Correction 2: A lot of comments are saying the poem should be 双兔傍地走. I have seen both used. But the version I shown at 0:22 says 兩兔, and it's from the year 1094 (Song Dynasty), so... Yeah I'm sticking to that. Correction 1: Thanks to commenter Luke Huang pointed out, I typed the wrong line of the poem at 17:47. It should be 雄兔腳撲朔，雌兔眼迷離，兩兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌 Instead I repeated 兩兔傍地走 twice like a dumb dumb. ------------------- Wow, 18 minutes huh? Guess I really do hate this movie.
"The CGI looks like utter crap. Maybe it wouldn't have been a problem if teh filmmakers had skillshare." Oof. That wasn't just a shot, that was a firing squad.
The stylistic choice was probably made by a bunch of men in suits at a table, the animators had to do their best to flesh out the vision that these people had, which is some kind of aesthetic bastardization and hodgepodge of phoenixes from multiple cultures I felt bad hearing that remark, it seemed really misguided, but I understand the anger
"the cgi looks like utter crap maybe it wouldn't have been a problem if the animators joined skillshare" is a way funnier line when you remember sponsored videos have to be approved by the company
I imagine sponsors on UA-cam must have a sense of humour, at least. And good advertisement comes from having a good sense of humour or doing good for the world. It was pretty hilarious though, not gonna lie.
Yeah, I noticed that when he pointed that out. It was the first time I heard someone point that fact out. She starts out not a good soldier, but so do the boys. They're all just as clumsy and amateuristic (that's not a word. It can't be). That just further shows how much the cartoon understood the core messages of the ballad, unlike the live action remake.
Historical speaking though, Mulan does known better before going to war. She was trained by her father. So I guess they were just trying to go with the real thing. But fail miserly.
It really stresses the important point that genders are often better at certain things because they simply are trained / expected to learn different skills more. One should not deny natural differences, but those are averages where the shifts mostly just show at the extremes of the spectrum.
BASICALLY THE DIRECTOR OF DISNEY RIGHT NOW IS FUCKING IT ALL UP, WITH THE SUPER POWERFULL PROTAGONIST like rey and mulan ,,ITS BEING WORST FOR FEMINISM holy crap, CHANGE THE FUCKING DIRECTOR OR THE PERSON GIVING THE DIRECTIONS ..jesus christ !
@JT leftist disney is aways the best disney ,you have to be leftist in order to sell to other people and talk about emotions, otherwise youre gonna be a moron from the right ,,lol there are no good right wing director that manage people, lol . what you have here is some directors with the a weird and wrong feminist aproach or understanding , then letting their ideology inspirations get in the way of the plot story it self, that is wron because theres need to be balance here, no extremes from any side ...and by the way. fuck you
right, the contrast or whatever u wanna call it of him lovingly talking about the animated film and its impact and his first time seeing it to saying "and u fxcked it up", HAH!
OG Mulan: "How can you tell female from male when hares are running side by side?" 2020 Mulan: "So anyway I saw two hares running and I could totally tell them apart."
This. Shows the writers not only didn’t understand the point of the original poem but also somehow found a way to express the exact opposite. What a disgrace...
what?? she didn’t say that in the 2020 version... she just guessed that there is one male and one female. but i think it also implies that there’s equality between male and female, both can do the things the other can do, and so it doesn’t matter which is which???
I've only seen the Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella remakes but that's the problem in a nutshell with both of those movies as well. Disney doesn't understand the original movies.
and all they had to do was check out what the fans think by googling it .-. seriously tumblr, reddit, yt all those sites could give them amazing advice
Same also with the live action Jungle Book. In the Disney animated Jungle Book, they show how Mowgli was able to grow strong by being supported by a lot of friends and having a lot of "good" (debatable) role models. They shape him. In the live action, he's just a Mary Sue who proves Man is the ultimate animal by constantly besting other animals much older and more experienced than him by Dexter's Labbing up some twigs and grass into stuff even modern technology can't make with those materials given a lot more time and people.
@@drkiwihouseMD That's not passive-aggressiveness you're hearing, that's the shrewdly-expressed anger of an intelligent Chinese person. Anger is not expressed the same way in Chinese as it is in English.
Passive aggressive is when you indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them but he's expressed his opinion openly and clearly
Her line about the two rabbits running side-by-side _completely_ misses the point of the original poem. She says, "I think one is a female and one is male" when the poem says 安能辨我是雄雌？"How can you tell the female from male?"
@Michael it's just the good old American made faux woke, nothing Chinese about it. They feel like they have to pander to people with progressive views of gender but don't really want things to be different. So we get this trash that is the Mulan remake.
@Michael You mad bro? LOL Even though it had to have approval the narrative is as American a they come, just watch the Chinese version of Mulan and you will see (not that you really care about it). You have more in common with Disney and their "woke" narrative then you might thing, you both seem to have the same opinion on social issues.
@Michael I just find it funny since you like repeating all this cliched concepts since your first comment. Besides you also seem to think Disney (or their movies) are feminist: they're not, it's the same old same old just rehashed to seem woke. Last of all I'm just trolling you since you sound like such a tool. Cheers!!
One thing I noticed in the animated movie: when Shang tells everyone to climb the tower at the beginning of "Make a Man Out of You", he gives everyone two weights that represent discipline and strength. At first, everyone treats the weights like something holding them down and they try to use brute strength to climb the tower despite those weights. Mulan succeeds because she can use the weights as something to pull her up rather than something weighing her down. Symbolically, this is her using the virtues she's taught in a new way that helps her succeed rather than inhibit her. In the live-action version....... we get pails of water she has to carry up a mountain.... and she...... carries pails of water up a mountain. Sure she probably got physically stronger, but only after doing what she's told enough times that it works out for her. It's a lot less nuanced, and I'm sad we didn't get to see that again. It's even less empowering because we're led to believe she's able to do this because she's the chosen one, not because she took her life into her own hands.
Thanks to your input, I realized the metaphor (?) with those two weights *-discipline-*- & -*-strength-* and how they serve the animated version's narrative. The different treatments of them between the male soldiers and Mulan at the end carry more nuances, it's almost like taken from a real asian moral tale : + Treat the weights like unwanted baggage and use brute force : none reaches the top of the pole + Use them correctly, then even a physically weak person can slowly but surely reach the goal
Agreed, and the first version is so symbolic, and deap, and true. Discipline and strenght are what pulls you up, and and everyone has them. What matters is how you use it
I actually beg to differ there. It's not as deep but she reached the top because she decided to stop letting her insecurities and the message she was taught while young that "women bring honour through marriage", which was partly influenced by the commander's pep talk? A lot of people comparing the animation and live action also don't seem to realise some of the more fantasy/comical plot points are difficult to carry over to live acting. I would in fact say that if they brought the musical elements over as is it'll probably spoil the whole thing.
Also I’m the animated movie they use the same technique to climb and save the emperor, it was a beautiful call back to their training and the live action movie misses that completely
Not to mention the fact that carrying pails of water that way doesn't make sense at all. Like what are they trying to strengthen? It's only asking for injury.
I find it interesting how in the animated movie, she's offered the role of emperor's *advisor* (hinting to her problem-solving skills, and how much her intelligence is valued), and in the 2020 version she's offered a place in *the* *guard* as one of the fighters
ikr... so after all she is just fitted to be a royal guard.. but ofcourse that's how she was portrayed in the new movie... being strong from child. It didn't show how intelligent she was.. just some girl with combat skills..
I haven’t watched the new movie, but in the Chinese movie (I believe, it is from 2000 or around) Mulan becomes a commander, and the whole point is not so much her soldier skills, but her strategic thinking. If I am not mistaken, this is also how it is in the Chinese original - that Mulan is very good at military strategy.
I actually don't have problem if Disney took path for Mulan as full combatan, as long it's ...realistic. I mean, with this budget can't they at least hired some legit martial art choreographers or something. But nope. It just like watching another Cdrama that has Hollywood budget, with no happy or satisfying ending at all. Argh.
I’m a straight dude and even I felt empowered by animated Mulan. She wasn’t just a female who proved her strength to be equal to other men, she was a child protecting her family, a soldier protecting her homeland, and a friend protecting her comrades. Those are the traits and values not defined by gender, but by the decency of a human being.
Holy shit dude I feel exactly the same way as you. In the animated movie, where the whole China bow down to her, it suddenly struck me. "She wasn’t just a female who proved her strength to be equal to other men, she was a child protecting her family, a soldier protecting her homeland, and a friend protecting her comrades," captures it perfectly. When realizing that, as a girl who's around her age, I felt empowered. You don't have to tell people "Woman can be just as strong as men are!" directly to the audience's faces to empower female, just show it. (Sorry for my bad English btw.)
@Rawr tho' Gender Understanding ' fits the purpose way more than ' Gender Equality ' . Good take on that , people never realizes the harsh standards that were set on Men simply because Men are taught to never cry & complain . Its cool that a movie made in 1998 already touch on that matter where it is very much needed now .
Yeah, Mulan was not only inspirational for women, she represented every person that felt small and inadequate, the same the other characters. Now it is all gone.
"written by 4 people, and not one of them were asian". That's pretty much the only description the movie needs. I teared up when she returned to her father in the animated film. Even a little in this review. In the live action, I was just like: oh, ok, cool.
I don't think you necessarily need an Asian writer in order to write a good asian story, as well as you don't need an European for european story or an African for story based in Africa. But you definitely need someone well educated on the topic (doesn't matter which race or nationality as long as the person respects the culture) to help the writers, director, costume designer etc. Casting someone just to be inclusive doesn't sound right to me. Also if taken to extreme, I personally don't see a point in making an american movie when noone included in making was American (I'm from Europe and I would find it wierd if they made a movie based on for example french tale with writers, director and everyone included being french, that would make it a french movie with american money, not american movie; but as many actors as possible should be french, because it should look like it takes place in France). I'm not sure if it makes sense the way I wrote it
@@spook407 so you really believe that having no Chinese people was a good idea when multiple chinese people have stated that it would have? 😐 gurl 👩🏼💻
The trouble is people keep paying to see them. Each remake that's come out has made masses of money, even when poorly rated and everyone saying it's shit (like dumbo or lion king) they're STILL making huge profits from them. Why put effort into making something good when they can generate stale, unimaginative garbage and still make box office hits? Doesn't help that one of their last 2D animations barely scraped any money.
If you want to be depressed... The highest grossing animated movie of all time is the Lion King Remake, probably the worst of all the Live action remakes. I've basically lost my respect for the cinema going public. If people pay to go see shitty movies, they deserve what they get. (note, while Lion King appears to be at least partially live action it is actually 100% CGI, so is in fact an animated movie, it made 1.7 times more money then the original. Disgusting.)
this whole live action thing disney has been doing is nothing short of horrific, a whole bunch of movies made only to make money with no other purpose... its so sad seeing disney in this state
If anything, it looks like the executives are actively trying to slow down moral progression to teach the wrong things to the younger generations who they are definitely scared of.
the irony is they're in this state because they're riding high off of past success. They don't have to try. They don't need to make something good. They just need to exploit name recognition and current trends.
You have two choices: 1- you teach to the younger generation importants lessons of life and society with passion and love of animation and cinema 2-GET MONEY I think disney has already made his choice
Basically, the writers think that in order to empower women, you got to turn them into men. The animated Mulan was empowering, because she was herself, because she was a woman.
