of this, exactly, is realistic? Granted, Xianniang is a pretty interesting character, and her tragic parallel to Mulan's own fight against the imperial patriarchy provides some nice dramatic conflict. But frankly, even with Mushu, this picture would have been more realistic without the witch.

What else is there to say? The film's constant use of familiar music is annoying because it is never satisfying. Don't give us the "Reflection" theme and then never use it -- and no, Christina's revamped cover during the credits doesn't count. Don't give me an instrumental rehashing of "Make a Man" while you're showing me almost the exact same visuals from the animated movie. And while we're talking about unsatisfying, don't do away with Grandmother's lucky cricket and then add a new solider character named Cricket who thinks of himself as a lucky token. What is that?!

If a remake makes you want to watch the original to cleanse your palate, it was unsuccessful. Give me the feminist brilliance of the original without lying to me about your reasons for revamping it. I've liked most of Disney's live action remakes, except Cinderella, but Mulan was a sore disappointment.