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Been a few days, but we have been, uh, busy with social lives.
HERE YOU GO.
6.
Mulan (1998)
Matt ranked it at 14. Shauna ranked it at 8.
OVERALL SCORE: 11
Matt: Mulan is one of these entries that are high up on both of our lists. I have a strong preference for current Disney movies rather than the older entries if we ignore that awful period that was the early 2000s. Mulan is one of the pieces in Renaissance Disney that made the cut for me, which is why it is nestled here at #6.
Mulan being the story of a woman being pretending to be man really speaks to me.... Nah, just kidding, I can't relate to someone in that position. What Mulan does well though is to take the traditional female Disney character searching for love or to searching for something more (See Ariel, Jasmine etc.) and tells them to stop letting the men do all the fighting. Most female characters in Disney movies prior normally sit around picking flowers and singing about love. With few exceptions the female characters are normally the main focus on the movie until a big set piece at the end where the men take over and have a bit of a rumble. Mulan takes this differently by saying “Let’s give her a sword and have her sort things out”.
The movie starts off with Mulan prancing around the stables feeding the animals and then getting nagged at as she need to dress up like a ghost woman otherwise no man will want her. After some hijinks she is kicked out of marriage school and her dad is asked to fight some muscly dude because a weaselly dude asked him to. Mulan steals all her dad's stuff and runs away from home. After an 80 minute long training montage she fights the muscly dude and Mulan is named winner of China. The end.
Mulan overall ranks pretty high for me as it has a darker tone than most movies. Mulan is the story of the woman living in a man's world, but everyone ends up sharing the same experiences. Take heading to the destroyed village. The war affects everyone, but men are traditionally the only ones sent to fight. Previous Disney movies have villains with conquest as their goal but Shan Yu's methods are much more severe. Jafar is power hungry and wants to run Agrabah, but he uses internal corruption and his power to get there. Straight out murder and raiding towns gives much more of an impact.
Mulan is filled with great moments for me though. I made fun of the training montage earlier, but it's really a fun scene. The scene on the mountain side with the fireworks is also edge of your seat stuff. The only real thing limiting it is comic relief. I keep talking about comic relief in my reviews as it makes or breaks a movie for me. Mushu is not a good example. Other than the fact the Movie would be boring without anyone to talk, Mushu offers pretty much nothing of value to this movie and seems really out of place in this movie.
Mulan is a great movie start to finish but is faulted by a poor sidekick.
Shauna:As much as I loved watching Disney flicks as a kid, I never watched anything that was released past 1995. Classic Disney was what my parents knew, and they passed what they knew on to me. The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast made the cut too, for some reason. Most likely because they were released when my sister and I were younger. So when it came to 1998 and Mulan hit the silver screen, it didn’t even make the smallest blip on my radar. I don’t remember it being released. I don’t remember seeing adverts for it on the telly. It was a nothing for me.
My first exposure to Mulan was quite a while later, around 4-6 years after its initial release. I’m sure if you do the math there, you’ll work out what could have possibly prompted my venture into the world of Disney at that age. I was a little bit wary of Mulan, if I’m honest – I was coming off my pre-teen “Disney is for super babbies” thing, and this was the first “new” one I watched, so I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it.
And to say I loved it would be a little bit of an understatement. I really love The Little Mermaid, but that is peppered with nostalgia. My enjoyment of Mulan was not, a genuinely good movie that was funny and emotional, and honestly, it spurred me on to watch all the rest of the Disney movies I missed. If I could be wrong about this one, what other excellent pieces of work did I pass by and wave off? But enough about Shauna’s own personal Disney Renaissance, let’s talk a bit more about Mulan.
I remember being impressed by the art style of Mulan. How it looked kind of traditional Chinese painting-ish. As I said before, I found it funny where it was due to be funny. I found it emotional when it was due to be emotional – god damn did I tear up something chronic when they passed through the mountain village and found that it had been destroyed and the army had failed. Why did I get so emotional at that point? I don’t know, I was a hormonal teenager. Judge me as you will. I found out that I knew what a concubine was, despite having no prior exposure to that word (that I can recall).
The characters are all likeable and entertaining – even Eddie Murphy as Mushu didn’t overstay his welcome. Mulan learning to be who she wants to be is an excellent message for anyone. Mushu was a bit of a dick, but he learned his lesson which is alright in the end. Shang and the rest of the new recruits are wonderfully entertaining. Shan-Yu is an intimidating villain, and it’s pretty impressive that he can survive an avalanche. All in all, it has a fantastic cast.
As always we touch on the music in this entry, which is also excellent. Pop “I’ll Make a Man Outta You” on at any party and everyone will be singing along, even if it is Donny Osmond. Although this is definitely the crowning jewel of the movie, I don’t say no to a little bit of “Reflection”, or “Honour to Us All”. Even if the Granny does have a magical voice change when she sings.
In terms of the plot, it is nice to see a woman take centre stage in a role that had her doing more than just falling in love. She fought her own battles, and stood her own ground, and showed that she was just as capable of doing the things she was told by society she wasn’t allowed to do. Which again, is a good message to send. That’s basically the entire plot in a nutshell, and I have little to complain about here.
As my reintroduction to the Disney Animated Classics, I probably couldn’t have chosen better than Mulan. It had everything I loved about all those old movies, and it added a whole new layer of what they could do. It made me excited for what I had missed, and for what could possibly be tacked next. Overall, definitely a movie worthy of being in my Top 10 personal favourites.
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