Why Mulan (2020) Didn't Work
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- Опубліковано 30 січ 2021
- EDIT: Nessun dorma is actually after Calaf answers Turandot's riddles and he's tricking her by withholding his name
Got it a little backwards, oops!
In this video I awkwardly rant about the Mulan remake not being good because Opera
Twitter: / sideways440
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Sources:
For more about the adaptation of The Producers, check out:
"The Producers and Hairspray: The Hazards and Rewards of Recursive Adaptaion"
by Dean Adams
Probably the best all-around source for Opera (great if you're a teacher and want to send this to your students)
courses.lumenlearning.com/sun...
Obligatory wikipedia entry
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operetta
Mulan Review by Jeremy Jahns
• Mulan - Movie Review
Mulan Review by Chris Stuckmann
• Mulan - Movie Review
Mulan Review by Schaffrillas Productions
• Mulan is the Worst Dis...
Although I didn't cite her in the video, if you are in any way interested in this film then this video by Xiran Jay Zhao is an absolute must
• EVERYTHING CULTURALLY ...
Now bear with me, I used a LOT of opera clips in this video and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure they're all listed here but if I've missed any PLEASE let me know so I can add it to the list
Queen of the Night Aria by The Royal Opera
• The Magic Flute - Quee...
Carmen: "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" (Elina Garanca)
• Carmen: "L'amour est u...
Luciano Pavarotti's rendition of Nessun dorma
• Luciano Pavarotti sing...
Il barbiere di siviglia "Largo al factotum
• Il barbiere di sivigli... "
The Barber of Seville - Figaro's Aria
• The Barber of Seville ...
Monteverdi - Orfeo: recitativo secco
• Monteverdi - Orfeo: re...
57. N. 21b Recitativo accompagnato ed aria: "In quali eccessi, o Numi"
• 57. N. 21b Recitativo ...
29 Recitativo accompagnato e Aria Non mi dir
• 29 Recitativo accompag...
I am the very Model of a Modern Major General - Pirates of Penzance (1983)
• I am the very Model of...
Kirsten Flagstad - Brünnhilde's battle cry "Ho jo to ho !" (Die Walküre, Wagner)
• Kirsten Flagstad - Brü...
Walküre 5/12 - R. Wagner - Akt 2 Brünnhilde Wotan Valencia 2008
• Walküre 5/12 - R. Wagn...
Die Walküre, Wagner - Wotan's Farewell, James Morris
• Die Walküre, Wagner - ...
Galop Infernal - Orphee aux Enfers
• Galop Infernal - Orphe...
I am the Monarch of the Sea
• I am the Monarch of th...
"People don't sing songs when they march off to war." Girl, do you even know why drums were INVENTED?
Me, starting to hum "Johnny comes marching home"
Also military cadences
And bagpipes.
Leaves from the vine...
THANK YOU
“Damn, she’s thicc. I’m totally gonna win Jeopardy tomorrow.” I’m dead.
DECEASED. BEHEADED.
3:26
ikr that's so good
That's a film I'd watch
Turandot should really just be turned into a movie.
>completely misrepresenting the concept of Chi
>completely misrepresent the architecture
>completely misrepresenting the message of the original poem
> completely botched mulan's entire story arc, motivation and abilities
Honestly, some silly song would've made it at least bearable, since i can just blame it on Mulan having a fever dream as she bled out on the battlefield
Imagine draining a third of your blood to feel high and hallucinate
Also completely misrepresented Chinese mythology and history. Witches don’t exist in Ancient China and it just pisses me off so much that such a Western concept made it into a “Chinese” movie like this. Women practicing magic in Ancient China are valued as shaman and such. Only thing someone can get lynched for practicing magic is for inherently not being human, such as being a fox spirit pretending to be human. Also, fire phoenixes rising from the ashes wasn’t a thing, phoenixes are just cool birds that brings good luck.
@@sugarkane1571 i heard a chinese youtuber say that witches were in China but they weren't the same as what we got.
@@avivastudios2311 they were probably referencing the shaman thing
Got locations wrong.
Mixed-era fashion left Chinese viewers confused about the time period.
Witches are western mythology.
Chinese phoenixes aren't associated with rebirth.
Global audiences hated that she didn't have to work hard to get stronger.
Pissed off LGBT by getting rid of Li Shang.
Global audiences did not find Mushu offensive.
Global audiences wanted the music from the old Disney cartoon.
it was doomed the moment they removed “a girl worth fighting for”, the tonal shift in that scene MADE a core part of the movie
Exactly! The juxtaposition of the happy, bouncy, "how do I tell my male friends that they're being incredibly problematic" number and the destroyed village with explicit child murder raised the stakes in a way that no other Disney movie has. They took the emotion out of the war.
@@Richard-441exactly. That whole thing just made the film so much more memorable-
The sudden cut seeing the destroyed town with the soldiers realizing they found the girl worth fighting for
“Literally the whole show comes to a stop and one of the characters has a therapy session onstage in musical form”
You did it, you broke opera down to its bare essentials
Or, hear me out,... bare necessities.
I'll see myself out
@@dmitriid I liked that one 👍
But then there is Wagner :D
Does this make NF modern opera?
@@dmitriid bear necessities
Opera is when a guy gets shot in the third act and decides he'd rather sing than bleed.
Why did I think of the Laurens Interlude
@@blessiemasancay4818 w h y
@@royal3809 idk ;-;
@@blessiemasancay4818 I mean... not the third act, obviously, but I guess I get it. But also, imagine if the ghost/vision version of Laurens, instead of singing three lines, just fucking writhed around on the floor and coughed blood. That would not be fun to watch.
@@baguettegott3409 sorry, sorry I actually pictured it and went Pfft-
I love that this man can spend 3/4 of a video titled “Why Mulan (2020) Didn't Work” talking about opera and musicals and it not only works but is also cohesive and entertaining. I miss Sideways SO much.
Did he stop making videos?- 😭
@@residentstar I don't know what happened entirely, but based on other commenters, I think he was harrassed because of some of his videos and stopped? Take that with a grain of salt though.
Me, too - I SO WISH he'd return!
@@the6597 Oh dear, that sounds horrible...!
@@the6597 Not exactly, the problem was in 2021 there were a string of unfortunate events around Sideways and he had to move. Not only that but he is unable to post because the copyright system is a cunt and keeps striking his videos even though they are under fair use.
the smallest detail that really sent me over the edge was her taking her hair down to go into battle. I get the symbolism- *look now you really know I'm a woman because my hair is down* but let me tell you, my hair is staying up in a tight bun/pony while doing aerials across the battlefield.
yep I felt the same during that scene, it's like they are trying to convey woman empowerment but at the end of the day falls into the stereotypical femme fatale action movie where a woman have stereotypical lady appearance to become deadly. I get it that they want to show that woman can perform as man despite their appearance, but realistically I bet all women would rather have proper attire/ self-groom for each activity. Letting down your hair and taking off your body armour (to show breast?) just to show that you are a woman during a battle is so holywood style of thinking.
Literally I almost screamed at that scene. And like, she also took off most of her armor too. Like again it’s supposed to be a “I’m revealing my true self” moment but IT IS LITERALLY THE DUMBEST THING EVER like she took off her armor as she was heading INTO BATTLE WHAT
i thought it was funny because alot of people complained about the original when mulan cut her hair because men had long hair too but i said even if thats the case i would still cut my hair if i was mulan it seems like less hassle. that scene just reminded me of all the problems that could happen because of long hair and wind
Especially strange because men didn't cut their hair short in that time period, so long, flowing hair wouldn't be considered an explicitly feminine trait...
@@amandacantcometothephone even then tho despite the inaccuracy there is so much emotion in that scene that for some they might not care. which in the remake when it does their scene (of course they don't cut the hair) it's left very stiff because it just cuts to her wearing the armour with a blank expression and remake mulan is like this for the entirety even lines like "I would rather be executed" comes out of nowhere and you can't tell if she is saying that legit or she is saying it as a metaphor.
