Thursday, May 4, 2023

Movie Review: "Mulan" - 03/09/20

This is a movie review for "Mulan", released March 9, 2020 at a Los Angeles CA premiere. I watched this October 17, 2020.



Trailer




Cast


Liu Yifei - Mulan

Donnie Yen - Commander Tung

Gong Li - Xianniang

Jet Li - Emperor

Jason Scott Lee - Böri Khan

Yoson An - Honghui



Plot

China is under threat of invasion. The Emperor calls upon each family to enlist one man from each family. The Hua family has no sons so Hua Zhou stands up for his family, even though he has a war wound from previous service. Mulan decides to save her father by stepping up in his place and go to war. Can she keep her gender hidden? Can she survive training? Can she survive war?




Rating Criteria

0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.

1/5 – Barely worth any time.

2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.

3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.

4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.

5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.


1.5/5 - Downgraded for lack of character depth or development, martial arts with no regard to gravity, taking out Mushu and Grandma, downplaying war (not showing the brutality of aftermath), adding the witch (even though she sacrificed herself to save Mulan), etc.

Chi is good because that is a thing but saying that women with strong chi are witches is sexist and ridiculous; did not need to go there. And why would she need a pep talk by the witch when she sat there crying?! Why couldn't the phoenix do it?

The vote of confidence in Mulan by the soldiers seemed shallow, like they are wimps with little opinions of their own, not sticking to their beliefs. She should have had to do something to prove that they should trust her (though they are so far from the Imperial City). Instead, they just decided to follow her for nearly no reason.

Bonus: it did feel a bit like those martial arts movies where there is no regard to gravity (i.e. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or whatnot). It was cool but to try making it more "realistic" with this makes the movie cheap. Make up your mind - realistic or mythical!


Anyways, I would not recommend this movie in comparison with the animated Mulan movie. I was really disappointed, especially since Mushu was not a thing and the phoenix that they put into the movie didn't talk (but was mostly symbolic). Could you like this movie? Sure, but that's according to your personal preference, not mine. Go ahead and try it, I would say. Maybe you'll like it, but I won't be rewatching this any time soon.



That's my movie review. Thanks for reading! More to come eventually.


Rebekah/Gracie






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