I watched Mulan so you don’t have to.

Here’s my take on it from the perspective of both a filmmaker and an asian woman:
(P.S. it’s bad... for so many reasons...)

Quick disclaimers:
1.) I’m not Chinese. I am Filipino. The only Chinese culture I know is a small amount from my grandma (mixed Chinese/Filipino). Different Asians are NOT interchangeable. I can only speak on general asian representation problems that consistently happen to us.

2.) I originally did not plan to support this movie for multiple reasons. I watched it because my parents had already paid for it, being excited to see an american film centered around asians, without understanding the truth of it being carried out by white people.

Alright, now starting the thread. There’s SO many comments I have:
-pretty much all the locations (especially Mulan’s hometown) LOOK LIKE FILM SETS. It’s obvious and looks like a westernized version of China. It looks like how white people perceive China instead of actual China

-many scenes are green screened and while it’s understanding for places such as the emperor’s palace to be animated, they even green-screened scenes that happen in open nature instead of studying the landscapes in China and location scouting.

-this may just be a preference thing, but so many of the shots felt so awkward to watch and forced/out of place?? There’s one scene of setting up a table of makeup that feels like a kitschy YouTube channel intro. Many scenes just awkwardly zoom in fast to face back and forth.

-it fails to bring the viewer into Mulan’s world. There’s no shots dedicated to showing the beautiful landscape scenery of China (prob since everything was greenscreened). Every shot’s just ‘face zoom in’, ‘hand close up’, ‘maybe full body shot’, ‘back to face zoom in but FASTER’

-all the iconic scenes that bring the characters/story to life were scrapped. Scenes removed that heavily negatively impacted it include Mulan cutting her hair off with the sword (or even at all, she keeps long hair), picking up the doll from the ruined village to show how evil

the villains truly are, the giant fight at the end, and Mulan bonding with her father by the water at the end where she give him the sword and emperor’s crest. There’s probably more scenes. These are just off the top of my head.

-many characters were removed and replaced. I had high hopes. Their replacements sucked. Mushu’s and Crikee’s absence had a bigger impact than expected. Mulan felt more disconnected from her universe the whole time and lacked any bonds the viewer could feel for. The lack of

an animal companion (or any type of companion) only added to this feeling of disconnection. They were replaced with a random Phoenix spirit that just suddenly flies over Mulan every time she’s about to fight someone and she gets suddenly stronger by seeing it. That’s it.

The grandma was also replaced by Mulan’s sister character who did nothing for the story. At least the grandma was funny and entertaining and brought life into her hometown and character.

-every fight scene doesn’t look good. It constantly slow-mos every time a sword swings or someone jumps. It’s excessive. Fights are shown through far away, long held shots, making it feel less intense. Half the time they just twirl swords instead of try to hit each other.

-I didn’t mind the original songs being gone at first, but the score wasn’t good. It made me wish for the og soundtrack back. The orchestral version of Reflection was the only good score. All the other scores felt generic, not unique to the movie, and didn’t help enhance the mood

-none of the characters felt like they had any personality. Outside of one funny line the singular token funny guy got, there was no personality. I didn’t feel for any character.

-I HATE THE NARRATION WITH A PASSION. At the beginning and end of the movie, there’s a narrator that just compares Mulan to bamboo... it’s so fake deep. He fr said “she was once a small shoot and has grown into full bamboo” wow. Thanks. Comparing a strong Chinese girl to BAMBOO.

-the way they gave her perfectly curled hair for going into battle right after deciding to reveal she’s a girl. That whole chunk was just a mess. She sees a Phoenix spirit and goes “oh time to reveal myself now” out of nowhere, MID BATTLE.

-the final fight scene is underwhelming. It’s just Mulan and the villain fighting but half the time they just stare while the camera zooms in on their faces over and over again. And it happens in broad daylight on a construction sight.

Overall, the entire movie is a mess. I went in with an open mind because I look up to Mulan so much, as she was one of the only asian women role models I had growing up. I was disappointed. There’s so much more I could rant about, but this thread is already too long.