What's wrong with "Mulan" with a score of 4.7?

Dovie 2022-03-23 09:01:52

The much-anticipated "Mulan" was finally released, but the result was unexpected.

First, foreign theaters changed to webcasting, and first-line big productions changed to big online movies.

Then there is the cliff of word of mouth. Foreign evaluations can be explained by differences, but the domestic score has dropped to 4.7 points, which is enough to prove how many slots the film has.

It is quite rare for Disney to devote such a great effort to such a big production in China to get such a disgraceful score.

What's wrong with "Mulan"? Get a plate today.

This article contains spoilers.

1

The most obvious, and most direct, first, the story sucks.

It stands to reason that the story is familiar to us. Hua Mulan joined the army for her father, and the other soldiers accompanied her for twelve years. She didn't know that Mulan was a girl. In the end, Hua Mulan refused to be an official and returned home.

The basic disk is put here, how to change it, there is no big problem, right?

But this "Mulan" is a Disney movie. It was placed in the Disney princess sequence, and it is not the image of Mulan in our hearts at all.

The clues and context have not changed. It is also a conscription. There is a man in each family. His father is old.

But the way the story is told is completely different.

The nomads invaded the Central Plains, the army added witches, and the witches could transform into a flock of birds, with great magical powers.

But Hua Mulan is not easy to mess with, she has something called "qi", which can be understood as internal force, or super power.

Mulan's "qi" is very strong, but because she disguised herself as a man and was not honest enough, her "qi" was suppressed. When she regained her daughter's body in public, the powerful "Qi" returned, and she fought and eliminated the villain BOSS.

Hua Mulan, who was originally a folklore, did not recover her daughter until the end. But almost halfway through the film, Hua Mulan proved herself a woman.

This is the biggest change other than the addition of fantasy elements to the movie, which directly affects the direction of the story.

It doesn't matter if the story is magically changed, the key is that the plot is flat and not nervous at all.

What's even more dramatic is that the motives of the characters who advance the plot are family glory, not to shame the family, and nondescript Western-style thinking.

This makes the movie unimpressive. Watching the actor's heartbreak, joy and sorrow, the audience's heart is not disturbed.

The story and plot are the first fault, and "Mulan" makes people feel no empathy and substitution.

2

After the story, let's talk about the actors and characters.

Disney put a lot of effort into the actors, the heroine auditioned many people, and finally chose the well-known domestic and foreign Liu Yifei.

Liu Yifei's domestic fame and audience relationship mainly come from the TV series "Dragon Babu", "The Legend of Condor Heroes", "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" and so on.

"The Legend of Sword and Fairy"

There are not many movie works, but there are quite a few bad movies, not to mention "To Youth 2" and the like. But for one thing, she has acted in "King of Kung Fu" and has Hollywood action drama experience.

"King of Kung Fu"

This time in "Mulan", her various fighting trainings are also unequivocal, there is no so-called goddess burden, she is dirty and ugly, and she works hard.

Although the male protagonist with her relationship is less well-known in China, Gong Li, Donnie Yen, and Jet Li who play together are all first-class celebrities.

There's nothing wrong with the cast, but the characters are a big problem. Character behavior, very confusing and unreasonable.

Don't talk about Donnie Yen's general and Jet Li's emperor, they are basically useless.

In order to enrich the image, the movie adds a lot of details to Mulan, which makes Mulan even more strange.

Before joining the army, Hua Mulan danced with guns and got a stick, and was urged to marry at home. The plot was designed like this, as if Hua Mulan just took the opportunity to run away from home?

The emotional drama that was added to Mulan was made up for the sake of making it up, and the emotional advancement could not stand at all.

Even the protagonist is like this, let alone the supporting characters. Gong Li's witch role is extremely powerful, and one person can beat an army to the point where she doesn't dare to fight back.

But such a fierce man was actually controlled by a khan? In the end, he sacrificed his life to save the heroine? Are you doing this because you want some recognition? Too sloppy.

The audience can't understand the realism of the characters, plus the fighting action design and the war scenes are also quite child's play, the whole movie presents an abnormal cheapness.

Characters and production, is the second fault. There is no need to ponder, "Mulan" is not even on the surface.

3

Finally, and at the deepest level, the issue, at the cultural and core level, is fundamentally divergent.