Ugh you don’t know the number of times I saw people saying the woman ‘wasn’t like a woman’ and was ‘different from other women’ because she was strong and powerful and bla bla bla. That’s literally gender stereotype. There are strong women and there are weaker women. There are strong men and there are weaker men. Stop thinking that all women are weak and strong women ‘are like men’. edit: I'm not talking about Mulan I'm just ranting about the writers I see on the internet who don't think that 'normal' women are capable of doing stuff. Also English is not my first language and my meaning of 'strong' doesn't just mean physical strength, I meant like someone who is generally an empowering person (Don't people say like strong, independent women??? Maybe I misunderstood) (I think animated Mulan is strong too! Maybe that just isn't the right word though. I just can't think of a better word due to my lack of vocabulary) but yeah it makes sense too because it's one of the stereotypes. But ik animated Mulan isn' about that I'm talking about other books and movies I've seen on the internet and I think it is relevant to 'seeing women as men to empower women'.
The only semblance it gave of "be your feminine self" was her taking off her armor and letting her hair down. 😳 Like, no bitch, women still need armor and hair gets in the way. I hated that "accepting who you really are" was represented in a very stereotypical way.
@@hellohello8061 Here you are defining physical strength as being empowering, but Mulan was never stronger than everyone else. What made her empowering was her cunning mind. Maybe you should stop stereotyping "BIG AND STRONG" as empowering. Here they completely ignored Mulan's original (animated version) personality, she was neither too masculine nor too feminine, she was an intelligent warm-hearted person. This movie made her one of the guy warriors basically (except better than them), completely ruining her uniqueness and turning her into a Mary Sue.
@@eyeswithhope13 retards think that strong woman is woman that can kick your ass. They can't imagine that even definition of strong man is far from that, leave alone woman...
Me too.The story, mulan's characther, her struggles and her success. In my opinion what made mulan good was the fact that she struggled, even when she faced her challenges she wasn't phyically strong and her fighting was still wonky. But she was hard working and used her smarts to make up for it
But also, the animation didn't portray their guys as "better" than women/Mulan. Pretty much everyone sucked in the beginning. It was never men vs women or can women be as good as men or whatever. It was just about each person, whether male or female, working hard to rise above his/her own limitation.
You gotta give props to this movie, though, because pissing off western *and* Chinese audiences, men and women, old Disney fans and new, must not be an easy task...
That's why they called as fake woke. It's between a scam or they're just clueless about the real world, living in their own bubble. Or just too coward.
Mushu? Oh, that modern mini dragon right? Even though I didn't like the fact that mushu sounded as if he came from rapping industry or something, but to be honest he was a great ally and friend to Mulan. (This is just my opinion so don't get pissed off okay?)
@@madhanblaze1311 I get what you’re saying but that’s just how the voice actor speaks, like when he played Donkey in Shrek. It’s that “black guy” voice. Not a rapper 💀
As a military veteran - it was so disappointing that they cut out Mulan's training. It was so hard trying to keep up with my male counterparts during training. My military experience was almost exactly like the animation. We got through training together as a team. Where I lacked in physical strength, I had mastered my critical thinking skills to help my team out. I wish Disney consulted with female Marines and their training. You are right - lazy white washed writing. So disappointing. THIS MOVIE IS NOT EMPOWERING. Good job Disney you FAILED.
Yes Annelle, i totally agree with you. As a conscripted soldier, whom also had female soldiers in my company. I was disappointed that they didn't cover that.
Thank your for your service! And for breaking gender stereotypes too! Really, WoMaN sTrOnK isn't empowering at all. A training montage was sorely needed, seeing Mulan grow and be as useful as any male soldier.
You should try to get into movie consultation, because you are damn right about the bullshit in movies, especially this one. Disney could learn a lot from people with actual experience.
I take your point, but this isn't a remake of GI Jane and is just a folk myth, if you want to see something that is probably more realistic, try and see Nirvana Phoenix - those actresses were outstanding
@body parts Well yeah in the original Ballad she had trained herself before, but the fact that she still trained before would need to be shown. Instead we got some super-powered lady who had no struggles and also seemed like someone naturally gifted.
I'm an English literature teacher, and I'm considering showing this to me high school students as a model of how effective structure can be in an essay/argument. This is beautifully written.
Agreed but it also puts a fair advantageous if you're students are from a different country and have hard access to understand Chinese culture. Mind you it is one of the oldest cultures and China has blocked access to western media.
I hope to be a bridge between Western and Chinese culture, and I can tell you FOR SURE the movie has ABSOLUTELY NO UNDERSTANDING of the actual message the original story wish to convey.... Its TRULY a WESTERN, BIAS VIEW of Chinese culture. Whatever value conveyed in the 2020 movie DEEPLY MISLEADING.. If you decide to show this to your high school students, please emphasize that it has value only as a story but DOES NOT REFLECT CHINESE CULTURE AT ALL!..... its truly an ORIENTAL FETISH that is definitely UNTRUE.
"Mulan is unlike any other Disney female lead at the time... She's not born royalty nor nobility and does not marry into one either." YEP! She was so different that the Disney Princess brand had to alter a "requirement" on who is a "Disney Princess". It was "The character must be royal by birth or royal by marriage." Because of Mulan it is "The character must be royal by birth, royal by marriage, or do a heroic deed."
Everytime I hear Mulan's father say "The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter" always makes me tear up because when I was younger I always hated being a girl. I can't play with my brothers because I'm a girl, I needed to wear dresses because I'm a girl. I'll get a doll and not allowed to ride my brother's bicycle because I'm a girl. I needed to learn and do all the chores around the house because that is what a girl is for. Being able to watch Mulan when I was younger made me so happy and made me realize that I can't just be limited to what a girl "needs" to do or learn. My rebellious phase came afterwards but I'm grateful for it because that's how I came to be who I am today, and I think my dad has learned to accept the way I am through the years (but my mom is still as stubborn as ever lol) thank you for coming to my tedtalk
I remember how my mom wanted me to wear skirts and dresses and I hated it because I was such a tomboy when I was younger, she would always convince me with candy lol. Luckily she did let me play outside with my brother and the other boys living close. But I do remember having friends who's mom were so focused on 'girl things' that it was just tiring, even for me. Or friends who needed to help with cleaning and other chores while their brother(s) could be lazy all the time. And then you have parents who panick when their little boy wants to be a princess for Halloween/Carnaval, like let them be. I even knew a little kid who did not get a Elsa+Anna cake for his birthday, they put damn Olaf on it and he was sad. As somebody who loved boys stuff when I was young I turned out to be very girly. And why would it matter if I turned out to be a "manly lesbian"? (I hate that word so much). Nobody should care. As long as we're happy and healthy! Mulan and Anastasia will forever be my role models ♥ I still feel so many emotions while watching those movies
Elisa Castro You’re the one who sounds like a crappy person. Imagine growing up been told that you must do all or most chores because you’re a girl but your brothers are only expected to do very little or nothing. Parents should treat all children equally, not based on gender. I’m fortunate enough that my parents treated me and my brothers equally but I’ve witnessed my two female cousins started from a young age expected to wake up early in the mornings to make breakfast, snacks and do laundry for their older brother because he was a boy. He recently got married but doesn’t know how to cook or clean even though he works from home but his wife who works long hours outside their home tirelessly comes home to cook and cleans before resting while he just lounges around.
I was a little African girl when I watched Mulan and I admired and related to her the most out of all the 'Disney princesses', we mostly have the same culture here. I couldn't relate to this version.
Neither could I and I'm a white man. The original movie taught me how to become a good person and better man by embracing both of my sides. The new movie only taught me to not watch new Disney movies anymore...
So... In the poem, the point made about the two hares running side by side is that you can't tell their sexes, i.e. it doesn't matter... And in the movie's reference to the line, she explicitly mentions that she could tell they had different sexes... Seems stupid enough to almost seem intentional.
And it's so funny, because they are arguably SO aiming at a feminist message haha I always felt like the ballad was doing well. If only they had read it correctly, they wouldn't deviate onto questionable (aka messed up) territory
Think you mean sexes, not genders. Gender is a uniquely human thing, and it’s how we express “masculine” or “feminine” behaviours. Sex is our innate biology - whether we’re male or female.
"I'm just a dude-I can't imagine how powerful it must have felt for a young girl" Man, thank you for saying this. Thank you for your wonderful awareness of that. Mulan was so, so important to me (and even my mother, an adult at the time) as a little girl. She was my *favorite.* She still is my favorite. After princess after princess, having a character like Mulan as someone for young girls to look up to was so amazing. I still look up to her to this day. I still get tears in my eyes when I think about her climbing the pole to get the arrow, sweat dripping down her brow after she was *dismissed from service* just to prove to herself that she could do *something*, even if it was just this one thing. Or crying because she fails to fit in to traditional femininity and feels worthless because of it (HOW COULD THEY LEAVE THIS OUT???). Those moments have resonated with me my whole life as a gender nonconforming woman. This was the first time I was shown a woman having true, raw power due to something other than her beauty and sway over men. What you say about how Mulan is empowering in the cartoon is so dead on. The message of the film, at it's core, is a condemnation of gender extremes and strict gender roles. It posits that both extreme femininity and extreme masculinity are not only wrong and damaging to people (people like Mulan, who aren't either of those) but are actually ineffective and destructive in many situations. That is such an incredibly powerful and nuanced message and my god, way way ahead of it's time in the 90s. A lot of "female empowerment" is telling women to use their sexuality and beauty to manipulate situations, and that totally ignores and leaves behind the thousands of women who aren't beautiful, or don't want to be, or are uncomfortable being very feminine. Mulan is telling women to find their own power wherever they may fall on that binary spectrum, and that's amazing and rare even today. Mulan tells us we can be capable at whatever we feel most comfortable doing through grit, determination and hard work. Mulan carves out her place in the world, cleaves through the gender binary using nothing but her tenacity and natural inclinations to be heroic and noble and nothing else. Her outright rejection of extreme gender roles is what saves China. This movie just took a dump on all of it. I had *no* meaning. It had nothing to say. It had none of those deeply impactful emotional beats. It was a fucking joke. The only thing it tells us is that to be a true hero, you have to be born one of two ways; male, or magic. Non-magical women? Tough luck, enjoy dying in childbirth. Wow. Amazing analysis here, super insightful, great job.
@@skraskraa._.5371 the things is this movie is a such a huge insult to the Chinese culture in particular and Asian who know the story of Mulan in general, so much that even if there were no Hongkong and Muslim shenanigans, the Chinese government will still ban it and the Chinese people will still detest it anyway. It f@ck up so many things! It is like Disney bribing the Chinese government to eat shit :|
That scene with her father! Even with no scene audio and a calm, informative voice-over, the part where her dad tosses aside the symbols of honor she brings home and embraces Mulan instead makes me tear up so fast!
It pissed me off to no end when in the live action that one dude who is kind of the love interest tells the commander "you'll believe Hua Jin but not Hua Mulan"- and in the animation, it is Mulan who speaks for herself and tells that to Shang. In the love action, people speak up for her and she stays clam shut!
@@somnodaur8064 Its honestly really funny to see companies try to appear progressive and then utterly fail at it. In the games industry there was a similar thing with a company donating money to BLM in order to appear progressive, only for a two months later use BLM inspired imagery to represent a cartoonishly evil terrorist group whose evil plan involved creating anti-racism wars and profiting from them.
@@trevordavis6830 Name and shame. Ubisoft. Jimquisition goes on a beautiful rant about it. The more you learn about the gaming industry, the more one gets radicalized to the left.
The ending of the og mulan meant so much to me as a little girl that really wanted to make my dad proud and seeing them completely throw that moment away was just soul crushing. Great video.
This remind me of screenshot chat of 2 friends in my country. Both women. They wanna go out but on of em has to stay home a bit to cook for her dad. Her friend scoffed her as if she's being submissive to patriarchy. I dunno if they remain friends lol.
16:44 im not even Chinese but this pissed me off. If according to the ballad, you can't tell the difference in gender between two hares running side by side, then mulans dialogue in that scene completely contradicts the whole message by telling us that she was in fact able to tell that one was male and the other was female. It beats the whole point! It takes the main, conclusive message from the ballad and comepletely strips it of its meaning!
