everything wrong with mulan 2020 (a review) 🐉⚔️👄

[Music] everything wrong with mulan i know it's not particularly difficult or even original to negatively compare a disney live-action remake to its animated counterpart but i don't care i love movies especially old school disney movies and when i see the brand sell out and lose what made it so magical and memorable in the first place it's more than disappointing mulan is not only one of my favorite disney movies but she also happens to be one of my favorite disney princesses the original 1998 animated film was a fun and interesting adaptation of the chinese legend of hua mulan that also happens to have some of the best music in a disney film today i'll be looking at the newly released mulan film and discussing some of the issues i had with it and yes i'll be spoiling the entire movie so don't watch this if you want to maintain some semblance of surprise and for those of you in the comments gearing up to write gosh you're so negative or it's a movie relax clearly this video isn't for you all art including and especially movies is open for critique but mind you i'm only human and am bound to miss something forgive me now before i get into it i want to acknowledge the things that i actually enjoyed about the movie the cinematography within the first minute of the movie i was immediately struck by how gorgeous everything looks everything is so bold and vibrant from the scenery to the clothing but not in an artificial cgi way it's breathtaking honestly unlike a lot of other disney live-action remakes there doesn't seem to be all that much cgi involved in manipulating the background and the setting which not only helps make the world look real but also helps show off how beautiful chyna is murder this sounds kinda weird but hear me out mulan is the one and only disney princess to have killed anyone and i love that disney didn't shy away from that going into the movie i really only expected them to have her involved in the avalanche scene and it wouldn't be so weird for this new disney to have her wind up capturing the villain instead of killing him so it was really great to see her actually fight on numerous occasions and actually take people down cool shots okay this is probably a silly thing to commend but you'd be surprised how many films phone it in in regard to interesting angles and shots okay now into the negatives chi this is perhaps the biggest change from the original animated film instead of mulan and the other characters simply being athletic and excelling at martial arts they are able to harness their chi to a greater extent than normal people and essentially use it as a power this is introduced in one of the film's earliest scenes where a very young mulan is running around her village chasing a chicken and defying the laws of gravity now the addition of chi is not really what i find issue with it's the shaky setup and lack of payoff besides mulan the witch the emperor and i guess boricon we don't see many other characters using chi despite it being implied that many men have this ability while women are punished for it it would have been interesting to see more male characters like mulan's father and some other soldiers using chi as well especially since it would have highlighted the double standard between men and women in the film grandma i just want to say i don't care that they removed or swapped out characters from the original film what i do mind is when these changes add absolutely nothing to the narrative in the original film the grandma character not only provides comic relief which honestly would have been welcome in this otherwise serious film but also sets a few things in motion and even you can't blow it um and silent could i just take that back in the live action film she is replaced by a sister character and while i might have actually enjoyed this change if they developed that relationship more this winds up creating more issues than solving them first by including a sister it reduces the pressure mulan has to be a quote-unquote perfect daughter and bring honor to the family through marriage you forget mulan is a daughter not a son a daughter brings honor through marriage i understand that the point was to show what the family's idealized version of a daughter would be but that's never actually shown in the film secondly she doesn't have a personality outside of being afraid of spiders don't panic there's a spider crawling in your hair you know for those spiders a convenient phobia the movie uses as a way of ruining mulan's matchmaking appointment instead of qrikey if they were set on having a sister character they should have worked on growing the relationship between her and mulan for instance have mulan save her when they're children to show how she harnesses chi as well as the closeness of their relationship then as an adult have the sister help mulan put on her armor when she leaves to fight in their father's stead and wish her luck on her journey that would have been a much more satisfying way to showcase their relationship to each other show don't tell a classic film complaint but it has to be said if you need to have a narrator cut in or have a character exposit what's going on something is wrong with your script this happens several times throughout the film but for a simple and direct comparison just look at how this scene where mulan runs away plays out in the cartoon compared to that same scene in the new movie my armor it's gone who would do such a thing a conscription scroll it was mulan it can't be pretty big difference no mushu mushu is one of the best and funniest characters in the disney universe besides the genie of course so hearing that he wouldn't be included in this movie definitely stung a bit however disregarding my inner child's disappointment the decision itself is just poorly executed they replaced mushu with another spirit the phoenix a character i