Disney + Review: MULAN (2020) - Not quite a nice debut

Spoilers ahead

I'm not going to lie, I was eager to see this film with my sister, because the legend and the comedic element behind the first film made us fans of this unique kind of Disney 'Princess', which is really not the ideal Princess, according to Disney's heteropatriarchal tradition of storytelling.

The new movie is a desperate attempt to fit into the nowadays boiled reality of empowerment.

However, it is narrowed by the need to please its new audiences, influenced by this same thing, by the fact of living in times where Feminist debate and ethics are widely taken into account, in its own right, which is not a bad thing; the downside of it, is when it takes control of a movie's possibilities and true spirit, and art in general. And in that prospect, the film just ends up being another flat, politically correct money-making machine.

There was a lot of hype for this movie, and what ended up being?

We meet a brief glimpse of Mulan when she is a little girl, she already knows martial arts and has enigmatic powers by the grace of her Chi, her spiritual energy. It makes her provoque chaos and carry disgrace in the eyes of the community.
When taking her father's place after the Imperial Army announcement, we see the effect in her decision not quite well, neither in her father's.

When she goes to war, she hides the fact that she already knows self-defense in the training field, and we never wonder how. We don't see Mulan evolving physically and mentally with the other characters throughout this act, she's already superhuman, the only thing in what she evolves is when she has to embrace and reveal the fact she's a girl in a man's world, a very strong one, and thus, inherently misunderstood and offensive to the Army.

Almost every scene in this movie seems to be incomplete regarding their situational dialogue, it had four screenwriters, none of them seem to develop a better understanding in Chinese conceptions and values through their characters, everything they say is reiterative: the dishonor situation, the women-just-be-matched because of situation, the unacceptance approach, all of them are not really and fully encompassed.

A new female character is introduced in the film: Xianniang, a witch who can morph into other people's shape and into a bird, and helps the enemy invaders of this film: the Rourans. We discover she's not bad at her core, we know it once she battles Mulan, and notices her true identity oppression. We discover she actually hates her commander wishes: Bori Khan, but due to her powers not being valued in the other communities, she stays in Khan's crusade, where her powers are only required, but not valued. And that's pretty much it, we don't know anything far from her other than her redemption arc once she symphatizes with Mulan.

Yifei Liu -the actress who plays Mulan- does the best with what she's given to do, and it isn't much, we don't meet a deeply multi-layered Mulan in this version, we meet a very oppressed version of her, the same happen with her Army fellows, we're not invested in them and amused by them as in the animated version. This may be because of the realist pre-established approach, but that doesn't justify why these characters fell that short.
Same happens with Mulan's father and sister. They're not really given any time and they do nothing to contribute to the film, there's not even the emotional response between father-daughter relationship when the movie ends.
Donnie Yen and, specially, Jet Li, are criminally underused.

Instead of Mushu, we have a phoenix bird that does nothing but to guide her in a very simple and magical-deducted way, and to pose behind her back in her final fight for the Emperor so she can look like an emblem.
No musical numbers, obviously, but instrumental versions of the 1998 film heard throughout some scenes.
Also, it is made to be a Wu Xia rendition of a Disney film -for the first time ever, I think- action scenes are pretty decent, and it is visually-speaking, it's a beautiful film.

New Zealander Director Niki Caro has a very interesting and somehow Feminist social-related resumé of films -before Feminism was in the eye of the public- and this may be her weakest film to date.

In the end, it happened to be a very rare experience for both, mostly unimpressed, certainly predictable in almost every way, which didn't expand any of the story resources and meaning, nor to broaden some Chinese mythology in American audiences. I don't think the hype for this film would be worth the subscription. Needless to say, stick with the original.