@@AeontheWeeb Wuxia has a lot of female protagonist and some of them are even stronger than male character. In Wuxia, they don't give a damn about your gender. This crap cannot be called Wuxia.
@@minhnguyenphanhoang4193 Well that's not fair...they totally care about your gender in wuxia...it determines which style clothes you're going to wear :P Not much else, but still!
When mulan cuts down her hair.. that is the the most iconic scene of the mulan. She made a sacrifice of something whats considered to be the grace of a women... But the real life version just in order to add glamour in the movie or so, they did nothing like that. Animated version was really grt.
True. And even without her being Chinese, it's extremely symbolic for a woman to cut her hair as short as she does. Not doing it was an idiotic missed opportunity.
@@saurabhsoni4092 You have the 1998 version to put on replay for that. Plus guys had long hair back then so there's no reason to cut their hair and even guys during that period are not allowed to cut their hair either. The western viewpoint finds it empowering but the eastern viewpoint is that it's disrespectful and goes against Confucian beliefs.
@@tamikachen1 the whole movie is abt the empowerment. If cutting hair is disrespectful then riding horse is also disrespectful, fighting, wielding sword, staying with unknown guys, clothing like guys etc etc also a disrespectful thing... Then the whole point of being mulan is worthless according to you...
Yes, never thought that deep watching the old one, probably because I'm not female? the new one is like frozen, let it go, be yourself the loyalty thing made it so difficult to enjoy, not sure how people in china would think
I only ever saw the original a few times as a kid and even I feel like there's a lot more humanity shown in the original's relationships and characterizations that were just taken for granted.
Accented Cinema I was wondering what is the name of the other live action clips you were showing I knows it’s a Milan adaptation but I imagine it’s probably got a specific name
Marvel movies aren't this...ignorant and not this ignorant when it comes to gender. Even if people hated Captain Marvel, they were a lot more sensitive with things as it seems.
There is literally an association with educated Chinese experts on Chinese historical clothing called the Chinese Costume Revival Association that uses historical evidence and research down by experts that dedicated their life to Chinese culture to recreate Chinese clothing culture. A group of Chinese high-school students were able to contact them to use their costumes for a high school project, but apparently a multi-millionaire dollar company of Disney can;t hire them for a live-action movie. The color palette of this movie makes me want to throw up, Mulan was born into a low class family, and dyeing clothing during ancient times was very difficult. Another thing I hate about this movie was that Disney never bothered to look into Confucian texts about filial piety, one of the key virtues in the “Ballad of Mulan”.
Hahaha yes! Especially when the ladies were dressed up they look like clowns. And every shot in the palace with the court ladies, the colors were everywhere, making it seemed like I stumbled into the brothel. Lol. Also how they gonna make cheng pei pei the match maker and make her look like lao lao from chinese ghost story?
I’m sure that almost half of the colors in Milan’s color palette are impossible to dye during Ancient China. As a former student of Ancient Chinese culture, this movie hurt me on a personal level.
@@jasonhuang6078 I love your comment so much, I'm a devotee to Western historical clothing and really want to expand my knowledge towards my own Asian culture's dress, so could you recommend books or website to start learning about these topics?
@@PyanY ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. I gasped when I first saw Cheng Pei Pei - she would have looked MUCH BETTER without any make-up. I love Rosalind Chao, but she appeared SO OLD, with her horrendous "make-up" (Asians are young looking) On a different note, + I realize this is not the mentality @ the time. If I was Mulan's parent, I DEFINITELY WOULD NOT WORRY about her having "qi", even if the scriptwriters BASTARDIZED it here. Having "qi" can improve the quality of life, for the family. I would be MORE CONCERNED with the borderline moronic, silly, second daughter. For these + many other reasons, the 2009 Mulan, with Best Actress Zhao Wei, directed by Hong Kong's Jingle Ma, is the DEFINITIVE MULAN MOVIE for me. This version also has Cantonese Dialogue, which is more similar to the Chinese, than Mandarin, Mulan would have spoken.
There were a lot of tribes and countries* in China that were matriarchical. Or, at the very least, had gender equality/equity. * China is like an Eastern version of the UK or Roman Empire.
@Dark of the knight Considering that the new version is supposed to take place during the Tang dynasty according to Architecture Design, that's actually really interesting and further proves my point.
THIS GUY GETS IT Especially 9:54. That's exactly how I felt watching a lot of faux "empowering" stuff as a little girl. Either you're good at everything or you're bad at everything. It makes trying feel futile Liked and subbed 👍
The message where the father says: "The greates gift and honor is having you for a daughter" has resonated with me for years and it felt true to it's words because the father always loved Mulan for who she was. The 2020 version seemed to just have glossed over those words which just sucks man.
And in the same way that line from the first song of the Disney version: "And keep my father standing tall" resonated the hell out of me as someone who grew up in a Chinese family.
The 2020 version just glossed over every meaningful point of the '98 animated version. Or more like, glossed over half of it and the other half was replaced by something, that spits in the eye of the original message. Like Mulan having superpowers, instead of thinking outside the box.
Disney star wars was the same way. They cared about appearing woke, not about actually making a good story with feminist themes that complemented and enhanced the movie. I've said it before but it's ironic that this is the same studio that dubbed most Studio Ghibli. They should have paid more attention to characters like Nausicaa, San, Chihiro and even Shizuku Tsukishima.
@@Knightmessenger excuse my ignorance but, what is "San"? (i cant precisely google it, u know the director so i can research it? same with "Shizuku Tsukishima", wich movie is her from?)
I personally look at the newest version of Mulan as a prime example of toxic feminism that upholds patriarchal standards. It's like some terrible form of divine irony that a narrative that is suppose to empower women does so by glorifying toxic masculinity and subservience.
That is so on-point! In today's world feminist tag has lost it's respesct because everyone equates feminist with what correctly is tagged as femiazzi. And you have so perfectly described exactly what's wrong here which is making the world hate every "feminist", and even these so called "feminists" don't realize the harm they are doing to femininity. Females do not need to loose their femininity and adopt toxic masculity just to be equal to males.
What exactly do you mean by “toxic femininity” in this context? I only watched this movie ones and anything relating to feminism or toxic femininity did not even cross my mind😵💫 I just thought it was a boring movie with a ridiculous plot
"not one of the writers is even asian" This is hilarious to me. For a group that screams about diversity and inclusion, they're awfully exclusive. It also makes the attempts at 'proverbs' or 'sayings' kind of insulting.
@@MukuonChannel I totally agree with you. My point is they just took some Qi idea and other stuff, and managed to make it even more caricatural and less fun and charming to watch...
Wanting to appear progressive rather than actually being progressive is the current trend in movies, unfortunately; it's not just in 'Mulan'. Progress shouldn't and cannot be achieved through pretense.
@@bro4539 The writers are SJWs. They are intereted in progress, but only in their simplified, dumbed down cultish version. They don't understand the world around them and so they fail to understand what progress is really about.
Isn't it funny that when movies in the 80s/90s just had good female characters, it wasn't a thing, because they were simply a part of the story. (Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor)... hell even Wayne's World was directed by a woman. It's so weird, we've been there, so why do these try-hard movies fail at it?
Animated Mulan: a woman can be just as capable as a man with wits, determination and courage Remake Mulan: a woman can be just as capable as a man as long as she has quite inaccurate qi superpowers How empowering 🙄
@@KevinJDildonik I mean, Star Wars isn't a good example at all in this case. Star Wars is a universe that's full of Mary Sues and Gary Stus. It's a Universe that's established to have an underlying magical power that can make some people more capable than others. Ie a Force user vs a non Force user is a quick imbalance of power. Mulan SHOULD be set in a 'normal' universe, beyond some folklore elements, and is also a previously established character with centuries worth of tales and media surrounding her already. The fact that her tale is about her determination and her training makes it absolutely ridiculous that Disney decided to give her magical powers that mean she faces zero adversity or struggle this entire movie was just shit and lazy writing. Comparing that to Star Wars isn't really similar in context. Unless, of course, you simply wanted to take a jab at TEH ES JAY EWZ
Not even that woman can be just as capable. Women and men, femininity and masculinity need each other even within one person. That's what the original Mulan but so poignantly
To be fair, that's always tough in historical or fantasy-historical films. The people of the time were probably more pro-feudalism than anyone living today, so they have to soft-shoe it a little bit.
That's because the modern "woke" crowd are so "Progressive" that they wind up being "Regressive". They were raised with the idea that they must fight a problem that no longer exists. Thus (to use a metaphor) they are trying to force healthy people to take medicines that wind up being poisonous due to it not actually treating a illness. (I hope that made sense, because I really suck at coming up with metaphors.)
The whole “She’s suddenly perfect at everything” isn’t new to all these types of films because apparently empowerment is just make the character as perfect as possible without any flaws or struggles
@Angrry Ereg of course it doesn't. But the new movie really threw the whole "hard work" to cultivate chi in the trash can by giving Mulan chi from birth. It sucks
I don’t even care about the politics, removing Mushu was a very stupid decision. I’m a male and Mulan inspired me as a child . For me, it wasn’t just about being a female in a male world It was about not giving into how the world views you, but remaining confident in how you view yourself.
This is such a sad truth. :( As someone who grew up with Disney movies from childhood, it’s very depressing to see these uninspired and utterly disappointing remakes.
Disney: We'll take out Mushu because we want the film to be more realistic. And we don't want to offend the Chinese people by portraying a sacred dragon as funny. Also Disney: Here, Mulan is gifted with the CHI. She's basically a superhero. And a paper-thin phoenix as a bonus just to act like a compass for her.
And they also take out one of the most realistic thing from the animation: The ancestors. You can bet that when Chinese ancestors all gather in one room, they would bicker and fight like described in the original film.
LOL Feminist trash not satisfied with two feminist propaganda movies that depict a woman as superior to oppressive, bad men. Because in the second movie she is superior but it's BY BEING STRONG! AND THAT'S MASCULINE! Hilarious BS. This lying propaganda about women being as strong as men is in every Hollywood action show, but you still pretend that "ACKSHUALLY that's not REALLY feminist." Sick.
I'm a woman (from Spain), and Mulan always had be my favorite film from disney. It has less songs, but i always feel so identified with her. No has super powers, no has an army, but she is witty, inteligent, and thats how she solved de problem. With inteligency and skill. When the new move appers, it was... Horrible. The character, the story... Everything. And the worst, (in my point of view, i am not chinese, and dont kwom how they miss with culture and history aspects), is that the change Mulan. They give her superpowers to save the world, and tell that she can only save the world because the superpowers. That is absolutte disapointing, and take away all the inspiracy Mulan gives to others. PS: I hope my english wasn't to horrible. I only want to share my thoughts about my favorite disney film
The only criticism I have regarding the 1998 animated version is the scene in which Mulan cuts her hair. In ancient China, both men and women never cut their hair since they believed that their hair was a gift from their parents. Hence, cutting one's hair was the ultimate act of disrespect. The 2020 Disney live action adaptation is an abomination. The best live action version is the 2009 movie, Mulan: Rise of a Warrior. ua-cam.com/video/0ep39N-vgDY/v-deo.html
"Empowering Femininity" that's such a good point, because Disney's feminism, Disney's "strong female characters" basically means women that can outman men. To Disney's writers, "Power", to begin with, means men's power: physical strength, ability to destroy, aggression, "empowerment" therefore becomes synonymous with masculinisation, so naturally, their "Strong Female Characters" are just a bunch of women that are even more manly than men.
