Mulan Live Action – Review 2010
The story of Hua Mulan has been revisited on many occasions over the last 100 years or so. From its humble beginnings as a poem in ‘The Ballad of Mulan’, then later the Shaw Brothers musical ‘Lady General Hua Mulan’ to perhaps the most famous recreation of the story for western audiences in Disney’s animated movie ‘Mulan’ and ‘Mulan II’.
For those unfamiliar; Mulan tells the story of a young girl trained in martial arts who in order to protect her frail father from war duties, enlists to join the army in his place posed as a man. Through her years in the army she quickly ascends to the position of general and helps protect the kingdom from the advancing barbarians.
This latest re-telling of Mulan, very much follows the original stories.
China 450AD and the Kingdom is under constant threats from the ruthless Rouran tribes of the north. With resources at a low the empire calls on all able bodied soldiers to stand up and fight against the Rouran.
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Very soon the army comes to Mulans home village enlisting the help of Hau Hu (Rongguang Yu) – Mulan’s father and also Tiger (played by Jaycee Chan).
Knowing that her father is in no state to go to war, Mulan (played by Vicki Wei Zhao) quickly takes the horse (Black Wind) and her father’s military equipment and rushes off to enlist.
Luckily whilst enlisting , Mulan bumps into Tiger who agrees to protect her identity throughout and help teach her how to act more like a man (Here Tiger is very much taking up the role as guardian as voiced by Eddie Murphy-Mushu in the Disney animated adventure). Now rather than this movie being about how a female officer can stand toe to toe with male peers and raise above, this movie takes a slightly different direction, instead focusing on the poorly underdeveloped love story between Mulan and Vice Commander Wentai (played by Chen Kun).
The story of Mulan whilst unbelievable was somehow made believable in the Disney movie, yet sadly very little attempt of believability is made for this live action movie. In the space of around 20 minutes we are led to believe that Mulan was able to escape her father, enlist in the army, excel at training and win the respect of Wentai. The sequence of events is so rushed and badly framed that it truly damages the rest of the film.
The film features many battle scenes but given that we had already been treated to the excellent Red Cliff and Warlords; the battle scenes in Mulan seem repetitive at best.
The films one saving grace however is Jun Hu as Commander Modu of the Rouran Nation (who was fantastic in Red Cliff by the way).
Jun Hu comes across as one ‘mean ass mofo’ in this movie. Very little stands in his way and even his own soldiers are often up for the chop when they attempt to retreat against Wentai and Mulans attempt to take back the land the Rouran had stolen from them.
When Jun Hu is on screen the movie as a more refined tone to it, the highlight being Modus delightful last conversation with his commander and father, each line delivered with painful realism which you really can feel. Sadly thought, Jun Hu does not get nearly enough screen time.
Much of the movie is spent rushing between the developing ‘relationship’ of Wentai and Mulan and the countless ‘generic’ battle scenes.
There really is nothing unique or particularly enjoyable about the battle scenes in Mulan, which is really a shame as at times you can tell that a lot of money and effort went into many of the expanded battle scenes as well as the excellent costumes.
Jaycee Chan provides many of the films (out of place) comedic moments and here is where he his most comfortable, but when the fighting starts(as you would expect) Jaycee sadly disappoints and as with Wei Zhao(Mulan) even the sped up action scenes and clever camera angles does nothing improve matters.
As touched upon early, I think Mulan was released at the wrong time. We have seen so many great Asian movies in the last few years based on the great battles for the kingdom as well as many ‘not so great’ movies which still featured fantastic fight scenes. Sadly Mulan falls into neither category of film.
The fight scenes are not great, the story is in an expectant manner ‘unbelievable’ and the true stand outs in the movie get very little screen time.
Despite this I’m still a fan of Vicki Wei Zhao and she does do a fantastic job as Mulan bar the action scenes.
Given the acting quality of the two leads (Wei Zhao and Chen Kun) and the Directors (Jingle Ma) eye for making good romantic movies, I feel as though the Mulan story would have been better served this time round as a full on love story rather than the short changed love-action hybrid we are left with.
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