Disney: “we cut the music to adhere more to the original story”
Also Disney: *doesn’t even get the proper housing Mulan would’ve lived in, something that could be easily googled*
Disney: “we cut the music to adhere more to the original story”
Also Disney: "CHI = MAGIC"
Disney: we can't have a talking dragon because it's not realistic, nor is singing in an army
Armies: (chant/singing) i don't know what you've been told
Disney: well...let's just add magic, shapeshifting, and a phoenix for realism. But no singing
Yeah, that was just the, being lazy. It’s more expensive to get a full village
@@MetaphoricallyRose No he(she?) meant the house design, it was from the wrong era (it didn't exist until centuries later) and region (the movie set in northern China while the houses showed are used in southern China)
Disney: “we cut the music to adhere more to the original story”
Also Disney: _hires a white lady with no background in Chinese history, mythology, or cinematography to direct_
This movie failed on every concievable level
It failed as an opera
It failed at accurately showing Chinese culture
It failed as a remake
It failed at basic editing
It failed at being "realistic" while also failing at being fantasy
It failed at being an adaptation of the original poem
It failed at empowerment
And let's be honest, if aliens came down and introduced us to unknown aspects of movie making, it probably failed those too
It failed at bringing honor for the cow.
Lmao can you link the video essays
Check out Shadiversity's comment: it also failed at depicting warfare and the basic operation of weapons.
@@Seele2015au I.e, it failed at being "realistic"
@@Zestrayswede A large part of it also turned out to be the laws of physics too.
Also, the part with Mulan talking about the rabbits running side by side was in the wrong place and didn't make sense. They have her say it in the beginning of the movie, before she joins the military. In the original poem, after Mulan returns home from the war (she served for 12 years and was never caught), she goes home and returns to her pre-military lifestyle. After some time, her soldier friends come to visit and are shocked to realize that she's a woman. The poem ends with her saying “When a pair of rabbits run side by side, who can distinguish male from female?”
That's pretty much Disney with a lot of their live actions. They will take something from an old source material and use it as a reference for some brownie points, instead of utilizing it in a way that serves the story and its characters or have it very meaningful.
"Look, see? We know the words to the original poem, we get it, were hip to it... now watch as the little girl does magic cartwheels off the roof"
This movie is a dishonour on everyone's cows
LMTO
Zuko knows something about honor
Some cows had to be dishonoured twice cause there was too much dishonour and not enough cows. That's how bad it was.
This comment is a dishonour to everything in the universe, lmao.
A DISSONORU TO MAI FAMURII
One of the biggest impacts in the animated Mulan was actually the ending of “A girl worth fighting for”. The music suddenly stops and it’s dead silence as they see the battlefield before them, coming to the realisation that they aren’t ready for war. The fact that there isn’t any singing for the rest of the movie gives a subconscious emotional reaction, the first half of the movie is a polar opposite of the second.
I don't know how many people focus on this, but that song is honestly the MOST realistic of ALL the musical numbers in the original film. It's a freaking marching song, soldiers sing it to keep morale up. And the emotional impact of the ending is so important to the movie--
This entire remake gets me so angry.
That analysis reminds me of something someone said about La La Land: the first half of the movie starts out with these colorful, carefree musical numbers. "A Lovely Night," however, ends the run of the major musical numbers. It's like reality sets in when the romance begins, which foreshadows the twist ending.
The reason musicals exist is because music can convey things that the spoken word or even millions of dollars in cinematography can never *quite* convey.
I have an observation, which is kind of halfway to a theory.
The end of "A Girl Worth Fighting For" is the last song that characters _in the body of a Disney movie_ sing in the Renaissance. Tarzan, as Sideways has gone over extensively, doesn't have the characters in-movie sing its musical numbers, and after Tarzan there's like, no in-world musical numbers except the villain song from Home on the Range all the way until Princess and the Frog in 2009.
"Make a Man Out of You" gets reprised later in the movie to extremely important effect, but it's not actually being sung by the characters at that point, either. Until 2009, with one exception, the last time a Disney character sings an in-movie song is when "A Girl Worth Fighting For" cuts out.
So is that point at the end of "A Girl Worth Fighting For" _itself_ the end of the Renaissance? That's a weird and almost certainly wrong statement, but I definitely feel like it's the end of something really, really big.
Absolutly. When I saw the scene in the remake I just had to think how much more of an impact it had in the original. I mean, they just cut to the scene, there was no contrast at all, which had made the original so much more powerful
@@InchonDM Your work...has just begun. :o
I revisited original Mulan specifically because I heard "A Girl Worth Fighting For" out of the blue and the ending, that abrupt cutoff just hit me in the chest. Years after I last rewatched it, even without seeing what's happening on screen, I feel the emotional impact of what is by and large a fluffy number. You can't replace that.
It's also the last song in the movie!
0:55 They said it would be weird for an army going to war to start singing.
It's literally a genre of music....
It's like the one thing every army from every culture in every time has in common, they all had sang.
And some of them are really goofy. There's a French military march from the Napoleonic wars about how much the singer likes fried onions and how there will be no onions for the Austrians because they're all a pack of dogs.
the ‘clown/circus’ theme that everyone knows of was also a song that people marched to war to, i’m pretty sure
The thing that bugged me most was the way they used "Reflection" in the background constantly, without any regard for whether or not it made sense in the context of the scene. The most jarring example being having it swell up in the background when she's murdering people during the big snowy battle scene.
Nah fam, it's totally foreshadowing for her post war PTSD, waking up at three am from a night terror, looking at herself in the mirror, and going "Oh God, I murdered so many people in the avalanche and almost killed my whole legion"
I mean, honestly, this isn't me talking you down or anything, but there are so many things above this one in the list of "things that don't make sense". The entire movie just seems random.
See I wouldn't have had a problem with them getting rid of the musical aspect of maybe they did what they did with reflection and have the instrumental in the background for the relevant scenes
They used it cause it sounded pretty with no regard for the lyrics and meaning of the song
That's who she is-a mass murderer! lol
Alternate title:
"Let's talk about operas, and like 3 minutes of Mulan."
Fine by me, I love operas.
Can you tell me how to watch Operas? My friend and I thought one day "ah wow, there is an open air opera screening next to our place, lets go watch it" but we didnt know anything about the plot and I^m not sure now whether it had subtitles or not but we left after a while because we didnt understand anything and it was in italian.
Do you have to read the plot beforehand or how does it work? (I'm an ultimate noob in this, I'm sorry)
I have never been to an opera or watched it. Closest thing was watching that famous Bugs Bunny cartoon, reading and watching The Phantom of the Opera. Pretty pathetic but I’m poor and don’t understand Italian etc
So yeah, I’d like to hear more about opera!
@@xxMpEGxx Currently the Metropolitan Opera has a different opera each day on stream for free. A great opportunity to discover a huge repertoire. And if it doesn't suit you on one day you can always check in the day after. It also comes with english subtitles and usually a short introduction to the plot. The link would be metopera.org I think.
@@MistbornPrincess Phantom of the Opera is one of my absolute favorites and that's my second recommendation after Pagliacci.
For both of you,
It's a mix of an experience, some operas will have librettos (Small books) that have all the words and lyrics, and even stage directions, which you can use to follow along and experience, which is great when the opera isn't in a language you understand, but other times they leave things untranslated, which isn't all that helpful.
In this video Sideways talks about the recitative and the aria,
The recitative is most often what gets translated, if translating is being done, because it's about the story, it's telling you what's happening and driving forward everything.
The aria is often what ends up remaining untranslated, because it's less so about the words, and more about the emotion, the feelings, and I like to use Pagliacci as an entry point for operas because it has the most iconic Aria (In my opinion) and you don't need to know the words, you know Pagliacci has had his heart torn in half just from the feeling you get from it.
There's resources that contain translated libretti, such as www.murashev.com/opera/Pagliacci_libretto_English and so if you find an opera you want to watch, you can take a look to see if translations exist and follow along with it.
@@MistbornPrincess you don't have to be rich to watch an opera, as long as you have internet and the right resources you can watch one, or some of the pieces in them! I love opera, though I've never been to an opera house. You can try researching some operas up. A good starter might be The Magic Flute, La Traviata, or Carmen by Bizet. It's best to watch with subtitles so you know whats happening and read the plot on wikipedia or something.
Mulan (1998) has one of the best musical scores of any Disney film. Even as kids on the playground, us boys would sing “A Girl Worth Fighting For”. Good times.
I know this is a few years old at this point, but I frequently come back to rewatch these and had to say. Your knowledge and passion and how well you simplify tricky concepts genuinely is one of the most enjoyable things I've seen. Whatever you're doing these days, be kind to yourself and stay true to yourself because you're doing great shit
At the 8 minute mark I was genuinely like "This is really interesting, but why did I click on a video about opera again? Oh right, this was about Mulan."