Movies are dream-making, and Disney is the master of dream-making. Offline paradise, peripherals, animation, movies, IP from Mickey Mouse to Star Wars, control half of pop culture, and cover the sky with one hand.

Disney Princess series is an inexhaustible IP library, "Sleeping Beauty", "Rapunzel", "Frozen"...

But Disney princesses are actually not completely original.

For example, "Snow White", "Aladdin", "Beauty and the Beast", etc., are all adapted from classic fairy tales, legends and fables from all over the world. "Mulan," too.

But after Disney made animated films, they packaged them as their own IP and regarded them as the standard.

This has formed a huge gap in the perception of Disney and domestic audiences.

For Mulan, we can compare images, too. From literary works (including ancient poems that have been read and recited in full text in textbooks), to movies and TV series. In our hearts, she has a preset.

2009 edition of "Mulan"

The "Mulan" in our hearts is not a beautiful dream in the distance, but a heroic story with a strong sense of reality and baptism of blood and fire.

But in Disney's eyes, this is a Disney princess film, and the general direction is to fit the animation "Mulan".

Therefore, even if there is a female director Nicky Carroll, she will spare no effort to add some female elements, female awakening, and female independence. Still not good, Mulan's image is thin.

For Disney, the emphasis is on the "princess" Mulan, and it doesn't matter whether the ancient China is credible.

The palace, the tulou, the whole point of "loyalty, bravery and filial piety", put in a pile of Chinese elements that you think are in place, feel that they are in place, and you are almost done.

Why did Disney overturn this time, and its reputation is so low?

It's not because of such strong psychological expectations in the early stage, Disney, who would have thought that it would collapse like this in the end?

As everyone knows, the code for Disney and even Hollywood as a whole to integrate into other cultures is a simple and gorgeous fool.

Those non-native stories are a combination of spectacle and stereotype, and then the core rises to the common emotion of all mankind, the old way of love, family, friendship and so on.

But for us, the story of "Mulan" is not like the magic lamp of "Aladdin". We don't know enough about the local culture, so let's just watch it.

This is our story, and seeing a little bit of inappropriateness can be on pins and needles. What's more, from the perspective of Hollywood, ancient China is full of arrogance and scrutiny, and is completely unbelievable?

Disney in "Mulan" is bold, wanting to make epic and family fun. But we can't accept it before we reach the level of the kernel, the shell.

The audience is not a fool. I really want to shoot something. Please put some thought into it and don't make a fool of yourself, okay?

The reason for watching "Mulan" now is either to satisfy curiosity, or to be a fan, just to see how beautiful Liu Yifei is on the big screen.

View more about Mulan reviews

Extended Reading
  • Andreanne 2021-11-23 08:01:14

    It is very general, but the score is low. Watching Disney is like watching a fairy tale. You can’t be too accurate in the details. If the fairy tales are more true and detailed, they are all fake, but children just believe it and like it. In the same way, if stories like Hua Mulan are really true, you say that a woman who has been disguised as a man and mixed with a group of men for a long time can not be recognized. Is it because everyone around him is blind? I think there is only one possibility. The woman is big and thick, with dark skin and ugliness. Therefore, people who can disguise themselves as men, but who are beautiful, such as Hua Mulan and Zhu Yingtai, can stop. Finally, what is cultural output, which is called cultural output, which allows other nations to take pictures of your nation’s stories. In this respect, we import all year round and export occasionally, which deserves encouragement.

  • Guadalupe 2022-03-26 09:01:05

    Just like Crazy Rich Asians, the movies made by Americans for Americans, reflecting their shallow research on Chinese culture and piled up simple and crude symbols, are just a pawn in the tide of Hollywood feminism—this is also commonplace— —What’s really surprising is that Disney put the commercial attributes so much that they didn’t even bother to create characters, and put Hua Mulan in the position of a tool man. Does Dad attach importance to the Chinese market or not? Coupled with the cut of the aria, there is no memory point. I will probably remember that there is such a version next time when the Disneyland fireworks show Mulan melody plays.

Mulan quotes

  • The Matchmaker: Quiet, composed, graceful, elegant, poised, polite. These--are the qualities we see in a good wife. These--are the qualities--we see in Mulan. When a wife serves her husband, she must be--silent. She must be... invisible.

  • Mulan: It is my duty - to fight him.