This is not just a Disney symptom, it's been growing to this insane incarnation for a few decades now. Every 'strong female character' is like this. I'd be hard-pressed to find a 'strong female character' on tv that isn't these days. And it's not just in television, it's how modern feminism is. This third/fourth-wave feminism. All I see is women wanting an excuse to act like their imagined stereotype of 'toxic masculinity'. It's exhausting. It's come so far I am embarrassed. I will never be a feminist. I can't uphold this sexist ideal because that is what it is. Sexist. Current feminism just wants to 'empower' women by tearing down men. It's a product of mainstream media, Disney and Hollywood buying into it, feeding it, because it makes them money to kowtow but not actually care.
It's by design. If women become genuinely more powerful, then they become harder to manipulate. How can you convince a powerful woman to abandon her childhood dreams of having a home and a family with a man she loves in exchange for leaving her family home to live in an overcrowded city being some kind of waitress (food waitress, money waitress, paper waitress, etc.) during the best years she has for finding a man and starting her family? And if you fail to stop her from having kids, how can you convince a powerful woman that she should not raise her children and should instead send them away for government employees to raise them and teach them whatever the state wants to teach them? The issue is control. A few people want to own and control everyone else. First step: Break the family. Method: Deceive young men and women; convince them that the way their parents lived is stupid and a type of slavery.
@@Wormwoodification I still identify myself as a feminist, but I really don't like the trope that the 'toxic masculinity' is viewed as something awesome if it belongs to a female character. It's fine if a story has masculine female characters, because some women are indeed more traditionally masculine than feminine, but excessive aggression and emotional repression are not something to be praised. The term 'toxic masculinity' is kinda misleading as well, it makes people feel like only men are like that, but women can very well have all those traits as well.
This idea is incredibly outdated form of feminism, as it is a second wave idea of trying to achieve equality. Show women are equal to men by showing they are capable entirely on traditional men's terms (aggression, strength, dominance, etc.) Third wave and onward is about breaking down that idea that women are valuable only if they can meet masculine ideals. Hollywood seems to have gotten stuck back in the 80s and hasn't move forward since.
BASICALLY THE DIRECTOR OF DISNEY RIGHT NOW IS FUCKING IT ALL UP, WITH THE SUPER POWERFULL PROTAGONIST like rey and mulan ,,ITS BEING WORST FOR FEMINISM holy crap, CHANGE THE FUCKING DIRECTOR OR THE PERSON GIVING THE DIRECTIONS ..jesus christ !
The main problem in the live-action movie for me was how lazy and tasteless it was made. They literally made a character simply born extremely powerfull to avoid actually building one character. In the live-action Mulan was never in danger (she could easily defeat the general and the bad guy), she never had to learn skills and everything works in her side.
oh wow this point is so well said . no character developement !!! ❤no matter how controversial this new Mulan is, i think we all agree on how the classic song Reflection is in our heart as always and beautiful. I have recently covered Reflection from the original movie on my channel, ua-cam.com/video/hrpAFh7Kcpw/v-deo.html please let me know what you think and if i did a justice to Mulan
I just wish "Hua Mulan" from 2009 movie would be promoted more instead of this Disney adaptation version. It's harsh, difficult, long and hartbreaking, but I just love it, it gives me everything I could wish for live action movie based on this story. Too bad you didn't have an opportunity to mention that film here.
@@gamestation2690 yes, but without actually naming it. I would love to see the recommendation like "by the way, those clips are from Hua Mulan move, if you are disappointed in the newest live action version, go check that out". But still, I'm glad to see those clips and I really enjoyed the essay!
The only criticism I have regarding the 1998 animated version is the scene in which Mulan cuts her hair. In ancient China, both men and women never cut their hair since they believed that their hair was a gift from their parents. Hence, cutting one's hair was the ultimate act of disrespect. The 2020 Disney live action adaptation is an abomination. The best live action version is the 2009 movie, Mulan: Rise of a Warrior. ua-cam.com/video/0ep39N-vgDY/v-deo.html
@@hadiyahalkauthar Cao Cao cut his own hair and considered it equal punishment as committing suicide. Although of course it was more or less a ploy to exonerate himself, the fact that people tolerated it showed that indeed people valued hair quite high.
@@real_dddf Cutting one's hair in ancient China was indeed akin to a death curse upon oneself, one's spouse or parents, since the only time ancient Chinese men or women would consider cutting even a tiny bit of their hair off was if their spouse or parents died.
Your nailed every reason this movie was absolutely an embarrassment beside the original Disney film. The biggest two things for me were 1) Mulan is now "the chosen one" sort of story. I HATE THAT. It's so boring and uninteresting. Completely dumbs down her character and takes everything she did using her wit and brain and just throws it in the trash. That was a huge mistake, and I think the biggest one. 2) MULAN AND HER FATHER. All of the wonderful emotional beats from the animated film aren't here. It's like you said towards the end, how her father tries to cheer her up after she fails in the beginning. How you can see how much she cares for her father when she thinks he's going to have to go to war and will die. How her father reacts when he realizes she's left (makes me emotional just thinking about it). And the beautiful reunion scene with possibly the best line from the whole film: "The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter." The line just brings everything full circle and sums up how her father has always felt about her and seen her, but now, Mulan can see it herself too. I just love that. So yeah, the live action had huge shoes to fill. And it couldn't do that, which isn't a surprise, but man I didn't think it was going to be THIS bad. I don't think it could have been much worse to be honest.
I think the writers on purpose tried to kill or dismiss the father-doughter relationship, because their women "empowering" movie should be all about Mulan and HER honor, not the honor of her dad or the huge and mutual love and respect they share between each other, just because her dad is exactly that, her dad, a male authority figure. No way those dumb writers, in their trademark femenists mind set, were going to allow her dad to be such a big aspect in their Mulan's motivations as he was in the original movie.
@@doblove ^ Exactly this. Badly as they fumbled the "female empowerment" parts of all their recent films, you can always count on the new Disney Doctrine to enforce the "no good men" rule. Even if it ruins the story.
@@doblove That's a really good point, I hadn't even thought of that!! And that makes it so much worse. Feminism and empowering women was never supposed to be about eradicating every healthy authority in our lives, female or male. It's so sad that it's turned into that, and media is just perpetuating that notion. It really takes away from what equality should be, and makes it something cheaper. I wish they'd stop trying to make every female character either 1) special and the chosen one (a mary sue) OR 2) strong in a masculine sense- because there is beautiful strength in femininity that we're just not getting to see in Hollywood (9 times out of 10) and that's really unfortunate.
"it's dialogue sounds like a white person's oriental fetish" hits the nail on the head. thank you so much for sharing this! this was wonderful. you illustrated all my feelings about this burning dumpster heap better than i could. your insights are always so well-thought out and eloquent!
This film is exactly like when you walk into a Chinese restaurant that claims to make authentic Chinese food, and they offer you General Tso's Chicken and fortune cookie.
@@olymolly3637 And They just hire a bunch of Chinese waiters and waitresses, and put a few Phoenix statues that look like chicken at the front door... Good strategy!!!
The four lines at the end of this video from the Ballad of Mulan itself, are more empowering than the whole live action. Beautiful video. Everything is nicely explained.
I'm a Black girl but I always looked up to Mulan growing up because I was bullied as a kid and it was nice to have a Disney character who could fight back. I respect the Princesses before her on the roster because most of them were abuse victims who had to depend on others to get through it all, but it's also important to see someone who is defending themselves and their loved ones and not being disrespected for it. It's really infuriating to see such a beautiful story get bastardized in a blatant cash grab, and the fact that the movie was filmed in the place where Uyghur Muslims are being tortured and killed at this moment is disgusting.
Dru Reeve Dru Reeve Dru Reeve I think she was trying to say that it is much more difficult to find non-white characters who have so much humaneness and admirable character. It’s something different that, although she may not be a Chinese descendant, she can relate to because she is also facing as much patriarchal or societal pressures. And as a black girl, if she was in a white-racist neighborhood, went to a white majority school, or to be honest, EVEN if she wasn’t living in America, she would have faced so much hardship- *In fact-blacks in America aren’t the only ones facing racial injustice. It’s on an international scale, but a lot more subtle than USA’s.* Also....... If...... If I was the one who commented that, but started off with-“I’m a Pacific Islander, but I always looked up to Mulan because I was bullied” you wouldn’t have criticized at all WHY I was introducing myself as a Pacific Islander. I think that says more about _you_ than you think. Rather than going-Oh you must be an ‘American’, you guys are always on about your race-Maybe you should ask yourself, am I saying something problematic? Am I, by the harsh dictation in my comment, only perpetuating a system that’s trying to shame black voices into silence? I’m not black, and I know this much. You might not be a bad person, so I don’t want to bash on you without considering that maybe this isn’t something you know. But if you’re looking to not unintentionally sound hurtful, I would suggest educating yourself with the topic online. Please have a good day. _P.S. OP! If I got anything wrong, please feel free to correct me. I just didn’t feel right not defending you when you introducing yourself as black gets hit with such an insensitive comment. Other races are more unlikely to receive such treatment. I’m very sorry. Please don’t take their words as a representative of non-black commenters, common as this might be._
@@allensmatchmaker3823 wow, you know, i dislike this being turned into a race issue, i just thought she mentioned being black just to say that race had nothing to do with her relating to the character
Empowerment now means you are born better than everyone else and they are keeping you down because they're jealous. You don't have to work hard or have any hardship to achieve this level of greatness.
They are given the opportunity but are not willing to work hard for the outcome They want the easy way out. And I have a huge ideological disagreement with that
Someone told me something very wise that I want to add: Action is not without reaction. So when you keep kicking down someone who can beat you up because you think they're too guilty to respond; based off, they've been kind enough to let you off the first time, you must be very careful if you're going to keep going about it. They can stand up enraged and you can bet they'll never listen to reason again. This is what empowerment must understand. The powerful and the rich can also be Oppressed at heart, and just like a tamed lion can realize their destiny as per what people think of them is a wild lion, can casually proceed to kill the lion tamer, ending the circus.
I love the story you told at the beginning of how significant Mulan was to the youth and China overall, and your class' reaction to the animated film at the theater. Great way to start the video essay.
It really falls in line with what Lindsay Ellis said about Disney's new brand of "girl boss feminism" what's just one woman doing the man thing and being recognized for it instead of critiquing the gender roles themselves (Mulan being a qi warrior (wtf), Jasmine becoming sultan, etc.) It does nothing to question or hold patriarchal systems accountable and only insists that a woman must become like men to be considered equally valuable. Sigh.
That is the whole western entertainment in a nutshell. Women aren#t allowed to be feminine and men are not allowed to be masculine. In front of all black men in current comics.
Cú Chulainn okay, but "femininity is default state", really? You have a valid point, but don’t go as far as to become like NoBullshit where every woman that isn’t sexualized and hyperfeminine is automatically feminist propaganda. Your criticism should rather be that they aren’t depicted as real people, rather as stripped down ideas of people without the character. Not that they aren’t feminine enough for your liking. OP put it better.
Cú Chulainn it was an example on what line you should not cross. You called femininity the "default state" of women, which is untrue. Femininity and masculinity are social and cultural concepts, varying from place and context, there is no "default state" and there is nothing wrong with 'masculine' women. A masculine woman can be great if she is written as a good character.