Exactly, this was clickbait
Same.
Same, I completely forgot what I was here to watch until he started talking about Disney again. 😂
I was just looking for Sideways opera video and was wondering "where was his talk about opera again? Oh right, it's in the Mulan video"
@@lyleinnoe2210 No it wasn't LOL
My favorite thing to hate about modern disney movies is that they seem to think shaking out your long flowing hair is empowerment
I guess it could symbolize "breaking free", but if it's their only shorthand for that, it just seems half-hearted
It’s not empowerment if the enemy can easily yank your hair or you can’t see what you’re doing because of your long ass hair that should had been tied!
Chi ≠ Realistic, DISNEY!
True. And they could save time by plugging in orchestration for Solsbury Hill.
The funny thing is that there is nothing empowering about this movie
And taking off your armor
Like I guess it's about not hiding your feminine body, but armor keeps you alive, what are you doing?!
I was five minutes in and I remembered that this is a video about Mulan, this man managed to teach me more about opera than I ever thought I was going to know, while being interesting, in a video about Mulan.
1:08 ~ 8:03 Opera Discussion
8:04 ~ 12:00 Musical Discussion
12:01 ~ 15:35 Disney Musical Movies and Remakes
15:36 ~ 22:30 Actual Mulan Discussion
I don't think I'll ever get tired of people trashing this movie.
Nice pfp :)
@@ms.porter4385 Thank you. :3
Ooo if you haven’t seen a video trashing the cultural aspects of the movie I recommend this one ua-cam.com/video/N3QKq24e0HM/v-deo.html she goes really in-depth where they dropped the ball (which is a lot)
Me neither, I find UA-camrs trashing this flick FAR more entertaining than the film itself! 😂🤣
Yeah trashing bad movies is a far greater art than the average movie these days.
All hail Mr. Plinkett!
Also give us the Rise of Skywalker Plinkett review already!
The thing that really infuriates me about the new Mulan isn’t the music. I mean, it’s that, but. The original was about how a woman, despite physical disadvantages and societal expectations, was able to distinguish herself in a male-dominated world. She wasn’t the strongest or fastest- she was just smart and driven. Any girl could do what she did if they put their heart into it.
In the new film, Mulan has supernatural powers. So, within the logic of Mulan 2020, women can’t accomplish anything significant unless they’re one in a billion. The rest of us can just enjoy whatever role society gives us. Our hard work, ingenuity, and minds mean nothing. Awesome.
EXACTLY! I knew from the moment I heard about her new chi powers that the remake would be garbage. The filmmakers literally missed the entire main theme of the original! Absolutely mind-boggling, I have no idea how they failed so badly to understand Mulan.
So much this! The original Mulan, especially in the I'll Make a Man out of You montage, showed herself to not be on the same level as a man AT FIRST, but she was smart and witty and clever, and turned that to her advantage. At the end of the montage, she was on the same level as the other soldiers, representing that despite her disadvantage, she was able to make herself as good as the rest of them with hard work.
Mulan 2020 is born with 'qi' (which, my gods, is not even how it works) and her SISTER is not. Mulan is shown to be heads and shoulders above the other men, and she has to do NOTHING to accomplish that. She is not smart, she is not clever, she's just stronger than men because fEmInIsM. And her sister is matched at the end of the story, and is happy about it. So unless you're this superhuman bAdAsS bItCh, you are NOTHING and need to be happy with 'your place'.
The original Mulan does things to become the person she is. She earns her spot into being invited by the Emperor onto his advisory council, which she DECLINES. Mulan 2020 does NOTHING to earn her place. She gets invited to become the Emperor's GUARD, and it's implied that she AGREES.
Don't even get me started on the fact that NO ONE working on the damn script was EVEN CHINESE.
@@smeissner328 To be fair, ALL of the Disney live action remakes have been garbage, not just Mulan
There have been 16 live action remakes so far and 14 more in the works
Here is a list of all past, present and future remakes coming from Disney, note that the dates on them are the original planned release date before covid screwed everything up
Jungle Book (1994)
101 Dalmatians (1996)
102 Dalmatians (2000)
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Maleficent (2014)
Cinderella (2015)
Jungle Book (2016)
Alice Through The Looking Glass (2016)
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Christopher Robin (2018)
Dumbo (2019)
Aladdin (2019)
Lion King (2019)
Lady and the Tramp (2019)
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Mulan (2020),
Cruella (2021)
Pinocchio
Hunchback of Notre Dame
Lilo & Stitch
Little Mermaid
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Sword and the Stone
Peter Pan
Tinkerbell
Charming
Rose Red (I'm guessing either a Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood story)
Jungle Book sequel (3?)
Fox and the Hound
Robin Hood
@@ravenbloom6732 Please see my post in this thread
@@ravenbloom6732 I couldn't agree more with you. Mulan (2020) was garbage and was made IMO in order to suckle at the teat of the CCP more than anything just like multiple US movies have in recent years whether it makes sense or not
For example, look at Kong: Skull Island. It takes place near the end of the Vietnam war, right? So why is a Chinese national woman taking part in the Monarch research team?
She doesn't even have an actual role in the movie really, they just introduce her in the briefing, say she's with the Chinese government and is basically never seen or heard from again
Even worse is Transformers: Age Of Extinction, for one thing, the movie assumes that someone can drive from Beijing to Hong Kong overnight when in actuality is 1227 miles or 1975 Km. Next, when the battle with the transformers starts, the Hong Kong officials ask Beijing for help which the CCP says that they will immediately and nothing comes of it for the rest of the movie
There are so many examples of this in recent American films it's getting ridiculous, introducing Chinese nationals into American movies for no other reason than to try to get into Chinese movie theaters and then not even letting them be part of the narrative, just letting the movie studios say "Hey, look over here, we've got a Chinese person in our movie, give us some of your money"
Mulan (2020) is quite possibly the worst offender of this because not only doesn't it make any sense from a story, which is far better in the 1998 animated movie but all of the controversy in the making of the movie as well, which I'm not going to get into
This. This perfectly sums up every single aspect of the problems I have not only with the reflakes, but Disney in general. As a GenXer, I remember Disney as a company that literally clawed its way back from the brink of extinction and rose to new successes. Just to get so high on their powertrip, that most of the films they have churned out in the past decade(Marvel/Stars Wars excl) is far worse than anything they came up with during their "Dark Age". I need to show this to my sibling, who just keeps sucking up these flawed productions as if they were candy, because "Disney!"
While I can admire and credit someone's work, I don't default to thinking something is good because I liked another thing they did. Summed up best as "I dont look at the name, I look at what they did."
Nintendo is incredibly depressing to me and my best explanation. The way they treat their fans is... not something I appreciate, put lightly. But I love quite a few games they made. What I've played is genuinely great. Just run by people that need to back off on the greed.
If you want someone to consume better media it also helps to show them better things :) don't disparage your sibling too much but show them something different.
is “reflakes” a typo or an intentional thing? and if so are u one of those weirdos who things “snowflake” is like. a good insult that still carries weight? 🫢
"They're specifically directing our attention to the gaping holes in the emotional fabric of the film" what a line 😂
They’re using “Reflection” the same way that the last three Star Wars movies use the Force theme. They’re using it as fan service instead of actually attaching meaning to it. Oh, and the same company made both. It all makes sense now...
And because they make money off of it, they'll keep doing it over and over. It'll never stop.
Different company, but it was the same with the music in the Hobbit movies. The theme for the ring wraiths was randomly used in battles in the Hobbit even though there were no ring wraiths. Because it sounded cool and that was all that mattered, apparently. -__-
This is such a perfect comparison 🙌
I think we can all agree that Disney, despite being bigger than they've ever been, is essentially dead. They're a soulless empty corporate shell of what they used to be.
@@johnnytopside2396 Or...and bear with me, they've always been a soulless empty corporate shell. It's just become more obvious.
I think the biggest problem with the movie is that they ruined the character of Mulan. They changed her from a young woman who uses her intelligence and wit to get ahead to a Mary Sue who is basically a Superhero. They made her completely unrelatable.
Exactly. That was from day one my biggest worry. Mulan sticks out even between the Disney Princesses because she doesn't really have a clearly defined goal. Her "I want song" is basically about her not knowing what she actually wants, outside of really desiring to have some place in the world. She doesn't go to war to prove anything, but she is a selfless person who wants to rescue her father. And she succeeds the moment she forgets about gender stereotypes and instead just relies on her own abilities, especially her smarts. I just knew that the people behind the remake wouldn't "get" this.