wish they hadn't included at all other than kinda helping mulan with directions early on in the film the phoenix doesn't actually do anything important if they were set on having it in the movie here's a few more places where they should have utilized it when mulan fights the witch and gets stabbed in the chest have the phoenix heal her or something this also would have solved the ridiculous idea that mulan's cloth binder would have saved her or when she gets an arrow fired at her by bori khan have the phoenix grab it instead of using that as a predictable redemption arc for the witch or have the phoenix swoop in and stop her father's sword from falling into the fire yes this all would have made the phoenix pretty powerful but it's literally a mythical creature go for it ling yao and chianpo hi i'm lane and i'm tim paul hello chimpo and i am yao king of the rock not gonna lie this hurt seeing them absolutely butcher these fantastic characters was incredibly difficult to watch especially considering that the characters themselves were so strong that they practically carried the animated mulan sequel which as we all know is like the best direct-to-video sequel disney has ever made besides them being watered down versions of themselves each of the three men is barely given any screen time and many of the moments that showed their friendship with mulan growing are instead given to milan's new love interest because of this we don't see the progression of their friendship and the improvement of their relationship from strangers to enemies to comrades how are we supposed to believe that these men respect mulan and would be willing to die for her when they've spent the entire movie being mean to one another the love interest i just don't understand why they felt the need to remove shang if they were going to give her a love interest anyway they should have just had her be happy and single and then spent the time they'd used up on that unnecessary plot to develop other characters plus i would have enjoyed seeing a hypothetically sapphic mulan even if it wasn't said outright i'll make a man out of you this is one of the most entertaining sequences in the original film and the live action adaptation sucks out all of the life from it not only do we not see mulan's progression as a soldier she barely seems to struggle with any task except taking a shower and the stakes seem incredibly low another character gets booted from training for lying but mulan never has an oh crap they're about to send me home moment because her previously mentioned chi has already made her super powerful i also hate that they swapped out the pole climbing trial for climbing up mountain steps not only because the original scene was incredibly empowering and showcased how mulan could balance brains and strength but also because this switch doesn't help the story in the cartoon all of the training mulan goes through is referenced again during the final battle at the palace see how they use the pillars to climb in in this movie mulan just walks up a lot of steps and that's kind of it the witch all right get ready for a rant cause boy oh boy this was one of the film's biggest missteps the character is introduced early on as an ally of bori khan the film's marketed main antagonist but we quickly learned that the two dislike one another and that they're only working with each other to achieve separate goals which makes no sense first she's stronger than him she can literally turn into a bird and shape-shift into other people there's a line where she says she needs him but i have to wonder does she i feel like it would have been far more interesting had she been impersonating boricon the entire time not only would it have made for a cool twist but it would have made the parallels between her and mulan even stronger both were treated poorly because of their chi and both thought they had to pretend to be men to be accepted i think disney should learn that true feminism is not being afraid to have a woman as the villain and not attempt a sloppy redemption arc so we as the audience can think oh she was really nice the whole time i think this would have made for a far more interesting battle scene as she and mulan not only fought earlier in the film with the witch thinking she'd killed mulan but it would have been interesting to see their different fighting styles even with both of them using chi i also think she's a far more interesting character than bori khan whose main motivation was just revenge for the death of his father mulan let me know in the comments how you felt about this new version of the character but i feel like they misunderstood what made mulan so special to so many of us it wasn't that she was strong or brave or honest but that she learned to accept who she was she was a smart fish out of water who found her place as an amazing warrior while learning to embrace the femininity she had previously spurned which is honestly such a great message instead of trying to jam the idea that she tells the truth and that's the best thing about her so kids you should do it too we should be teaching children that there's nothing wrong with being girly and it doesn't make you less strong or less smart that's the story i wanted to see all in all this film hasn't reinvigorated my interest in live-action disney adaptations but here's hoping that disney starts learning from its mistakes and makes their upcoming live actions worth watching and not blatant nostalgia fueled cash grabs thanks for watching this video and i'll see you soon bye

Channel: ModernGurlz

Views: 1,026,360

Rating: 4.8901439 out of 5

Keywords: style, internet girl, modern gurlz, informational, fashion montage, movie montage, 90s fashion, fashion, 90s tv, delias, dollskill, movie review, movie commentary, moderngurlz, egirl, tiktok

Id: 1KOYv7h-7uE

Length: 12min 49sec (769 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 09 2020