@@fen4613 There are some psychological studies that indicate that femininity and masculinity could be much more than social and/or cultural constructs. These studies are largely empirical, and thus far from guaranteed truths, but they do make sense; culture and society don't come out of nowhere, they are the result of the base human psyche that responds to the environment it inhabits. The fact that males and females tend to fill similar roles in most cultures across space and time would indicate that masculinity and femininity are, in fact, hard coded into the human brain. Personally, I stand by Carl Jung's thesis that man and woman possess both a masculine and feminine drive, and that they are simply more prevalent in the respective gender. Therefore, one should be free to embrace or reject both however they see fit. But stating that masculinity and femininity don't exist and are just a product of society is a dangerous idea that creates more confusion than anything
Chazaqiel Is this misunderstanding-ception? I didn‘t say they don’t exist. I said there is no "default state", because humans no longer have an inherent nature, we‘re cultural beings. Rolls being similar in most cultures could also be mainly explained through biology when we first developed cultures (which started before the stone age even), males tend to be bigger and build up muscle faster, while also having higher testosterone levels. You can’t really choose your preferred role in society if you couldn’t stand in a fight and are indoctrinated by 'tradition' centuries after. Being oppressed isn’t being feminine. If you leave a child without other people, it will either die or become feral, unable to mentally develop, because we’re so dependent on culture. If it wasn’t strictly cultural, a feral female child would suddenly act feminine and start caring about making makeup from dirt? Femininity isn’t natural, it’s observed, learned and then maybe adapted. Obviously that decision of adaptation isn’t as black and white nor conscious, but it’s definitely not because it’s a default. I really don’t know if we’re arguing the same side or not, I‘m kinda confused by now.
@@dfnt12 浴火鳳凰 is an imported concept, but it date back quite early and was somehow associated with Chinese Buddhism. This version of Mulan is also a rather late iteration anyways. There are much more serious errors in this movie than this debatable one.
@@hc8714 I mean yeah the entire movie was pretty garbage. We were mostly specific discussing how the movie seemed to be written from the perspective of a white person with an asian fetish.
The Real Mulan used her ingenuity, smarts and skills to beat the enemy. The Fake Mulan used her Disney-given princess powers to beat the enemies in the movie.
When I was a little girl, I loved the animated Mulan because she was like me. I was not special, in fact, I was a mess. I was a nervous child who had very few friends because I was always daydreaming instead of trying to fit in. Mulan also struggled to fit in, and I knew what that was like. Watching Mulan grow stronger through her different way of thinking was inspiring, because if she could do it, so could I. This remake ruined that. I’m no longer Mulan, I am the sister. No, I’m worse than the sister because I fail to fit in. Not like this new Mulan, who fails to meet expectations because she’s too good. She’s too talented, too strong. The sister achieves what society expects of her. I must really be more of a mess than I thought if I can’t relate to any of the characters. They took out all the inspiration for a girl like me by taking away all Mulans flaws. She’s an outcast because she is too amazing. The most relatable female character in the remake is the hen Mulan chases as a child, and that’s not very empowering.
I have actually found this problem in the new crop of female heroes. They are almost impervious and seem super human. I mean, isn't a hero or heroine face the greatest battle not outside but within themselves?
I was also, and still am, a girl who fails at both (traditional) femininity and (traditional) masculinity. I'm just a nerd who doesn't care about manly activities such as sports/cars/weapons etc., nor womanly activities such as makeup/fashion/housework/childcare etc. I'm socially awkward and just stay at home reading, writing, and watching movies. A loooooot of movies. I love them. I also love Disney animation movies. So thanks, Disney, for ruining one of my favourite Disney female characters AND one of my favourite Chinese cultural/legendary figures, at the same damn time. What a stunningly awful and foolish job.
Atleast there is now inspiration for people who are “naturally talented “ and surfer because of it. we spend too many movies on the struggles of the not so talented at first sight that we forget that people “who are perfect “ without trying have hard lives too. I’m happy I can actually relate to this movie.
I was a history and art history major. Feeling deeply offended by this movie, which is full of historical errors. It's OK to change the original plot or even "alter" the history "a little bit" for the sake of better storytelling. BUT, it's an entirely different story if you claim that the movie is "based on" an actual historical story but didn't respect the historical details at all. Let me give you a few examples: The round dwelling building that Mulan’s family lives in is located in southeastern China, whereas historically Mulan was from central China. Such buildings didn’t exist until 700 years ago, whereas Mulan’s story took place in 450AD. The story and the building are about one thousand years apart. The costumes and props are historically misplaced as well - those hair accessories only existed in late Tang dynasty, not Northern Wei dynasty in which Mulan was from - again, many hundred years in between the two. Half of the poetry that appeared in the antithetical couplet on the matchmaker’s doorframe was from a play that was written in Yuan Dynasty, which is nearly 900 years after Mulan's story. The other half was probably written by a present-day Chinese - these two halves don’t even match by classical Chinese literature rules of tone patterns and symbolism. Also, in Northern Wei, people sat on the ground instead of on chairs, which was the custom back then. The textile dyeing techniques were very underdeveloped, meaning that those various bright colors in the movie didn’t in fact exist at all. Mulan practiced Tai Chi by the lake, which was created in the 13th century - again, Mulan's period is between 4th - 6th century. So many more errors, which I'm not going to list individually. You CANNOT just squeeze all the Chinese cultural elements that are well known in the West into a film and claimed that it's made for either the West or the East (if not both). Disney is filthy rich and located next to UCLA, UC-Berkeley and Stanford, which are all top school in East Asian studies. I just don't believe that Disney doesn't have the money to employ a professor as a "real" cultural expert to correct their mistakes. All the historical inaccuracy, plus the weird script (no character arc, artificial dialogues, wrong interpretation and presentation of feminism, etc.), just enabled me to believe that this is an arrogant, shallow movie. A magnificent failure.
it would be absolutely foolish to entertain the thought that disney, as it is at the moment, would actually give a shit about historical accuracy over pandering the hardline feminists and trying to score brownie points with the extreme sjws. The original movie was already more of a proper female empowerment artwork than this, they didn't need to change anything. Yet they did, only because they wanted to prop a woman up on a pedestal and over glorify the fact that she's a woman. Ironically, they did so by dismissing all things feminine and portraying this character as being "manlier than men". For all intents and purposes, this movie's idea of "empowering women" is basically just to slap a pair of tits on a man. The story of mulan is meant to show that the differences between men and women don't really matter all that much, and that both femininity and masculinity have their fair share of worth.
Another way that the movie angers me is how it mixes up East Asian culture. In one scene of the movie, the witch is shown to be using a shuriken. A shuriken (Japanese: 手裏剣; literally: "hidden hand blade") is a Japanese concealed weapon that was used as a hidden dagger or metsubushi to distract or misdirect. It's basically those throwing stars you incorrectly see being used by ninjas on Western TV tldr; according to Disney, the Japanese worked with the Mongols.
@@BustyBraixen I don't think they are pandering to extreme sjws or feminists. I think they are just tone deaf? Because like you said, they are completely missing the mark on true feminism. This video essay does such a great job at explaining everything!
I don't know much of chinese culture and I now have an even further appreciation for the 90s version. Didn't catch the subtlety of her performing out of compassion and protection rather than out of duty.
I was shocked to see the phoenix.. the most powerful mythical bird creature in chinese culture, reborn by arising from the ashes of its prior self, being portrayed as what seems like a kite flying weightlessly in the skies... WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM.
@@kentinson1670 that's actually because the Hus are inspired by the Xiongnu tribe. Historically, the Xiongnu are actually more liberal with their women, than say the Han who adhere more to confucius values. So it doesn't really matter to them (Hu/Xiongnu) whether thr warrior are men/women, they're just simply warrior.
Wisdom: I'm equal to you, but my strengths and weaknesses are different, and I'll find a way to do the same task you do using my strengths. 21st century: Anything you can do, I can do the SAME WAY better.
Nowadays women might be able to take testosterone and get the physical strength of men and achieve the same, but, is this normalization of sex change correct morally? Because naturally it is not. And in the future when technology allows complete and unnoticeable sex change, will it be acceptable as common occurrence? Is the media normalizing and implanting such idea in the masses?
@@CaminoalInti unfortunately no, even with sex change women cannot reach the same amount of testosterone males naturally produce, hormones alone do not decide physical strength
I know I’m late, but disney’s mulan was really special. I was adopted at one and a half. I never really was in touch with my Chinese heritage. I always had thoughts in the back of my head. Thoughts of doubt, thoughts of abandonment, thoughts that I never was enough. I always watched Mulan whenever I felt insecure about myself. I always used Mulan as a role model. She was strong. I felt a comfort watching Mulan. I know I’ll never really feel comfortable with my Chinese heritage.
This and the 2019 remake of The Lion King are perfect examples of movies that REALLY don't deserve a remake. Because back then, the original movies from the 90s were made with heart and soul put into it. While the 2020 and 2019 remakes were made as tasteless cash-ins profiting on nothing but nostalgia.
I’ve been rather annoyed by the constant stream of shitty remakes this past decade. If you want to bring an old story to a new audience, then just re-master the animation and audio quality. There, saves money that’d otherwise be wasted on trashy remakes ruined by politics and bad writing.
@Shawn Hawk2102 Pardon my contrary opinion, but if there's any film Disney could remake it was Mulan. If there's a remake they needed to get right IT WAS MULAN!!! Seriously there's excuse for this. It could've been closer to the ballad, while maintaining what made the first Disney adaptation a classic. But noooooooo, they messed it up.
Mulan is the one that is acceptable to have a remake. The Lion King? No. For me Mulan is quite decent. I give it a 7 out of 10. My only problem is that the lack of humanity, because in this one she has chi.
Mm...I'm of the opinion that EVERYTHING can be adapted and remade, no matter the initial quality. Writers and artists all around the world have been doing it since Antiquity, and big names too, like Shakespeare. It's only in the last decades that it started getting a bad rep. The problem is not with adapting, but with HOW people are adapting. Lately it's a joke. There's zero attempt to make something decent and provide an innovating, personal perspective into a story. It's just about money. The last Disney remakes are the most obvious examples.
"I think one was male and one was female" that line slapped me across the face SO hard. How little do you have to care to completely desecrate the meaning of the poem? I'm so sad, Mulan deserves better.
I am not Chinese, but I am a woman. Mulan is special to me because she is smart and kind and she was able to outsmart her enemies while also being skilled physically. I love her and I think the new version missed the point completely.
7:07 I think my favorite part about how this is executed is in the spirit that Mulan fulfills Chinese tradition in the face of ritual. She saves her nation and her family (A theme that is absolutely #1 in Confucian teachings but is widely present throughout most Chinese teachings) without having to choose one or the other through a way that both should condemn, if you were to "follow the rules" of Chinese society. It's the exact same kind of themes extolled throughout Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist philosophies; they might all disagree on a lot of things, but all of them have nothing but praise for the person who understands the spirit of the rules over the letter. There's a pretty popular Chan (Zen is the Japanese word for it) Buddhist poem about two monks coming across a woman who needs to cross a river, but didn't feel safe crossing alone. The older monk, without hesitation, carries her across the river despite the sacred vow of a Buddhist monk being forbidden to touch women. This shocks the younger monk, who desperately tries to hold his tongue, but a few hours afterward, cannot help but ask, "Didn't we take vows not to touch women? Why did you carry that woman?" The older monk looks flatly at his junior and replies "I set her down at the bank hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?" There's a lot of ways to interpret this fable, but the way I first saw it was in the disconnect of knowing and understanding. The younger monk is caught up in the rules, but the older monk understands _why_ the rules are in place, and understands that in order to fulfill his responsibilities as a good Buddhist, he must prioritize the mindset of the Buddha over the ritual of the religion. He saw someone in need, and helped them, as Zen Buddhism asks of its adherents. And in a funny way, that's not a Chinese-only philosophy. See Matthew 12:1-13 in the Bible for a very similar message that developed independently in a very different part of the world.
"It wanted to look Chinese" I honestly think that Disney is trying to avoid people calling them out for racist stereotypes by not adding more Chinese elements that could look like it's a stereotype which is pretty funny.
Not only Disney is desperate to avoid the audience calling them out, they are also desperate to please the Chinese Government officials responsible for greenlighting this movie past censorship. A lot of this film's production reeks of official ideological propaganda.