And from a purely feminist perspective, it is basically the Wonder Woman phenomen. Like, as happy as I was that we got finally a Wonder Woman movie, it didn't escape my attention that they changed "Amazones are women who got superstrong because they were able to develop without the interference from man, and Diana is the strongest between them, since she proved herself in a competition" (which was the back story in the TV show, which turned the character into a feminist icon) to "Amazons have been created by a male god to fight their war and Diana is extra special because she was specifically created to be a weapon against Ares". One story is empowering, the other is basically saying that Wonder Women is a special case. And that is exactly what they did with Mulan, she doesn't succeed as a standard women, oh no, she is just a special kind of women.
@@swanpride I didn't know that about Wonder Woman! That's very interesting, thank you for sharing :D
@@swanpride although to be fair, the first Wonder Woman movie focused more on Diana's internal conflict about humanity being worth saving over her conflict with powerful men
...at first...until they had David Thewliss fight her in CGI armor...
@@swanpride R.I.P. Cloris Leachman
honestly, from the first trailer, i was like "holy shit she's so boring it's probably gonna suck". never before have i been so satisfied to be right about something.
I'm a theartical costume major, with 3 years of opera history classes under my belt and you just explained opera infinity better in 10 minutes that my teacher did in 3 years. It also explains why my teachers were such snobs when I said I wanted to do costumes for musicals lol. Thank you for that great description and I look forward to seeing more of your videos!
18:33
That's the main issue I have with this movie. That it completely breaks the uplifting message of the original. The original movie's message was that while men and women are different in a variety of ways, the differences can be overcome by playing to your own strengths. You don't need to be someone else or even someone "special" to succeed and make a difference.
In this remake, Mulan is just good because of chi which is essentially saying that women have to have magic to even compare to men and I think that's incredibly sexist.
Biggest mistake: The lack of affection between father and daughter. The scene after the matchmaker, under the sakura tree, shows a loving father who doesn't care if she failed or not, but is interrupted by the army caller. This scene alone makes their relationship and later when he yells we get that's more of emotions going waywire and we are basically waiting for them to be okay after
Second biggest mistake: Taking away Mulan's actual 'power': BEING SMART. Though all the animated movie we see Mulan doing things in a diferent but smart way - feeding the chickens with the dog, having a second cup of tea, cheating effectively on her arm instead of the fan and most of all using the weights to climb the pole. THAT is her power: BEING SMART. That's way it's Mulan and only her who thinks of using the last firework to cause an avalanche.
Instead we have this second-rate super-hero movie that totally lacks any understanding of Chi or the actual myth of Hua Mulan
Don't forget that they have her make a winning move in Chinese checkers after studying the board for all of 2 seconds (near the beginning of the movie). Yeah, she's not the best fighter out of her immediate group, that would be Shang, she's probably not the fastest etc, but she's the smartest and the quickest witted while being good enough at everything else to make her a physical threat. Which makes her very dangerous without making her a super hero or undermining her fellow soldiers.
Then the remake made her Rey
The scene in the original that paints Mulan’s relationship with her father always makes me cry. The raw emotion and love and affection between the two hits *hard*, but in the remake I kind of forgot that her dad was even in the movie
I forgot a lot of people were in the movie.
@@Telcontar86 I see Rey as far more similar to the original Mulan than the remake. Yes Rey is born *different* but star wars does not try to hide her obvious weaknesses and intense physical struggles in the obnoxious way that 2020 Mulan hides hers. I would go as far to say that the new Mulan is more similar to Captain Marvel than she is to the original Mulan, which is so insanely annoying. I love that you highlighted the checkers match, because it also shows how effortless the flow of the movie feels, compared to the choppy feeling of this new, excuse me, trash.
@@chlojo1231
“star wars does not try to hide her obvious weaknesses and intense physical struggles”
Yes.
Yes it does.
And it’s definitely obnoxious about it.
@@APinchofBazel Oh you're for sure right about that, but star wars definitely made a better shitty protagonist than the mulan remake
Even the black horse of the original has more personality
And it's not like it's hard to make a live- action horse have personality. I was a horse kid, I saw all those movies- it's possible, and apparently stonking easy since there's a metric fuckton of horse girl movies
My favorite cow
@@skarlettsapphire4065 hehehe i dont know, if i think this is great or stupid, so i likethe comment......hehehe damit
lol I'd say even the falcon had more personality lmao
The "Khanny baby, we need a ride" scene
If you had been my music history professor in college, I could have aced it. You made clear and obvious so many concepts that I struggled with in school in a fraction of the time
I've noticed after watching Into the Spiderverse for the first time that Mulan and Miles have very similar character arcs. Both characters want to figure out how to keep their identity and do well in the world at the same time, despite the heavy expectations placed upon them by their family culture and environment. If the producers/directors/etc had given the live action Mulan the same amount of care as Into the Spiderverse, maybe it'd actually have a reason to exist other than to secure more money from the Chinese government.
When they found the doll at the end of A Girl Worth Fighting For...
...they found a girl worth fighting for.
@@gregoryford2532 I...I wasn't joking.
Omg😵🥺
@@gregoryford2532 Its called symbolism bruh. The girl they're fighting for is the girl who was slain by the huns and left behind that doll.
DAAAAAANG
Damn.
And on top of all that, cutting a girl worth fighting for also by necessity cuts the biggest emotional whiplash in the film--when they get to the village, the song cuts off, and it suddenly hits them that they're fighting in a war, for real, and war has consequences. Like, you can't make that work without the extreme high of the joyful chorus followed immediately by the realization of what this is actually going to be like.
Plus, the song plays into the overal theme of the movie...Mulan is kind of unusual in that it doesn't have the common set of songs for a Disney musical. There is no I want song, no side-kick song or anything like that. Instead every single song is about expectations and gender roles. "Honor to us all" describes all the expectations which are put on women (and mostly by women, btw), "Make a man out of you" describes all the expectation which are put on men (or soldiers) and "A Girl worth fighting for" describes the expectations men put on women. And "Reflections" is naturally about Mulan's inability to fit into any of those expectations.
Also we got no other song until the triumphal comeback of Make A Man Out Of You so even if the person watching doesn't notice it, the impact of the village scene lasts til half of the final act.
@@swanpride Reflection is definitely an "I want" song. In the movie it's indirectly stated as a question: "When will my reflection show who I am inside?" The question's derived from a desire for this outcome, and it's in response to Honor To Us All, the scene-setting and context for the audience against which her want contrasts.
It's even more explicitly stated in the full version of the song ( ua-cam.com/video/TyeKQkOvjPc/v-deo.html ), where the second verse opens with the direct "I want" statement:
How I pray, that a time will come (
This is HUGE. That abrupt cut and segue into "The Deserted Village" is a musical gut-punch if there ever was one. It's got to be one of the cleverest bits of sonic storytelling in all of Disney.
@@ShjadeNexayre You could interpret Reflexion as I want song, but honestly, a "true" I want song is about the Protagonist stating what goal it wants to reach. Reflexion is more saying that Mulan doesn't know herself what she actually wants, but she really would like to know herself. The only "goal" you could attach to the song is the wish to fit in. And yes, I know the full version, but the full version didn't make it into the movie, and that was a really good decision. Reflexion was supposed to be a full fledged I want song originally, no doubt, but it ended up being more a song about self-Reflexion, which is exactly why it resonates with so many people.
*That fact that the director didnt have experience with musicals and is trying to recreate a musical says a lot.*
There are so many frustrating things about the remake, but my personal pet peeve is the removal of the arrow-retrieving scene. It showcases her determination, outside-the-box thinking, and she uses an approach that doesn't rely on pure strength, so her ability to be the first to achieve it is believable.
Obviously, throwing out Make a Man Out of You is dumb, and the reasoning for doing it is also dumb, but replacing that major moment with...the water buckets (which were also in the original, but just as one part of the montage showing how she/the group is improving) is so anticlimactic and not nearly as effective. It's a pure strength/endurance challenge (and I guess some willpower), and it's not nearly as powerful a moment when she's just...strong enough to do it after a while.
Like, I could understand the desire to do something different with a remake. But what they did was cut the climax of that montage and replace it...a minor piece of that same montage. If they created a new scenario that hit the same themes as the animated movie's arrow retrieval, I'd at least give it respect for originality.
i could literally listen to you talk about opera for hours dude, be a nerd
Same.
