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Film Review: Mulan – 1998

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Director(s)Tony Bancroft
Barry Cook
Principal CastMing-Na Wen as Fa Mulan
Eddie Murphy as Mushu
BD Wong as Captain Shang
Miguel Ferrer as Shan Yu
Release Date1998
Language(s)English
Running Time 87 minutes
Report CardClick to go to Review TLDR/Summary
Chinese ink work of the Great Wall of China…
…dissolves into the Great Wall.
Shan Yu makes his appearance.
The wall fires propagate.
Shan Yu burns the country’s symbol.
The symbol on the Emperor’s door opens.
The film’s opening moves from traditional art of the Great Wall to the structure proper. The antagonist, Shan Yu, makes his appearance with a group of Huns and threatens the land. Despite losing the element of surprise., Shan Yu is unperturbed and relishes the challenge. he seeks bring the Empire to its knees. Meanwhile, the Emperor rushes to come up with a plan of attack.

An inked-out backdrop comes onto screen, evoking the distinctive feel of older Chinese drawings. The camera tracks over this backdrop and settles on a view of the Great Wall of China before the ink fades away to the wall proper.

A soldier on guard duty notices an incoming danger right as the Huns, led by Shan Yu, climb the walls and break into the country. The guard lights a large fire on his post and alerts the other guards, ensuring that the the capital knows of and can mount a response against the threat. But Shan Yu relishes the opportunity for battle, going so far as to burn a national flag to signify his challenge to the nation.

As the symbol on the flag burns, the symbol on the Emperor’s door opens; his counsel and him are immediately drafting their strategy. The Emperor decrees that one man must each family must be drafted to ensure the enemy is defeated. One of his generals pushes back and claims that his forces are more than capable of handling the threat but the Emperor refuses to back down, explaining that like a single grain of rice, a single man could tip the scale.

Mulan picks a single grain of rice.
Mulan writes a cheat sheet on her arm.
Mulan ties food around her “brother”.
Mulan lets her “brother” go do her chores.
Mulan may not be a man, but she can handle a grain of rice with ease while tackling her chores with wit.

Meanwhile, a young woman, named Mulan gracefully picks up a single grain of rice while taking copious notes on her arm. She’s getting ready for some kind of procedural examination and is rushed for time. In one swift maneuver, she calls for her “brother”, the family’s dog, and ties feed and a treat on him to lead him into feeding her household’s livestock. The maneuver informs us not only of Mulan’s wit but also of her family’s lack of a son.

Mulan is stripped and changed.
Mulan is pulled from multiple sides.
Mulan tries to conform to the value system by emulating her peers.
The first musical number establishes the way culture permeate family units and make their way into persons’ day-to-day lives. Mulan is only able to find value through marriage and must conform to oppressive, overbearing expectations to get a successful match.

With her tasks “finished”, Mulan heads out for a meeting with a matchmaker – cue the film’s first musical number, “Honor to Us All”, a song which establishes the cultural idea that women can only bring honor to their families by becoming good wives. Immediately upon coming to the location, Mulan is stripped and washed, losing her unique identity in favor of a culturally approved one. As she’s fitted by her mother and an assistant, it’s clear that these expectations are literally pulling her in opposing directions. Cultural expectations shape familial values which propagate down to the individual which is why Mulan finds herself desperate to fit into the crowd, casting aside her subjectivity in favor or melding with her peers.

For a musical number, the song works as an ironic counterpoint to the narrative proper, establishing the sexist, contradictory roles that women are meant to operate in, while demonstrating the way cultural expectations permeate and shape the lived experiences of persons who don’t fit into presumed archetypes. The number ends with Mulan stumbling into the matchmaker’s abode and failing miserably. She can’t attain honor in this way and is cast aside – a poignant conclusion to a musical number that so strongly stresses that the only role available for women is the one she can’t possible do.

Mulan stares at her parents dejectedly.
Mulan gazes at her reflection, dissapointed by what she sees.
Mulan is uncertain of herself as she gazes in her half-and-half reflection.
Mulan stares at her reflections, struggling to find her true self.
Mulan struggles to find a place for her identity to flourish. What she is and what she’s expected to be don’t align and she is desperate to carve a place out for herself in the disjunction between the two.

This seeming ineptitude weighs heavily on Mulan and as she gazes on her loving parents, parents who she can’t help but disappoint, she breaks into the film’s second song aptly titled “Reflection”; she walks around her home and looks back at her reflection, first in the water and then in the reflective surfaces of shrines, to find herself but can’t seem to reconcile what she is and what her family and by extension society want her to be. Her make-up is stripped off half her face before being fully removed, demonstrating this gap between the idealized and the real.