It's interesting how in China almost nobody is talking about this live action film. But existing ones I saw are all criticizing the film. And to me one of the biggest problems is just how historically inaccurate the film is, while still trying to be stylistically realistic. They brought in concepts like Chi, use architectures that doesn't reflect the real place mulan is from (the building she lives in was only seen in Southern China and is related to a specific group of people 客家人, while the character Mulan is from a poem in northern ancient China). All these things just feels really weird together with the realistically-looking armors and clothes.
The movie is apparently being utterly savaged in the country it was attempting to pander to. Turns out, they too can see that it's just Western writers accessorizing with a foreign culture. twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1302620415861325824
It hurts because I was a child when Mulan came out. I felt so empowered as a little girl. As a woman now I watch the new version and weep. I don't want a superhero, I wanted a girl like me being strong in the real way.
Correction 2:
A lot of comments are saying the poem should be 双兔傍地走.
I have seen both used. But the version I shown at 0:22 says 兩兔, and it's from the year 1094 (Song Dynasty), so... Yeah I'm sticking to that.
Correction 1:
Thanks to commenter Luke Huang pointed out, I typed the wrong line of the poem at 17:47.
It should be 雄兔腳撲朔，雌兔眼迷離，兩兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌
Instead I repeated 兩兔傍地走 twice like a dumb dumb.
-------------------
Wow, 18 minutes huh? Guess I really do hate this movie.
lol
Haha, we're not complaining. Your video essays are great, so more is good.
I will love the whole 18 minutes because I hated it, too.
I've been expecting this video. Really good job explaining the mulan poem. Thanks for the great video.
It's well deserved though
"The CGI looks like utter crap. Maybe it wouldn't have been a problem if teh filmmakers had skillshare." Oof.
That wasn't just a shot, that was a firing squad.
Gabriel I laughed my ass off and added this video to my favorites
yeah, and i actually didn't skip the ad because he made it connect to the video content XD
I knew that joke was coming because of the comments, I am still laughing several minutes later.
The stylistic choice was probably made by a bunch of men in suits at a table, the animators had to do their best to flesh out the vision that these people had, which is some kind of aesthetic bastardization and hodgepodge of phoenixes from multiple cultures
I felt bad hearing that remark, it seemed really misguided, but I understand the anger
The movie is so boring, if only I had Raid Shadow Legends
"the cgi looks like utter crap maybe it wouldn't have been a problem if the animators joined skillshare" is a way funnier line when you remember sponsored videos have to be approved by the company
Skillshare, rolling on floor in wild laughter:
"Fuck it, we will allow it THIS ONE TIME."
It was so good. I was like, now that's how you sponsor a company!
I imagine sponsors on UA-cam must have a sense of humour, at least. And good advertisement comes from having a good sense of humour or doing good for the world.
It was pretty hilarious though, not gonna lie.
It was amazing before I realized that😂😂😂
This was really clever, of course they had to approve it xD
"Mulan starts off as a total amateur, but so does everyone else" that's honestly not something people talk about enough when discussing Disney's Mulan
Yeah, I noticed that when he pointed that out. It was the first time I heard someone point that fact out. She starts out not a good soldier, but so do the boys. They're all just as clumsy and amateuristic (that's not a word. It can't be). That just further shows how much the cartoon understood the core messages of the ballad, unlike the live action remake.
Historical speaking though, Mulan does known better before going to war. She was trained by her father. So I guess they were just trying to go with the real thing. But fail miserly.
It really stresses the important point that genders are often better at certain things because they simply are trained / expected to learn different skills more.
One should not deny natural differences, but those are averages where the shifts mostly just show at the extremes of the spectrum.
BASICALLY THE DIRECTOR OF DISNEY RIGHT NOW IS FUCKING IT ALL UP, WITH THE SUPER POWERFULL PROTAGONIST like rey and mulan ,,ITS BEING WORST FOR FEMINISM holy crap, CHANGE THE FUCKING DIRECTOR OR THE PERSON GIVING THE DIRECTIONS ..jesus christ !
@JT leftist disney is aways the best disney ,you have to be leftist in order to sell to other people and talk about emotions, otherwise youre gonna be a moron from the right ,,lol there are no good right wing director that manage people, lol . what you have here is some directors with the a weird and wrong feminist aproach or understanding , then letting their ideology inspirations get in the way of the plot story it self, that is wron because theres need to be balance here, no extremes from any side ...and by the way. fuck you
"It was the perfect time to empower a new generation... And you f*cked it up."
This guy's a savage, I love him.
right, the contrast or whatever u wanna call it of him lovingly talking about the animated film and its impact and his first time seeing it to saying "and u fxcked it up", HAH!
I saw it coming. But I didn't know it was gonna come like THAT!
absolute perfection!
Honest AF! Love it.
yeah i was like “ooh he mad!” get em Acc
OG Mulan: "How can you tell female from male when hares are running side by side?"
2020 Mulan: "So anyway I saw two hares running and I could totally tell them apart."
This. Shows the writers not only didn’t understand the point of the original poem but also somehow found a way to express the exact opposite. What a disgrace...
The 2020 film line doesn't make any sense at all. How did she know??
@@yrobtsvt she has Qi and probably saw the balls on the male
what?? she didn’t say that in the 2020 version... she just guessed that there is one male and one female. but i think it also implies that there’s equality between male and female, both can do the things the other can do, and so it doesn’t matter which is which???
I think your giving them too much credi
The problem with this movie is that she is already a Spider-Man before she was Peter Parker
She does 😂😂 she is a pizza before MoZ4ReLla
Very creative
Exactly, she already overpowered like wtf in live action
@@norakeuyeuy9527 Is this a J.... oh forget it =3=
Lol
The most incrediable thing is not that they don't understand Chinese culture, but that they don't understand their previous film.
They don't understand human beings.
I've only seen the Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella remakes but that's the problem in a nutshell with both of those movies as well. Disney doesn't understand the original movies.
And they don't understand basic logic
and all they had to do was check out what the fans think by googling it .-. seriously tumblr, reddit, yt all those sites could give them amazing advice
Same also with the live action Jungle Book. In the Disney animated Jungle Book, they show how Mowgli was able to grow strong by being supported by a lot of friends and having a lot of "good" (debatable) role models. They shape him. In the live action, he's just a Mary Sue who proves Man is the ultimate animal by constantly besting other animals much older and more experienced than him by Dexter's Labbing up some twigs and grass into stuff even modern technology can't make with those materials given a lot more time and people.
Never have I heard someone so angry with a calm voice
thats a different kind of power, only few can hold
passive aggressive lol
@@drkiwihouseMD That's not passive-aggressiveness you're hearing, that's the shrewdly-expressed anger of an intelligent Chinese person. Anger is not expressed the same way in Chinese as it is in English.
Passive Agressive
Passive aggressive is when you indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them but he's expressed his opinion openly and clearly
Her line about the two rabbits running side-by-side _completely_ misses the point of the original poem. She says, "I think one is a female and one is male"
when the poem says 安能辨我是雄雌？"How can you tell the female from male?"
"If they can do the same things just as well, why do their genitals matter?"
Which is what equality should be.
@Michael it's just the good old American made faux woke, nothing Chinese about it. They feel like they have to pander to people with progressive views of gender but don't really want things to be different. So we get this trash that is the Mulan remake.
@Michael You mad bro? LOL Even though it had to have approval the narrative is as American a they come, just watch the Chinese version of Mulan and you will see (not that you really care about it). You have more in common with Disney and their "woke" narrative then you might thing, you both seem to have the same opinion on social issues.
@Michael I just find it funny since you like repeating all this cliched concepts since your first comment. Besides you also seem to think Disney (or their movies) are feminist: they're not, it's the same old same old just rehashed to seem woke. Last of all I'm just trolling you since you sound like such a tool. Cheers!!
Of cause she can, because she is THE M. F.ing Mulan2020
One thing I noticed in the animated movie: when Shang tells everyone to climb the tower at the beginning of "Make a Man Out of You", he gives everyone two weights that represent discipline and strength. At first, everyone treats the weights like something holding them down and they try to use brute strength to climb the tower despite those weights. Mulan succeeds because she can use the weights as something to pull her up rather than something weighing her down. Symbolically, this is her using the virtues she's taught in a new way that helps her succeed rather than inhibit her.
In the live-action version....... we get pails of water she has to carry up a mountain.... and she...... carries pails of water up a mountain. Sure she probably got physically stronger, but only after doing what she's told enough times that it works out for her. It's a lot less nuanced, and I'm sad we didn't get to see that again. It's even less empowering because we're led to believe she's able to do this because she's the chosen one, not because she took her life into her own hands.
Thanks to your input, I realized the metaphor (?) with those two weights *-discipline-*- & -*-strength-* and how they serve the animated version's narrative. The different treatments of them between the male soldiers and Mulan at the end carry more nuances, it's almost like taken from a real asian moral tale :
+ Treat the weights like unwanted baggage and use brute force : none reaches the top of the pole
+ Use them correctly, then even a physically weak person can slowly but surely reach the goal
Agreed, and the first version is so symbolic, and deap, and true. Discipline and strenght are what pulls you up, and and everyone has them. What matters is how you use it
I actually beg to differ there. It's not as deep but she reached the top because she decided to stop letting her insecurities and the message she was taught while young that "women bring honour through marriage", which was partly influenced by the commander's pep talk?
A lot of people comparing the animation and live action also don't seem to realise some of the more fantasy/comical plot points are difficult to carry over to live acting. I would in fact say that if they brought the musical elements over as is it'll probably spoil the whole thing.
Also I’m the animated movie they use the same technique to climb and save the emperor, it was a beautiful call back to their training and the live action movie misses that completely
Not to mention the fact that carrying pails of water that way doesn't make sense at all. Like what are they trying to strengthen? It's only asking for injury.
"Mulan 2020 is not malicious. It's just stupid." describes every damn disney remake
First step, don't film it next to "re-education camp"
Being middle eastern I thought Aladdin was okay
Dark Soul I only liked the costumes in Aladdin
@@user-eq7zv4wh2s i do kinda miss that unlike in the original there was edges on the buildings
i think cinderella is really goood
I find it interesting how in the animated movie, she's offered the role of emperor's *advisor* (hinting to her problem-solving skills, and how much her intelligence is valued), and in the 2020 version she's offered a place in *the* *guard* as one of the fighters
THIS!
ikr... so after all she is just fitted to be a royal guard.. but ofcourse that's how she was portrayed in the new movie... being strong from child. It didn't show how intelligent she was.. just some girl with combat skills..
I haven’t watched the new movie, but in the Chinese movie (I believe, it is from 2000 or around) Mulan becomes a commander, and the whole point is not so much her soldier skills, but her strategic thinking. If I am not mistaken, this is also how it is in the Chinese original - that Mulan is very good at military strategy.
I actually don't have problem if Disney took path for Mulan as full combatan, as long it's ...realistic. I mean, with this budget can't they at least hired some legit martial art choreographers or something. But nope. It just like watching another Cdrama that has Hollywood budget, with no happy or satisfying ending at all. Argh.
In other words, she's just a thug :/
I’m a straight dude and even I felt empowered by animated Mulan. She wasn’t just a female who proved her strength to be equal to other men, she was a child protecting her family, a soldier protecting her homeland, and a friend protecting her comrades. Those are the traits and values not defined by gender, but by the decency of a human being.
@Rawr tho Dude, I never thought about her friends like that but you are so right. The more I learn about 1998 Mylan the deeper it becomes.
Holy shit dude I feel exactly the same way as you. In the animated movie, where the whole China bow down to her, it suddenly struck me. "She wasn’t just a female who proved her strength to be equal to other men, she was a child protecting her family, a soldier protecting her homeland, and a friend protecting her comrades," captures it perfectly. When realizing that, as a girl who's around her age, I felt empowered. You don't have to tell people "Woman can be just as strong as men are!" directly to the audience's faces to empower female, just show it. (Sorry for my bad English btw.)