Absolutely same, you are so good at introducing and explaining ideas
Ikr, I barely know a thing about opera but when you ranted about it at the beginning of your video I felt like I should be taking notes because it was so cool and informative
Same!
Plot twist: you probably already have
Girl: *kicks an arrow*
Disney: "Cool!"
Another girl: *turns into a bird*
Disney: "Awesome!"
Guy: *sings about what kind of girl he likes*
Disney: "WHAT DOTH BE THIS SORCERY!? HE BEITH A WARLOCK!"
THIS COMMENT WINS
Sideways (this vid's critic) is only half right. Yes it's the lack of the song and total lack of character, but it's soooo much more they fucked up. Just like Indiana Jones 4 that opened with those terribly CGI chipmunks you could tell that it was gonna be a shitty movie, so too with Mulan. You start the movie with a young Mulan that shows skills that even a circus acrobat would be jealous at (poorly executed though coz you can see on the feet that it's just wire work) and you know straight away it's gonna be Mary Sue Mulan. Hence the repeat of that 'reflection' song. But it gets even worse as when she throws off her armor and disguise, the ENTIRE reason for the entire movie goes to the fucking toilet and you realize that the writers cared absolutely ZERO about the story and all about empowering women... which they executed in such a poorly way that at best it looks like a mockery of female empowerment.
@@stijnvdv2 and how much they misrepresented Chinese culture.
Disney was trying to be more faithful to chinese culture and the 1500+years legendary poem known as ballad of mulan.
First of all lets start with the replacement of mulan's name as Fa mulan in the cartoon to Hua mulan in the remake, Fa is the other dialect (which is Cantonese) that people in guangdong and hongkong used and that is not accurate since mulan lived in northern china (northern wei dynasty) not southern china and Hua mulan is the correct one and Hua mulan means as "blossom magnolia". The emperor's name "son of heaven" also taken from the ballad.
In ancient times man and woman had long hairstyle but styled in a different ways where man always made bun and girls comb their hair if you cut your hair it meant as a disgrace to your family thats why they took it off. mulan father was a noble war hero which was described in the ballad of mulan and her father trained her since she was a kid n it was accurate in the ballad that she already skilled even before she joined the army the animated mulan created different story by adding a sympathy that she didnt know everything. The phoenix fenghuang symbolizes both genders man and female n it suits mulan character as well as a replacement of dragon that cannot be used as a compannion, mushu was too direspectful since in chinese culture they potrayed dragon as big and powerful and often potrayed as the emperor not like tiny stupid little lizard with weird accent. The leader of the huns name also accurate to the ballad since they used "KHAN" because the northern invaders(the mongols or turkic) often called their leaders as "KHAN" but "BORI" was actually not the real name of their khan. In the beginning where mulan rides a horse and she finds out 2 rabbits running side by side was actually taken from the ballad and it is a metaphor. And the place where mulan lives not really that accurate it is fujian house it is located in china but not in northern china which every part of china has their own style of buildings. and the witch is a development character of the falcon from the animated. in chinese culture there's a woman who can shapeshift and it is called "fox spirit" or the nine tailed that use their powers to deceive people(evil spirit) with the practice of "taoism" which i thought that was a concept that disney has taken . Mulan identity has never revealed during the 12 years of war she was the one who revealed herself when her comrades visited her in her village and all of them were shocked but also happy and respected that mulan is a girl. The ending of the ballad was a metaphor from the 2 rabbits.
The inaccuracy in this movie were the concept of "chi" which disney described it as a super power . And when mulan fought the huns in the battlefield they called her a witch and that was confusing me.
@@jalifritz8033 many of the parts of the live actions were accurate to chinese culture and the legendary poem . But i thought they were uninformed about "chi" concept. Mulan father at the very beginning told that "chi" is the boundless energy of a life itself. And the general donnie yen also said it "everyone born with it" both of them said the right thing but after some scenes and dialogues of the movie they forgot it and started to make it feel like a "superpower" instead of a "energy of life" . I understand that they were trying to make it like wuxia genre where people can run on walls and do the impossible movements its just an asian aesthetic style of a movie but i do realize when it connects with the wrong informations of chi people started to think that chi can make people run on walls etc 😂.The witch actually a development character of the falcon from the animated movie. There is a chinese mythology a "fox spirit" where they potrayed a woman who can shapeshift to a fox their powers is to deceive people(evil spirit) and absorb "chi" and use the practice of taoism which i think disney also has taken that concept.
I wish Sideways still made videos. I learned a lot from him.
Dude. You made opera interesting. You didn't bore us. You simplifying things like you do makes it fun and more easy to digest
Mulan 2020 failed to:
•Be respectful culturally
•Make good music stuff
•Make a good reperesentation of China
•Make Chinese people feel reperesented
•Make it realistic
•Have emotion
•Build characters
•Build relationships
•Make girls feel empowered
•Get the real message across
The worst part was:
The director/ producers mentioned they made the remake because they wanted it to be more culturally accurate, AND YET THEY MADE IT WORSE.
If anything, the original isn't that far away from being culturally accurate. They only flaw I saw in the original was the dinner scene where the family only ate rice and tea.
@Victoria Saade I haven't even clicked on the link and I think it's our beautiful deity, Xiran Jay Zhao
Edit: I'm right
Most importantly:
-include Mushu
@Victoria Saade
Yep! I watched that video before.
As an ethnic Chinese, I also hate 2020 mulan, chi can be quite bullshit
@@Raya-ir4tm it shouldn't be that hard to do both tho, it's their job. They said they wanted to be make it more representative, but they truly didnt care because they failed at that too and only made it worse :/
"I've bored you to tears ranting about opera."
I must disagree sideways I've been dying for someone to explain opera to me for forever. And this was QUALITY
A whole video about opera PLEASE
@@laurenberck55 agreed, as a musically ignorant individual I'd like to know the intricate difference between opera, musical, and anything else in-between.
Yeah i'm not sure how Sideways doesn't know his audience is literally here for that
Opera is lot like Shakespeare or any of the dozen books they force you to read in high school. Everyone is vaguely aware of it, but unless you sit down and explain WHY it's important, no one cares. There are millions of musical theater fans that have no idea why they should care about Opera, despite Opera being a direct ancestor of musical theater.
I literally forgot this video was about Mulan lol. I was so happy to be learning about opera and musicals. Maybe it's not information I actively sought out cause I didn't even know where to start tbh but it's information I'm happy to have gained regardless if I'm unlikely to really use it. I want a whole and full breakdown about music in general, the genres, terms, vocabulary, THE WORKS AND ALL!! Honestly just knowing he enjoys talking about music is so fun and the fact it's informative is a major plus but his enthusiasm is the best :D
I'm only half-way through and I'm laughing at how any opportunity to diss on Les Mis/Cats films is used in various videos. But more seriously, I just discovered this channel and I adore it! Thank you for putting so much effort and your clear and entertaining explanations.
18:05 Sometimes, in stories, there are two conflicts: a primary conflict, usually more profound and nuanced and related to the protagonist and a secondary conflict, usually a physical one, which is what drives the plot along. In Lord of The Rings, the primary conflict was if Frodo could resist the Ring and the secondary conflict is if the army of Men could defeat the Orcs. In Mulan, the primary conflict is if she will be able to be respected by her family and community while being herself and the secondary conflict is if they are able to stop the emperor from getting kidnapped or killed. In Portal 2, the primary conflict is if GLaDOS or Whatley can overcome the will of the mainframe/Caroline and be themselves and the secondary conflict is if you can escape.
I thought it was weird how the Reflections song kept playing as if it was meant to be a heroic theme, when it was originally a lament song. When I hear it, I think _"Mulan is sad about not being herself and she wants to fit in,"_ so hearing it when she's being heroic has such a big disconnect for me.
@@FluffyBunniesOnFire - The live-action film makes no attempt to redefine what Reflections means, nor does it swap between a minor and major key. It's as if the filmmaker said _"I want this moment to feel like Mulan,"_ so they dropped Reflections into the timeline. Since the film never established what Reflections is meant to evoke, by default I assign the original meaning it had from the animated film. Frankly, "Honor to Us All" was the main theme of the original film, as per the opening titles, so if they wanted to evoke a "Mulan theme," that may have been a better song choice.