Mulan is framed alone by the flowers.
Mulan’s father enters her space.
He puts a flower head-piece on Mulan.
The flower sanctuary gives way to the Emperor’s orders.
The flowers transform from framing Mulan’s loneliness to framing her connectedness with her father. Her loneliness is temporarily abated, but the Emperor’s proclamations threaten to permanently disrupt the sitaution.

Mulan feels utterly alone in her struggle. The pink blossoms in her garden frame her isolation, trapping her in the frame. But her father intervenes and comes into her zone; the duo is framed within the flowers and the emptiness is transformed into a lovely connective moment. He reassures his daughter, pointing out that the late flower blooms most beautiful of all before then placing a flower-decorated clip into her hair to cement the connection; Mulan may not have found her way yet, but when she does, it will be glorious.

But the sound of drums announcing the presence of the Emperor’s men interrupts the moment of serenity; the enclosure generated by the flowers is broken apart by the Emperor’s conscription announcement. Mulan’s father is tasked to serve given his family’s lack of son and suddenly his family has to deal with his impending absence, and due to his fragile body, probable death. Mulan tries to push back, both in public and in private, but is admonished and lectured for her insolence; she should get to know her place in society like everyone else. Yet, the songs have already informed us that such a place does not exist for her.

Mulan looks at her reflection in a puddle.
Mulan notices her parents.
She sees her parents in silhouette.
Her father reaches out to her mother but she turns away.
He puts out the light.
Mulan lights a lamp for a prayer.
Mulan swaps her hairpiece out for the concrition letter.
Mulan affirms herself in her swords’ reflection.
Mulan sets off for war.
Mulan goes from uncertain to resolute. As she realizes the war’s costs on her family and way of life, she understands that she has to go in her father’s place. She replaces the symbol of femininity given by him and takes on the tools of the warrior. Her path is clear now and is reflected clearly in her sword.

Unable to come up with any solutions, she sits dejected under the statue of the Great Stone Dragon, her family’s guardian protector, and gazes down on her reflection in a puddle, struggling to figure out what to do. From where she sits, she notices the silhouettes of her parents; her father reaches over to her mother in tender embrace but the latter turns away and walks off leaving the former to blow out the candle and bring the night to a close – the impending war brings a great darkness to the family.

But Mulan refuses to let to let the light die and sets out to take her father’s place, lighting the lamps and offering a prayer for success before trading her flower headpiece for her father’s conscript orders and battle regalia. If no place exists for her, she’ll carve the path for herself . Her resolve is now reflected in her newfound blade which she promptly uses to cut her hair; now she can present as the man the army needs her to be.

Thus, the stage is set for a battle between two subversive forces, each trying to tackle the sociocultural paradigm which they find themselves situated within. Their respective acts of dishonor, Mulan’s military subterfuge and Shan Yu’s invasion, are both attempts at reforming the system. If Shan Yu succeeds in his invasion, he’ll be able to seize the honor for himself; usurping the Emperor means taking control of a major lynchpin behind the cultural forces which delineate what is permissible and what is not. Meanwhile, Mulan hopes to achieve honor by serving as her family’s proxy son, allowing her father to avoid death in battle while helping her homeland against hostile forces.

As both parties pursue their respective goals, the film is able to problematize a system where honor is defined by adherence to a norm over actions proper. Shan Yu’s gambit can only work because by taking over the Empire, he can set the dictates on what constitutes proper behavior: when culture flows downstream, the one who is in charge writes the rules. Mulan’s tactic on the other hand cuts to the heart of honor itself. Her actions in end of themselves feel honorable: the desire to protect one’s family should be commended. Yet, her skirting of prescribed gender roles somehow negates her actions, making them dishonorable; the disjunction between this reality and expectation demonstrates the necessity of an internal value realignment for any change to occur.

The musical numbers define the parameters of this battlefield. The first two songs set the ground-rules: the songs provide points by which to evaluate cultural values while ironically revealing the basis of said values. There are also only four total songs and their removal from the film and then sudden reincorporation helps to highlight the transformation of values mentioned within them. When the music stops, the serious nature of the lightweight lyrics is brought to head and the disjunction in values is made apparent. When the music eventually comes back, the shift in values has alleviates the situation and demonstrates a reconciliation. The fact that the songs are catchy is almost secondary which is testament to their quality; they both satisfy the musical sensibilities one would expect from Disney while organically extending the narrative and its themes.

REPORT CARD

TLDRMulan’s story of a woman turned warrior looking to upend a backwards militant system is as entertaining as it is thematically rich. The use of musical cues to extend thematic and narrative movements not only helps the story moving at a quick pace but also cue the audience in to what truly matters.
Rating10/10
GradeA+

Go to Page 2 for the for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis.
Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .

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