Geekatana Review - Mulan (2020) - Once Upon a Time in Mulan

Mulan (2020) is an action drama  film produced by Walt Disney Pictures. It stars Liu Yifei in the title role, alongside Donnie Yen, Jason Scott Lee, Yoson An, Gong Li, and Jet Li in supporting roles. Directed by Niki Caro, with screenplay by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Lauren Hynek, and Elizabeth Martin.

 

The first animated Mulan movie by Disney was a guilty pleasure for me so when I knew Mulan was having a live action I was excited. Even though the trailer for this movie hadn't impress me I've decided to give this movie a look since one should never judge a movie by its trailer. There will be minor spoilers so you have been warned.

 

Mulan is a story of a young chinese maiden who is forced to join the emperors army disguised as a male warrior in place of her father. She goes so despite the dire consequences of her action if her disguise is uncovered since female soldiers are forbidden. It is a live-action adaptation of Disney's 1998 animated film of the same name, based on the Chinese folklore "The Ballad of Mulan."

 

Story wise this is has some similarities to the animated movie version of Mulan by Disney but the live action adds some minor story elements and removing and adding some characters. One notable difference is the lack of the dragon which is one of the memorable characters from the animated movie and replaces it with a phoenix. Also a lot of the comedic elements and memorable songs of the cartoon movie was now gone in the hopes to make it more believable it seems.

 

Sadly they incorporated magic and kung fu into the film akin to movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Once Upon a Time in China that sort of puts more fantasy to the film than realism. There are times I thought I'm watching a different movie altogether with all the back flipping and running on walls they did. The plot is paper thin with the typical good guy versus an army of bad guys and a witch. 

 

Character development there is very little to have in this one. Even with veteran actors like Jet Li and Donnie Yen the characters of the film feels paper cut and monotonous at best. Mostly due to bad character development and scripting. Sadly this kind of shortcoming is also true for the antagonist. The villains are stupid and changes allegiances at a drop of a coin. Mulan is made like this super soldier woman cause she can use some magical chi so much so that she can do backflip at a young age you'd think she was in the movie the Matrix. She can also dodge arrows while on horseback for that matter. Liu Yifei does look good as Mulan though.

 

The movie has a ton of other issues. The action scenes are your typical martial arts movie with a touch of Disney. Sadly other martial arts movie does it better and there is really nothing in this movie that hasn't been done countless times before either. Also the jokes they try to do in the movie about taking a bath isn't even funny at all. There is like at least five times where the villain could have won but decided not to deliver the finishing blow. And it doesn't help that the villain barely has a back story aside from...revenge maybe?

 

Evil villain wants kill someone they have a grudge on for all these past years? But wait! Let us capture him first then talk to him for a little bit...then after that we can finally decide to kill him. Thus giving the protagonist time to save the day. Also what is up with a sister that basically does nothing to the plot. You can practically cut the sister part out and the movie will still be fine. It is like they needed an excuse to make the movie longer.

 

I don't hate this movie. It has some wow moments and some of the visuals are really nice but the lack of an engaging story and characters you can get behind on really puts the film down. They lack charm that during the big fight you probably wouldn't care whether any of them died or not. The movie was passable until the last act where it nosedives into heaven knows where. Khan isn't as threatening there is really no part in the film that I felt Mulan life was in danger.

 

Overall Mulan (2020) was a sadly passable movie. If you got nothing to do and want to pass the time you can probably go see this one. If you are a big fan of Mulan then you are probably better off just sticking to the animated movie version. The movie isn't worst by any means but comparing it with the animated movie or your typical martial arts this new live action film Mulan definitely could have been done a fair lot better but didn't.