@@TwentyPercentDash the "main theme" or "Mulan's theme" is the leitmotif that pops up in the score in Short Hair and Gratitude and like a dozen other songs
~WHAT DOES MY REFLECTION SHOW, WHEN I'M KILLING THESE DUDES?~
I was so engrossed with the opera lesson I literally did a double-take and went “OH right, this is a Mulan video”
I'd totally listen to him talk Opera for hours, I'd love to hear all his thoughts on the subject 👍
I did the same thing lol
I saw this comment before I was even a minute in - congrats on top comment - and it still happened to me.
i legit got a bit choked up when you talked about the original arrow challenge scene and explained how the music makes it so impactful. literally 5 seconds of audio and a quick shot of mulan climbing that pole and my throat closed right up
15 minutes of this video was just a setup for talking about Mulan and it's damn freaking entertaining. This is proof that slow-paced stories are amazing.
“Damn shes thiccc, im totally gonna win jeprody tomorrow”
That's most of what I took from this, not gonna lie.
Yup it was but put it in the hands of an amazing performer (Pavarotti and Corelli), you're gonna side with him
jeprody
Put that on a shirt.
However as Sideways just pointed out in the description, he already won. Now the song Nessun Dorma is how he waits for her chic to guess the answer to his hard Jeapordy question which is his name
Oh hey another installment of “watch sideways lose his mind over why Disney remakes make no sense”
Is it too soon to call this a cliche?
My favorite
*lose
Kenobi: that's, why I'm here.
I came here to watch you dunk on Mulan endlessly, which you did perfectly, and got a glorious 12 minute history chronicling the rise of musical theater from opera. That was more informative and way more entertaining than my music history class in college.
So basically in Hunch Back of Notre Dame "Hellfire" is Aria and in The Lion King "Be prepared" is recitativo?
"Damn she's thick, I'm gonna win Jeopardy tomorrow" is one of the best phrases I've ever heard.
Imagine Pavarotti singing this lyric instead of original Italian lol
Especially delivered in that mozzarella white voice that's *just* this side of expanding the consonants.
Technically not true, since the "Jeopardy" part happens before this song. It's more like "there's a bonus round and I'll win this one too".
They don't just cut the song "Reflections" they also cut the moment of reflection.
Appreciating the musical nod literally requires you to have watched the original. What a stupid concept when a remake requires you to know the original to understand the emotion of a scene
It appears very little reflecting occurred at Disney during this production xD
@@DarthFerder It's just so hackneyed and lazy; they expect *you* to do all the work while they just half ass elements from the previous version like "you recognize this, right? Nostalgia, right?! YAY NOSTALGIA!"
That's why all of these remakes suck they not only can't stand up on their own, they don't WANT to stand up on their own. Love or hate the Maleficent movies, at least they're trying to do their own thing and will live or die by their own merit. But these other movies don't even TRY, and Mulan is the worst example of it yet.
I haven’t watched it yet and don’t plan on watching it but all I have to say is THEY CUT IT OUT?! That was literally one of my favourite songs from the classic Mulan!!!
@@into.moonlight christina aguilera covered it for the credits like she did in the original but yeah i was sad to see there was no reflection :(( x
I just wanna say, your analysis of the themes in the original Mulan about “succeeding in the world without compromising yourself” nearly brought me to tears. I recently came out as transgender and I feel more like myself than ever before and ready to take on the world. Thank you, I needed to hear that.
Hope you're doing great!
Your “current self” is a delusional plagued on by society encouraging these degenerate views instead of being straight up honest with you. No matter how times you wish you could be the gender you want to be, you’ll never be able to achieve it.
Reflection from the original Mulan hits on a different level when you’re trans/nonbinary
@@mysticwater9056 You mean mentally ill
I've heard that "Reflections" from Mulan has become an anthem of sorts for the transgender community, and while not exactly its original intent, it's cool to hear how it affected you in that way.
The difference between the 98 Mulan and the remake is just mind-blowing
Not only did this man make music theory interesting he also made explaining opera interesting
1998 Mulan: "You can achieve your goals as long as you have inner strength, determination, bravery and persistence."💪💜
2020 Mulan: "You can reach your goals as long as you have random superpowers, are totally invincible, and are practically a perfect Mary Sue!" 🙄
and i cant believe that 2020 version was supposed to be more realistic!
Perfectly summarizes 99% of "strong female protagonist" movies nowadays.
Actually no: 2020 Mulan was "You can achieve your goals as long as long as you practice the CCP sanctioned martial art, the Tai Chi".
No seriously, this entire movie was meant to be only Tai Chi propaganda. the CCP is investing immenstly in promoting Tai Chi as if it was the ultimate martial art, since most chinese Tai Chi practicioners have been bribed or threatened into the CCP pocket and at this point it's being used as part of their political machine.
Disney probably: “We wanted to make a movie for young girls to feel inspired by. We wanted to give them a hero they could look up to and emulate.”
Young girls watching the movie: “I don’t have super powers. What now?”
That's Disney now, they can't write female characters anymore, just Mary Sues.... God forbid women have any personalities or faults!!!
*Mulan 2020 doesn't work because:*
She is perfect from the start. She doesn't struggle, she doesn't learn and she's never out of her comfort zone. A perfect character =/= a strong character. Struggle =/= weakness.
And worst of all... *in the end of Mulan2020, she bows to the patriarchy, literally* whereas in the original *even the emperor bows to her* for what she has achieved.
Its a twisted, empty and sterile movie. And quite conservative.
Everything Sideays said, plus your comment PLUS they ruined the father-daughter relationship which is another key part of the story. I get so mad, don't think any of the other remakes have annoyed me as much (except maybe Jasmine's Speechless song, in the original she was always outspoken, rest of the remakes are just meh)
also they "promised" to be accurate to Chinese culture but bastardized the concept of Qi (which is basically life force in ALL people not just men), added witches which aren't a thing in Chinese mythology, added that phoenix-rises-from-ashes bullshit which is EGYPTIAN NOT CHINESE, got the time periods of the fashion wrong, AND SO MANY MORE
I actually vocally gasped when I watched a review after rewatching the original movie and heard mulan say "I know my place" and that be treated as the thesis of the movie when it was the antagonistic view of the original
The main actress had three expressions throughout the movie and two of them did not require any facial movement whatsoever. She looked like a botox ridden 50 year old crone, struggling to emote. Her delivery did not help too. I've read somewhere the Chinese audience mocked her for her lack of affect and inability of emoting.
@@azmodanpc You're not wrong, we think her acting sucks too.
We miss you sideways, you don’t have to come back, but we hope you’re doing good ❤
Sideways i wish you'd come back to talk about how the recent movies/adaptions (like Wish and new Mean Girls) aren't working PLEAASE COME BACK YOUR VIDEOS ARE TOP TIER
I’m raising my daughter on the 90s renaissance films. she can see these live actions when she’s old enough to cringe and laugh at them with me.
Excellent parenting there.
some of the newer ones I think are still good (non- life actions ones ofc) Like tangled or even frozen (once you get over how obnoxiously this franchise has been hyped up)
You'll do the world a Huge favor if you do so
The new jungle book was really good tho in my opinion. But that's the only remake I have a high opinion of.
You’re on the right path, for sure 👌
Disney producing Mulan 2020: we gotta make this movie more realistic, so we *have* to remove the music
Disney 2 minutes later: haha magic bird machine go brrr
C H I
The entirety of humanity: I'm mad that the Make a Man Out of You song isn't in new Mulan
Disney: I missed the part where that's my problem
This was a really excellent video, well put together, and clearly explained. I actually enjoyed the lessons on opera, thank you!
I think one of the movie's glaring flaws (and I never even watched it) was reducing Mulan from someone clever who used her wits to compensate for a lack of physical strength to a chick with superpowers because heaven forbid smarts and being the best you you can be stand for anything. Disney's a disgrace for...well, many reasons, but a big one is that they've lost the art of storytelling. I'm pretty sure the last original, let alone good film they made, was Zootopia.
Cinderella 2015 was great, shush. It carried the spirit of the original and improved on what the 50's film lacked, especially in terms of characterization. Charming was just a pretty face but Kit has personality and I will never not love that.
Starting 3:22 to end with "This whole piece is 'Damn she's thicc, I'm totally gonna win Jeopardy tomorrow'" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 freaking hilarious!
I came looking for trashing on Mulan, but I got trashing on Mulan and an opera lesson this is pretty neat
Disney was trying to be more faithful to chinese culture and the 1500+years legendary poem known as ballad of mulan.