@Rawr tho' Gender Understanding ' fits the purpose way more than ' Gender Equality ' . Good take on that , people never realizes the harsh standards that were set on Men simply because Men are taught to never cry & complain . Its cool that a movie made in 1998 already touch on that matter where it is very much needed now .
That was poetic, love it.
Yeah, Mulan was not only inspirational for women, she represented every person that felt small and inadequate, the same the other characters. Now it is all gone.
"There's a phoenix, but the CGI is crap. Maybe it wouldn't have been a problem if the animators joined SkillShare!!"
OMG I was dying 😂😂😂
Yes best segue to an ad ever LOL
Definitely a different kind of advertising
Worth every dime Skillshare paid
Lmao same here
😂😆😂😆
"written by 4 people, and not one of them were asian". That's pretty much the only description the movie needs. I teared up when she returned to her father in the animated film. Even a little in this review. In the live action, I was just like: oh, ok, cool.
I don't think you necessarily need an Asian writer in order to write a good asian story, as well as you don't need an European for european story or an African for story based in Africa. But you definitely need someone well educated on the topic (doesn't matter which race or nationality as long as the person respects the culture) to help the writers, director, costume designer etc. Casting someone just to be inclusive doesn't sound right to me. Also if taken to extreme, I personally don't see a point in making an american movie when noone included in making was American (I'm from Europe and I would find it wierd if they made a movie based on for example french tale with writers, director and everyone included being french, that would make it a french movie with american money, not american movie; but as many actors as possible should be french, because it should look like it takes place in France). I'm not sure if it makes sense the way I wrote it
@@veronikaczr1105 but don't u think it would help if they were tho?
@@thisaccisforasmr4988 not necessarily, not everyone knows their own history.
@@spook407 so you really believe that having no Chinese people was a good idea when multiple chinese people have stated that it would have? 😐
gurl 👩🏼💻
@@thisaccisforasmr4988 key words: necessarily, not everyone.
gurl 👩🏼💻
Disney just needs to stop making these souless live action remakes. They're ruining their own legacy.
They will gladly ruin their own legacy if it means they can make money.
Khadijah Johnson
No one:
disney: I WILL MAKE A THOUSAND SOULLESS LIVE ACTION ACTION REMAKES BEFORE I LET THIS COMPANY DIE
Yeah, stop the live remakes: Make Animation Great Again
The trouble is people keep paying to see them. Each remake that's come out has made masses of money, even when poorly rated and everyone saying it's shit (like dumbo or lion king) they're STILL making huge profits from them. Why put effort into making something good when they can generate stale, unimaginative garbage and still make box office hits? Doesn't help that one of their last 2D animations barely scraped any money.
If you want to be depressed... The highest grossing animated movie of all time is the Lion King Remake, probably the worst of all the Live action remakes.
I've basically lost my respect for the cinema going public. If people pay to go see shitty movies, they deserve what they get.
(note, while Lion King appears to be at least partially live action it is actually 100% CGI, so is in fact an animated movie, it made 1.7 times more money then the original. Disgusting.)
this whole live action thing disney has been doing is nothing short of horrific, a whole bunch of movies made only to make money with no other purpose... its so sad seeing disney in this state
If anything, it looks like the executives are actively trying to slow down moral progression to teach the wrong things to the younger generations who they are definitely scared of.
Disney has been like this for a while
the irony is they're in this state because they're riding high off of past success. They don't have to try. They don't need to make something good. They just need to exploit name recognition and current trends.
You have two choices:
1- you teach to the younger generation importants lessons of life and society with passion and love of animation and cinema
2-GET MONEY
I think disney has already made his choice
And yet people keep effing spending money on them!!! Avoid these cash grabs people!!!
Basically, the writers think that in order to empower women, you got to turn them into men. The animated Mulan was empowering, because she was herself, because she was a woman.
I mean that's what some 3rd wave feminists actually think. "Woman have to become like man and indulge in the hypermasculinity, not to become herself."
Ugh you don’t know the number of times I saw people saying the woman ‘wasn’t like a woman’ and was ‘different from other women’ because she was strong and powerful and bla bla bla. That’s literally gender stereotype. There are strong women and there are weaker women. There are strong men and there are weaker men. Stop thinking that all women are weak and strong women ‘are like men’.
edit: I'm not talking about Mulan I'm just ranting about the writers I see on the internet who don't think that 'normal' women are capable of doing stuff. Also English is not my first language and my meaning of 'strong' doesn't just mean physical strength, I meant like someone who is generally an empowering person (Don't people say like strong, independent women??? Maybe I misunderstood) (I think animated Mulan is strong too! Maybe that just isn't the right word though. I just can't think of a better word due to my lack of vocabulary) but yeah it makes sense too because it's one of the stereotypes. But ik animated Mulan isn' about that I'm talking about other books and movies I've seen on the internet and I think it is relevant to 'seeing women as men to empower women'.
The only semblance it gave of "be your feminine self" was her taking off her armor and letting her hair down. 😳 Like, no bitch, women still need armor and hair gets in the way. I hated that "accepting who you really are" was represented in a very stereotypical way.
@@hellohello8061 Here you are defining physical strength as being empowering, but Mulan was never stronger than everyone else. What made her empowering was her cunning mind. Maybe you should stop stereotyping "BIG AND STRONG" as empowering. Here they completely ignored Mulan's original (animated version) personality, she was neither too masculine nor too feminine, she was an intelligent warm-hearted person. This movie made her one of the guy warriors basically (except better than them), completely ruining her uniqueness and turning her into a Mary Sue.
@@eyeswithhope13 retards think that strong woman is woman that can kick your ass. They can't imagine that even definition of strong man is far from that, leave alone woman...
As a Chinese and a girl, I really did feel represented and empowered by the cartoon. So sad Mulan 2020 failed in every way.
Ok
i loved it personally
ok
Me too.The story, mulan's characther, her struggles and her success. In my opinion what made mulan good was the fact that she struggled, even when she faced her challenges she wasn't phyically strong and her fighting was still wonky. But she was hard working and used her smarts to make up for it
Well, spoiler alert.
Mulan isn't Chinese.
Mulan: *works hard and grows alongside with her male teammates, thus showing that women have as much value as men*
2020 Mulan: ☯ *CHI* ☯
Only the avatar can master chi
Banana onion juice
Chinese Herbal Ingredients
🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️..... 🤦🏼♀️
But also, the animation didn't portray their guys as "better" than women/Mulan. Pretty much everyone sucked in the beginning. It was never men vs women or can women be as good as men or whatever. It was just about each person, whether male or female, working hard to rise above his/her own limitation.
You gotta give props to this movie, though, because pissing off western *and* Chinese audiences, men and women, old Disney fans and new, must not be an easy task...
Truly a cinematic triumpth.
I think not🦶🏼
Not to mention that part of it was filmed near a Chinese Concentration camp 🤦♂️🤦♂️ glad I haven't nor will I spend money to view it.
AND setting it up for a Mulan Returns because Disney/21st century capitalism, etc. etc.
Pissing off everyone
Truly the New height
it's just sad, because it proves that none of disney's efforts to empower women have been genuine.
Modern hollywood feminism. Just pretending that they're doing something, but in the end the ony results are marketing campaigns and anger
it was just a scam to steal people's money
That's why they called as fake woke. It's between a scam or they're just clueless about the real world, living in their own bubble. Or just too coward.
When have they EVER been genuine about female empowerment?
@@gamebawesome Well, original Mulan was made by Disney, so at least that team, if not the company, was interested in true feminism
They replaced mushu with a Phoenix that doesn’t really do anything.... biggest mistake Disney can make
They did say, that Mushu is unrealistic. Yeah.
Probably not the *biggest* mistake..
But it is annoying tbh.
The guy who decided not to include mushu: Too unrealistic
Also the same guy: Egyptian phoenix lore will fit great.
Mushu?
Oh, that modern mini dragon right?
Even though I didn't like the fact that mushu sounded as if he came from rapping industry or something, but to be honest he was a great ally and friend to Mulan.
(This is just my opinion so don't get pissed off okay?)
@@madhanblaze1311 I get what you’re saying but that’s just how the voice actor speaks, like when he played Donkey in Shrek. It’s that “black guy” voice. Not a rapper 💀
As a military veteran - it was so disappointing that they cut out Mulan's training. It was so hard trying to keep up with my male counterparts during training. My military experience was almost exactly like the animation. We got through training together as a team. Where I lacked in physical strength, I had mastered my critical thinking skills to help my team out.
I wish Disney consulted with female Marines and their training. You are right - lazy white washed writing. So disappointing. THIS MOVIE IS NOT EMPOWERING. Good job Disney you FAILED.
Yes Annelle, i totally agree with you. As a conscripted soldier, whom also had female soldiers in my company. I was disappointed that they didn't cover that.
Thank your for your service! And for breaking gender stereotypes too! Really, WoMaN sTrOnK isn't empowering at all. A training montage was sorely needed, seeing Mulan grow and be as useful as any male soldier.
You should try to get into movie consultation, because you are damn right about the bullshit in movies, especially this one. Disney could learn a lot from people with actual experience.
I take your point, but this isn't a remake of GI Jane and is just a folk myth, if you want to see something that is probably more realistic, try and see Nirvana Phoenix - those actresses were outstanding
@body parts Well yeah in the original Ballad she had trained herself before, but the fact that she still trained before would need to be shown. Instead we got some super-powered lady who had no struggles and also seemed like someone naturally gifted.
Normies: roast the movie
This guy: roasts the movie using sponsorship messages
Ooof. I like it
it was really funny when it went with 'with skill share you can make better job in animating scenes than disney'
I SCREAMED!!! IT WAS SO FCKING SLY OML
IKR. He got some good ones in there too.
Oof size large
I'm an English literature teacher, and I'm considering showing this to me high school students as a model of how effective structure can be in an essay/argument. This is beautifully written.
I think you should. In high school I never really cared about essays I had to write because I didn't know what a good one was supposed to look like.
Which one, Mulan or this vid? If it is Mulan.......... 🤪
Agreed but it also puts a fair advantageous if you're students are from a different country and have hard access to understand Chinese culture. Mind you it is one of the oldest cultures and China has blocked access to western media.
Are you a pirate too
I hope to be a bridge between Western and Chinese culture, and I can tell you FOR SURE the movie has ABSOLUTELY NO UNDERSTANDING of the actual message the original story wish to convey.... Its TRULY a WESTERN, BIAS VIEW of Chinese culture. Whatever value conveyed in the 2020 movie DEEPLY MISLEADING.. If you decide to show this to your high school students, please emphasize that it has value only as a story but DOES NOT REFLECT CHINESE CULTURE AT ALL!..... its truly an ORIENTAL FETISH that is definitely UNTRUE.
"Mulan is unlike any other Disney female lead at the time... She's not born royalty nor nobility and does not marry into one either."
YEP! She was so different that the Disney Princess brand had to alter a "requirement" on who is a "Disney Princess".
It was "The character must be royal by birth or royal by marriage."
Because of Mulan it is "The character must be royal by birth, royal by marriage, or do a heroic deed."
Mulan offending western and Chinese audiences at the same time:
*”PARKOUR!“*
funny that she mostly did it with her parkour
tbf my parents watch so many chinese dramas and they always do that floaty parkour stuff in them. like *every* single chinese drama i've seen has that
Right wingers hated it, left wingers hated it, China hated it. Disney tries to make it out as if sexism and racism are why it is hated.
