I for one enjoyed it. Thankfully it does deviate a bit from the original and that lends it a unique flavour of its own. The original is a childhood favourite but this one is pretty good in its own right. The visuals are pretty good, the locations are terrific! The movie had a sweet and simple message to convey, which I felt it did so nicely....

This movie, right off the bat, makes some smart creative decisions: it doesn’t try to imitate the original too much, and it’s not a musical.
They even steer away from the usual Disney formula by taking away the funny sidekick.
And while the film is technically quite impressive (cinematography and score are top notch), I found it to be ultimately unengaging.
Also, there seems to be a correlation between big, feminist action movies and poor lead performances.
I mean, just do the math: _Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel_, and now _Mulan_.

Yes, I also find it important that more of these movies get made (not corporate, tame Disney films, but female driven action movies in general), but they deserve to be a lot better than this.
Problem is, if nobody sees it, chances are execs will take the wrong lesson from it, and think people don’t want to see female/Asian representation, or feminist themes.
So, we’re kinda fucked regardless, but I still don’t find that an excuse to give a heavy push to this mediocre movie, as I see some journalists doing.

5/10

Wow, what happened here?

A Mulan remake had so much potential but it seems like they really phoned this one in. I'm totally cool with them going in a new direction compared to the first one as do the other live action remakes (except for the butchering of Mulan's backstory and turning her into a generic chosen-one), but there are many aspects that make this not a great film on its own.

Not only does the film have no personality or engaging qualities, but the directing and editing are just kind of bad. It's clear this is a high budget film based on the set pieces and costumes, but the cuts are choppy, with weird camera angle decisions and times of poor framing. The pacing is also weird- it's a two hour movie that has a long ramp up with quick climax and ending. This leaves the audience little chance to get attached to the characters. The writing and acting also leave much to be desired- often times empty, awkward, emotionless, and full of plot holes.

If this didn't have the Mulan and Disney brand behind it, it'd instantly be forgotten. This could have been so much better.

Mulan mixes the original story with Kung-Fu fantasy and it works. Definitely beats Disney just making another live action scene for scene musical remake.
Which doesn’t leave you thinking you just watched the same exact movie again. Like the Lion King.

It's not a remake of the 90's Mulan, and that's a good thing since this movie doesn't try to justify its existence unlike the other Disney live-action remakes.


[spoiler] Some of the most obvious changes are are as follows: Mulan is no longer a story about a woman who has to overcome physically stronger opponents by outsmarting them, now it's a story about women being demonised for qualities which are celebrated in men. That's certainly a big change and I assume some people are gonna hate it. [/spoiler]

Having said that, the acting isn't great, the lead actress is stiff and I'm 99.9% certain they dubbed some of the actors, which felt really weird.

Just one question: if this story has anything to do with woman empowerment, isn't it a backwards idea to make the protagonist rely on a supernatural power she has by birth instead of her hard training in the army alongside other regular men?

In this film the female empowerment was completely disregarded and replaced with a super-power.
Mulan no longer was this woman who worked hard to keep up with the men who were naturally stronger than her in the army but was given the gift of super-powers at birth. Seems like an easy way to disregard plot holes.

Instead of the opposing army being, well like an army, they ran up walls with their super-powers.

The enemy's companion was a woman who also had super-powers but she decided to help Mulan out in the end because women stick together. Nice try at feminism Disney.

They also replaced Mulan's companion with a flying phoenix that'd pop up in the sky every now and then to give Mulan some hope.

This movie felt very plastic and it was more like a super hero movie that took place in a tacky, overly-polished, Chinese, desert village.

My kid loves the animated version, I like this version, and there's nothing wrong about how we feel. Why do people always expect a true remake, a 100% scene by scene repetition, and feel uncomfortable when a known story is re-told with some interesting deviations?

The lowest of low. The editing is nauseating, the acting is atrociously bad, the stark contrast between reshoots and original photography are obvious, and the story is as devoid as life as you can ruin a such rich legend. How anyone can defend such an embarrassment from the studio has to stem from some blind brand loyalty. There is nothing passionate behind the lens, nothing resonating off the screen, it's a once interesting dramatic take on the story raped in to a 300 million disaster dumped on to Disney+.

They don’t sing, Ming-Na only has 5 seconds of screen-time, Mulan doesn’t look like a boy at all, somehow they made great supporting characters that already existed boring and forgettable, now there’s the Force and midichlorians so there’s not even a message that girls/women can also be warriors since apparently the only reason she is is because of her powers. And to show she is "true" she detaches her hair which would block her vision and removes her armor which just exposes her to anyone and anything, awesome, girls/women, if you want to be true, just be.. vulnerable I guess ? Also horses can surf on avalanches. Thanks Disney.

Is it a bad movie? No, its alright.
The acting is really bad though and this is not THE Mulan... It's A Mulan!
Some people are fine with a new direction, but I'm not.
I want the original songs, I want Mushu, I want Mulan her old personality...
I was looking forward to MULAN, not this :/