First of all lets start with the replacement of mulan's name as Fa mulan in the cartoon to Hua mulan in the remake, Fa is the other dialect (which is Cantonese) that people in guangdong and hongkong used and that is not accurate since mulan lived in northern china (northern wei dynasty) not southern china and Hua mulan is the correct one and Hua mulan means as "blossom magnolia". The emperor's name "son of heaven" also taken from the ballad.
In ancient times man and woman had long hairstyle but styled in a different ways where man always made bun and girls comb their hair if you cut your hair it meant as a disgrace to your family thats why they took it off. mulan father was a noble war hero which was described in the ballad of mulan and her father trained her since she was a kid n it was accurate in the ballad that she already skilled even before she joined the army the animated mulan created different story by adding a sympathy that she didnt know everything. The phoenix fenghuang symbolizes both genders man and female n it suits mulan character as well as a replacement of dragon that cannot be used as a compannion, mushu was too direspectful since in chinese culture they potrayed dragon as big and powerful and often potrayed as the emperor not like tiny stupid little lizard with weird accent. The leader of the huns name also accurate to the ballad since they used "KHAN" because the northern invaders(the mongols or turkic) often called their leaders as "KHAN" but "BORI" was actually not the real name of their khan. In the beginning where mulan rides a horse and she finds out 2 rabbits running side by side was actually taken from the ballad and it is a metaphor. And the place where mulan lives not really that accurate it is fujian house it is located in china but not in northern china which every part of china has their own style of buildings. and the witch is a development character of the falcon from the animated. in chinese culture there's a woman who can shapeshift and it is called "fox spirit" or the nine tailed that use their powers to deceive people(evil spirit) with the practice of "taoism" which i thought that was a concept that disney has taken . Mulan identity has never revealed during the 12 years of war she was the one who revealed herself when her comrades visited her in her village and all of them were shocked but also happy and respected that mulan is a girl. The ending of the ballad was a metaphor from the 2 rabbits.
The inaccuracy in this movie were the concept of "chi" which disney described it as a super power . And when mulan fought the huns in the battlefield they called her a witch and that was confusing me.
I liked original movie , its the best ,but I like to new version of original movie Mulan ,like them both. Maybe you think I don't like new version, I like it ,but didn't know this video was explain opera singing and talking about new movie in modern version .haha
One small, obscure detail that I hate in the remake is the reference to the original ballad. In the ballad, some of the last few lines go something like this
“When a pair of rabbits run side by side, who can distinguish male from female.”
In the remake she completely butchers it! She sees them RUNNING side by side, then says to her family “I saw two rabbits. A male and a female.” THATS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE MESSAGE FROM THE BALLAD. The whole point is that on the surface, you can see the difference, but when they work together you can’t tell. It just made me so mad that she said the OPPOSITE of what the line from the ballad meant
雙兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌？that's the last line of the original poem, literally literally every kid learn it in elementary school *grade three*. It's not small and it's not obscure to EVERY Chinese.
@@doc0core They meant the detail that was in the remake, not the actual ballad itself :)
@@lotuscrest You missed the point.
@@doc0core It's clear that you have missed the point. You conjured up an insult that didn't exist.
@@AK-wb2ww you conjured up an misunderstanding that didn't exist. I was not insulted by the film. I was insulted that you AK knows me better than me.
Really enjoyed all your thoughtful, well written analysis videos. Hope all is well and that you come back to make more someday!
Hey sideways love your videos and they are so fun to listen to and extremely interesting. Quick side note about the Disney remakes 2010s Alice version isn’t Disney first live action remake; there 101 Dalmatians in 1996 with Glenn close.
Again love your vids just wondered if that slipped your mind. Thanks
"It's Lucky Charms with no marshmallows."
This sentence right here is probably the most concise and pithy a review that live-action Mulan will ever get or deserve.
But I literally hate the marshmallows in Lucky Charms bahahahah
Lucky Charms with no marshmallows is like my dream cereal, but yes it’s a good analogy
This is the exact point I had to pause the video because I was WHEEZING. It's so perfect.
@Cat Egorical I hate Honey Nut Cheerios and the marshmallows in Lucky Charms. Ever since I was a kid. To be honest, I don’t under why but I understand the metaphor since my sister would love the marshmallows
@Cat Egorical Wouldn't regular Cheerios be the same, not Honey Nut Cheerios?
@Cat Egorical It's less so people wanting the marshmallows and more... the rest of the cereal is just so unbearably bland. I never wanted to eat Lucky Charms because I thought the marshmallows were too sweet and the cereal proper was the exact opposite extreme.
My least favourite change was definitely Mulan's super-chi. The 1998 Mulan wasn't physically gifted, she was just resourceful and willing to think outside the box. Her problem was that she found her gender role too limiting, and the overall message of the movie ends up being something along the lines of "these gender roles are too rigid, let people do what they want." In the new one there's no indication that Mulan isn't good at being a woman, or that the assigned roles for women suck, she just... has man powers for some reason. Putting aside the implication that masculinity is a literal superpower, the message ends up being "these gender roles are totally fine as they are, but this one character is going to switch roles." I have a feeling this was someone's idea of progressive, but taken in context with the 1998 version it's definitely a step backwards.
I never really saw the message as "these gender roles are too rigid," but rather "Do what you can do within your own abilities. Accept your differences and solve problems in your own way." It felt less about gender roles (I know that lent credence to the movie's plot, but it wasn't just about men vs. women) and more about finding your own way. Even amongst the men in the movie, there were unique limitations they each faced.
All in all though, I agree that this remake tears down the entire message of the original.
I think the chi and the gender-chi are even two issues. The gender-chi seems very hollow as a thought out idea like it's just "chi in women is bad because sexism" when they could've done something with it. Idk, make it that super-chi in men is usually different and having "man-like" super-chi is bad. So Idk, women super-chi would be about healing or soothing or something like that whilst we see the "male-version". Mulan having it as a woman could just break open the gender roles some more. That the way you super-chi works isn't bound to gender but to ones character/nature.
The super-chi in general bothered me because in the original Mulan worked for her skills. It was her own strength and mind that got her to be one of the top warriors. Here, it's just that she remembered she has this cheat-code and she has been perfect to begin with. Like that's the reason she succeeded. Giving her superpowers somehow felt more sexist because why can't she do it naturally?
As a Chinese person the whole super-Chi thing just pisses me off to no end. Chi is an essence of being, like blood, and gender role blood is just so dumb. I’m not criticizing super-Chi as a concept since it’s pretty common practice in power fantasy media in China, but even in those, the Chi is trained and honed for years until the user becomes super sayan or whatever. Not only does this make it seem that power is male dominant, it’s also inherent, that you’re born powerful rather than made powerful.
And one more addition, in the words of Knuckles the Echidna, “anytime someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo.”
Well said!
Having a marathon rewatch of your entire channel tonight getting over this flu and your knowledge and passion about this topic makes every minute grip and captivate the audience. Thank you for all your hard work.
At this point I'm just rewatching all your videos because I've seen all of them. I love them so much. I've always been a soundtrack nerd and I love musicals.
“It’s like Lucky charms without the marshmallows” is the best way to describe literally all of the Disney live action remakes
Idk I think Cinderella was great.
But only Cinderella. The rest just make me sad.
And the pieces spell out “when women have the same cruel vile ambitions as men, that’s progressive development, yasss kween colonize”
Disney’s remakes are bad, but their _readaptings_ are generally good. Maleficient, Alice in Wonderland, and Cinderella did at least some original stuff to spice up their stories. We can trust them to make good original-ish content, seeing as the original Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Alice in Wonderland (as well as all the stuff being adapted to live action) are all classics in both the Disney canon and fairytale literature. They made their own Lucky Charms marshmallows for those films. I think that explains some stuff.
Perhaps it's just the nostalgia talking, but I really enjoyed Alice in Wonderland. That particular version of the Cheshire Cat is, at least visually, my absolute favourite, and will always have a special place in my heart
YES! I HATE this trend of live-action remakes.
Viewers: isnt this video about Mulan?
Sideways, talking about the history and evolution of opera and how it became modern musical theatre: We'll get there when we get there!
#everysidewaysvideoever
I absolutely love your videos! Im a music student currently and your videos are so well done and i love using them to learn more! :D
i always found it funny how they say «people dont sing in real life like musicals».
unless you are soldier, or a worker in some random factory, places or jobs where people sing, not just to sing, but more of a moral boost or even as basic of maintaining a rhythim to work.
So my husband and I have some rules when it comes to watching tv. one of them is "talking is allowed, but you must pause the show first", the other one is "try not to pause when the show is trying to build up a moment"
it took us 6 HOURS to finish Mulan 2020. we started at around 9 pm thinking we'll be done by bed time only to go to bed at around 3 am!
we had to stop every 20 seconds or so to bitch for about 40 seconds. no moments were off limits because there was no building up to anything (of course).
I'm amazed that you managed to keep it under 25 minutes!
Something similar happened with me, my bf and 13 reasons why.
Not only kept it under 25 minutes, but somehow talked about the movie for less than 10 minutes! He spent most of the video talking about the history of operas and musicals. Which, admittedly, was a lot more fun than the Mulan remake.
well you must be some big Karens because I loved this movie..
Literally, every time i say about a movie "this wasn't as bad as the live action of mulan" to anyone... I get the response "ypu can't keep comparing things to the worst thing ever made"
@@stephhhsmiiith Just because they didn't like the movie doesn't mean they are Karens. They are entitled to their own opinions about the movie and they didn't bother anyone.
"I made it bad, as a joke"
Disney, probably.
@Fkeu "We're bleeding (money), making us the victor!" - Disney Accountants, probably.
@Fkeu I don't know the origin of the joke, I've just seen it around somewhere.
Another score for the “musical theatre is just opera, but not boring” team
Yeah, when he described operetta I thought "that's musical theatre" and then a few moments later he explains "this morphed into musical theatre" and I laughed.
@@pabloapostar7275 In college, I took a "History of Opera" class for fun, and I remember the moment when I went, "Hang on... so musicals are operas, but with talking instead of singing?!" and the professor went, "Yeah, pretty much."
Lowkey opposite for me. It’s just because I don’t like musical theatre music and I love operatic music
@@hisokamorow1816
I can understand and respect that
Definetly
I absolutely love that Sideways’ channel logo is of a sideways alto clef. Nice touch!
"Damn she's thicc, I'm totally gonna win Jeopardy tomorrow."
Lost it. 🤣
“Aria is when someone stands on stage and screams their feelings to the back wall”
And you are payed to do this?? I’ve found my calling.
I'm dead XD
Omg lmfao
Haha
It need an insane amount of training . . .but otherwise, go for it
I'M VERY SAD TODAYYYYYYYY BUT I SING SO GOOD SO GIVE US MONEYYYYYYY
-Opera
also Reflection is literally Mulan having an identity crisis so it doesn’t really make sense to have it playing over so much stuff
It's meta commentary for how this whole movie represents Disney having an identity crisis, being torn between pandering to it's western audience and pandering to it's eastern audience.
@@bengwynn935 this is one property Disney should just leave alone. All the politics surrounding it, it’s not worth it. You’re ALWAYS going to piss off someone
@@bengwynn935 if only they were self aware like that lmao
They couldn’t make “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” Mulan’s theme song, because, well obviously, that would undercut the whole “girl power” vibe, even though out of the two it’s the better option. There’s absolutely nothing empowering about “Reflection,” but “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” is pure hype from start to finish. That song gets me so powered up to defeat the Huns.
I really hope Sideways does an opera video, lol. I LOVE hearing about it
“Now that I’ve bored you to death”
Honestly dude, your videos never bore me. I love watching them
“Why Mulan 2020 didn’t work” cannot be explained without a 10-part documentary. However, I accept this into the evidence pile.
I've been watching videos on it (w absolutely no intention of watching the actual movie) and maybe I should make a playlist at this point xD Schaffrillas covered cinematic flaws, Xiran Jay Zhao covered cultural fails, I think shad did one on tactical/combat fails, and now we've got musical+pacing fails. Plus a free opera lesson.
@@Soroboruo hope you also added Accented Cinema as well lol!!!
I'd watch that tbh
@@Soroboruo Agreed, I remember when I watched the movie I thought: this sucked. Then I go to UA-cam and discover the 7-dimensional fail that explained why it sucked. Makes me appreciate the different lens through which one can analyze a movie!
@@Soroboruo I couldn’t find your playlist so I went ahead and made one with the ones you mentioned, hope you don’t mind.
"Dayum boi she thicc, im totally gonna win jeopardy tomorrow" ngl, thatd be one helluva rap song
15:40 Holy shit, I forgot you were talking about Mulan
I love how I'm a third of the way through the video and Mulan has only briefly been mentioned, I love the build up and the clear background explanation before the final death knell of the videos' topic :D
You describing Nessun dorma as: "Damn she thicc! I'm _totally_ going to win Jeopardy tomorrow" has *MADE* my 2021 so far. That's gonna be hard to beat.
What made me not care about the movie’s protagonist is that her main problem was hiding her amazing powers. They’re not even bad or cursed, which would make her hiding it more interesting, it’s just that she’s too perfect for the world to accept. I rooted for Mulan because she struggled. She had to struggle with her self image then find ways to not only become a capable solider but also find what is the best version of herself. This Mulan’s struggles were immediately over once she stopped holding back.
Not to mention the way the power is treated is completely asinine. Magical women in ancient China are not stigmatized, they’re valued as shaman and such. The whole idea of witches is completely foreign. Even more, even if she was accused of being evil or something, she would be accused of being non-human, like an fox spirit or something. This movie feels like the Monkey King was written with a combination of “My powers are so powerful no one would like me” fanfiction, an European plot pretext, and an attempt at female empowerment. Not only was the protagonist too perfect, there is no struggle or really anything interesting, and emotions and plot are just thrown in to limit the protagonist’s and antagonist’s powers.
21:28 they used reflection the same why they used the force theme for rise of sky walker as in when something cool happens they put it in
I had to go back and rewatch the concubine (Be a Man Reprise) scene from the original when you brought it up and my god. It's just. So good. It kills me what they did to this.
As a literal opera singer, I was not expecting to hear such an articulate, well done, explanation of opera when clicking on a why Mulan sucks video. Such good content mate, taught opera better than half of the professors I've met!
I was also happy about his explanation^^
I like opera a lot, but never heard a proper explanation.
Now I can proudly say I like Arias XD
Literally same😆
One thing I would like to point out though, is that Opera hasn't always been an amusement exclusive to rich and educated people: people from all social classes used to enjoy a good night at the theater watching the latest representation of Mozart's Don Giovanni or Verdi's Aida (of course, the rich could afford the best seats, and the poors had to be content with seats farthest from the stage, and with the worst acoustic), and some opera pieces were so widely popular that people would sing them on the street while attending to their business. Eg Giuseppe Verdi was so popular even within the poor, uneducated masses that on the day of his funeral people all over Milan broke into spontaneous choirs of his famous "Va pensiero" (which was also interpreted as a metaphor of italian condition before unification, and as such had been popularized as a hymn of the Italian Unification movement).
So I don't really know how it came to be that nowadays Opera is commonly regarded as an exclusive of the highest social classes that the common folk could never understand or enjoy, but since I have worked as a trainee italian teacher to foreign Opera singers, and I plan to become a teacher of italian language and culture to foreigners, i would really like to contribute to the death of this misconception, even though I myself am not the greatest fan of Opera.
In a video that has NOTHING to do about opera
@@lyleinnoe2210 have you watched the video? Cause if you just went off the title this makes sense, but if you watched the video then what happened.
And don’t forget how team Disney worked WITH and AROUND the internment camps
They tried being like, “it’s just 78 seconds!! Why are people mad 🥺”
Dude, it’s 78 seconds, you can’t get the B-roll somewhere NOT falsely imprisoning people because of their religion?
78 seconds is a lot of time in a movie, dismissing it as "it's just 78 seconds" is nonsense. 78 seconds is the length of a lot of action scenes.
@@browncoat697 Did you miss the part about internment camps or are you just that apathetic and stupid?
@@artificialraspberify they agreed with op and went further into it?
@@artificialraspberify dude they are agreeing with you chill
yah, and it's not like they were there for literally 78 seconds and then dipped out on the 79th second. they would have had to do a lot of things to get those 78 seconds of footage. and paid to do those things.
also fuckin'....are there no other places with rolling fields and mountains? MUST they have done it within the radius of literal concentration caps?
Sideways I miss you... come back!!!!
Can I just mention how much I appreciate that your go-to "opera" clip is my favourite Diane Damrau performance of all time?! We stan a legend