@@Username-1939t9 yeah. that weird, unnatural, low gravity jumps or the oddly fast, gravity defying "thrown out the window via explosion" motion
@@Username-1939t9 broo those were sucjh fever dreams
3:23 "and then you f*cked it up"
this caught me off guard as he spoke very softly and polite until that point
Everytime I hear Mulan's father say "The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter" always makes me tear up because when I was younger I always hated being a girl. I can't play with my brothers because I'm a girl, I needed to wear dresses because I'm a girl. I'll get a doll and not allowed to ride my brother's bicycle because I'm a girl. I needed to learn and do all the chores around the house because that is what a girl is for. Being able to watch Mulan when I was younger made me so happy and made me realize that I can't just be limited to what a girl "needs" to do or learn. My rebellious phase came afterwards but I'm grateful for it because that's how I came to be who I am today, and I think my dad has learned to accept the way I am through the years (but my mom is still as stubborn as ever lol)
thank you for coming to my tedtalk
I remember how my mom wanted me to wear skirts and dresses and I hated it because I was such a tomboy when I was younger, she would always convince me with candy lol. Luckily she did let me play outside with my brother and the other boys living close. But I do remember having friends who's mom were so focused on 'girl things' that it was just tiring, even for me. Or friends who needed to help with cleaning and other chores while their brother(s) could be lazy all the time. And then you have parents who panick when their little boy wants to be a princess for Halloween/Carnaval, like let them be. I even knew a little kid who did not get a Elsa+Anna cake for his birthday, they put damn Olaf on it and he was sad.
As somebody who loved boys stuff when I was young I turned out to be very girly. And why would it matter if I turned out to be a "manly lesbian"? (I hate that word so much). Nobody should care. As long as we're happy and healthy!
Mulan and Anastasia will forever be my role models ♥ I still feel so many emotions while watching those movies
Oh shut up, you know op meant "doing chores" as in "women are only homemakers" you just feel like fighting in the youtube comments. 🙄
Elisa Castro You’re the one who sounds like a crappy person. Imagine growing up been told that you must do all or most chores because you’re a girl but your brothers are only expected to do very little or nothing. Parents should treat all children equally, not based on gender. I’m fortunate enough that my parents treated me and my brothers equally but I’ve witnessed my two female cousins started from a young age expected to wake up early in the mornings to make breakfast, snacks and do laundry for their older brother because he was a boy. He recently got married but doesn’t know how to cook or clean even though he works from home but his wife who works long hours outside their home tirelessly comes home to cook and cleans before resting while he just lounges around.
@Elisa Castro Somebody clearly missed the point of this conversation...
@Elisa Castro You're pathetic, petty and stupid.
I was a little African girl when I watched Mulan and I admired and related to her the most out of all the 'Disney princesses', we mostly have the same culture here. I couldn't relate to this version.
Neither could I and I'm a white man.
The original movie taught me how to become a good person and better man by embracing both of my sides. The new movie only taught me to not watch new Disney movies anymore...
I watched it as a young asian boy, and I fkin cried in the end
Hello. Do you seen "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" ? I think you like that.
So... In the poem, the point made about the two hares running side by side is that you can't tell their sexes, i.e. it doesn't matter... And in the movie's reference to the line, she explicitly mentions that she could tell they had different sexes... Seems stupid enough to almost seem intentional.
It seems so insulting. Like the script writers read the poem and spat on it :(
It's like they skimmed the poem. "I read this random poem about Mulan, I think it said something about a male and a female hare, let's put it in."
And it's so funny, because they are arguably SO aiming at a feminist message haha I always felt like the ballad was doing well. If only they had read it correctly, they wouldn't deviate onto questionable (aka messed up) territory
it's the proof that they don't understand crap about what makes the original good.
Think you mean sexes, not genders. Gender is a uniquely human thing, and it’s how we express “masculine” or “feminine” behaviours. Sex is our innate biology - whether we’re male or female.
"I'm just a dude-I can't imagine how powerful it must have felt for a young girl" Man, thank you for saying this. Thank you for your wonderful awareness of that. Mulan was so, so important to me (and even my mother, an adult at the time) as a little girl. She was my *favorite.* She still is my favorite. After princess after princess, having a character like Mulan as someone for young girls to look up to was so amazing. I still look up to her to this day. I still get tears in my eyes when I think about her climbing the pole to get the arrow, sweat dripping down her brow after she was *dismissed from service* just to prove to herself that she could do *something*, even if it was just this one thing. Or crying because she fails to fit in to traditional femininity and feels worthless because of it (HOW COULD THEY LEAVE THIS OUT???). Those moments have resonated with me my whole life as a gender nonconforming woman. This was the first time I was shown a woman having true, raw power due to something other than her beauty and sway over men.
What you say about how Mulan is empowering in the cartoon is so dead on. The message of the film, at it's core, is a condemnation of gender extremes and strict gender roles. It posits that both extreme femininity and extreme masculinity are not only wrong and damaging to people (people like Mulan, who aren't either of those) but are actually ineffective and destructive in many situations. That is such an incredibly powerful and nuanced message and my god, way way ahead of it's time in the 90s.
A lot of "female empowerment" is telling women to use their sexuality and beauty to manipulate situations, and that totally ignores and leaves behind the thousands of women who aren't beautiful, or don't want to be, or are uncomfortable being very feminine. Mulan is telling women to find their own power wherever they may fall on that binary spectrum, and that's amazing and rare even today. Mulan tells us we can be capable at whatever we feel most comfortable doing through grit, determination and hard work. Mulan carves out her place in the world, cleaves through the gender binary using nothing but her tenacity and natural inclinations to be heroic and noble and nothing else. Her outright rejection of extreme gender roles is what saves China.
This movie just took a dump on all of it. I had *no* meaning. It had nothing to say. It had none of those deeply impactful emotional beats. It was a fucking joke. The only thing it tells us is that to be a true hero, you have to be born one of two ways; male, or magic. Non-magical women? Tough luck, enjoy dying in childbirth.
Wow. Amazing analysis here, super insightful, great job.
You spoke my mind sis 😢
this was also how I felt. I looked up to-and still look up to-Mulan from a young age. the animated version will forever be in my heart.
Can someone make a TL;DR version of this?
@@mrflip-flop3198 TLDR: Come visit Brazil, Stanley Kubrick misses you.
damn right on. That is dead on.
"mulan 2020 is not malicious, it's just plain stupid" lol that got me
* actor for mulan supports police brutality *
* films next to a concentration camp *
hmmmmmmm
wrong its both
@@noahacosta6624 under rated lol
@@skraskraa._.5371 the things is this movie is a such a huge insult to the Chinese culture in particular and Asian who know the story of Mulan in general, so much that even if there were no Hongkong and Muslim shenanigans, the Chinese government will still ban it and the Chinese people will still detest it anyway. It f@ck up so many things! It is like Disney bribing the Chinese government to eat shit :|
@@skraskraa._.5371 Wow, that’s hardcore. But who’s cause is the most righteous? That’s the point of the discussion.
That scene with her father! Even with no scene audio and a calm, informative voice-over, the part where her dad tosses aside the symbols of honor she brings home and embraces Mulan instead makes me tear up so fast!
It pissed me off to no end when in the live action that one dude who is kind of the love interest tells the commander "you'll believe Hua Jin but not Hua Mulan"- and in the animation, it is Mulan who speaks for herself and tells that to Shang. In the love action, people speak up for her and she stays clam shut!
Incredible how subtly sexist it all is
@@somnodaur8064 Its honestly really funny to see companies try to appear progressive and then utterly fail at it. In the games industry there was a similar thing with a company donating money to BLM in order to appear progressive, only for a two months later use BLM inspired imagery to represent a cartoonishly evil terrorist group whose evil plan involved creating anti-racism wars and profiting from them.
Because "she knows her place"
@@trevordavis6830 Name and shame. Ubisoft. Jimquisition goes on a beautiful rant about it. The more you learn about the gaming industry, the more one gets radicalized to the left.
The ending of the og mulan meant so much to me as a little girl that really wanted to make my dad proud and seeing them completely throw that moment away was just soul crushing. Great video.
This remind me of screenshot chat of 2 friends in my country. Both women. They wanna go out but on of em has to stay home a bit to cook for her dad. Her friend scoffed her as if she's being submissive to patriarchy. I dunno if they remain friends lol.
@@kaimargonar1000 if her dad already died and she stay for her mother, then is it matriarchy?
I'm sure your dad is proud of you to this day.
Yeah that last scene was so heart touching not gonna lie.
@@lordasuka83h50 no, but only because matriarchy is not the dominant system. if it were, then yes.
the sheer anger in that shaking "she's submissive" caption lmaooo i love this so much
7:40 I teared up, I did not realize how deep and precious the messages of the animated Mulan was.
Me too. What a great movie. And they screw it up
16:44 im not even Chinese but this pissed me off. If according to the ballad, you can't tell the difference in gender between two hares running side by side, then mulans dialogue in that scene completely contradicts the whole message by telling us that she was in fact able to tell that one was male and the other was female. It beats the whole point! It takes the main, conclusive message from the ballad and comepletely strips it of its meaning!
damn now that you mentioned it lol that's funny
Exactly what I thought too
Indicative of how the writers missed the entire point of Mulan's original story. They just wanted to make a Wu Xia with female protagonist.
@@AeontheWeeb Wuxia has a lot of female protagonist and some of them are even stronger than male character. In Wuxia, they don't give a damn about your gender. This crap cannot be called Wuxia.
@@minhnguyenphanhoang4193 Well that's not fair...they totally care about your gender in wuxia...it determines which style clothes you're going to wear :P
Not much else, but still!
When mulan cuts down her hair.. that is the the most iconic scene of the mulan. She made a sacrifice of something whats considered to be the grace of a women...
But the real life version just in order to add glamour in the movie or so, they did nothing like that. Animated version was really grt.
True. And even without her being Chinese, it's extremely symbolic for a woman to cut her hair as short as she does. Not doing it was an idiotic missed opportunity.
Cutting your hair during that period was disrespectful to your ancestors and parents
@@tamikachen1 yeah that's why that scene felt so iconic...
@@saurabhsoni4092 You have the 1998 version to put on replay for that. Plus guys had long hair back then so there's no reason to cut their hair and even guys during that period are not allowed to cut their hair either. The western viewpoint finds it empowering but the eastern viewpoint is that it's disrespectful and goes against Confucian beliefs.
@@tamikachen1 the whole movie is abt the empowerment. If cutting hair is disrespectful then riding horse is also disrespectful, fighting, wielding sword, staying with unknown guys, clothing like guys etc etc also a disrespectful thing... Then the whole point of being mulan is worthless according to you...
Wonderful video essay, i now see the animated mulan in a new light
Allow me to quietly subscribe to you (and pretend no one saw me being all otaku-like).
Yes, never thought that deep watching the old one, probably because I'm not female?
the new one is like frozen, let it go, be yourself
the loyalty thing made it so difficult to enjoy, not sure how people in china would think
I only ever saw the original a few times as a kid and even I feel like there's a lot more humanity shown in the original's relationships and characterizations that were just taken for granted.
@@AccentedCinema :D
Accented Cinema I was wondering what is the name of the other live action clips you were showing I knows it’s a Milan adaptation but I imagine it’s probably got a specific name
"Mulan 2020 isn't malicious; it's just stupid, and it doesn't give a flying f*ck"
That line made me snort out loud 😂
14:44
the new mulan gives me the impression that the writers were trying to turn Mulan into a Marvel movie. big yikes.
omg...TOTALLY
I’m my opinion it’s not even good enough to be a marble movie
Creepykid And Infinite Dreams a *Marble* movie 💀
ʀσռռɨɛ. ʝ
Well hes not wrong.
Marvel movies aren't this...ignorant and not this ignorant when it comes to gender.
Even if people hated Captain Marvel, they were a lot more sensitive with things as it seems.
There is literally an association with educated Chinese experts on Chinese historical clothing called the Chinese Costume Revival Association that uses historical evidence and research down by experts that dedicated their life to Chinese culture to recreate Chinese clothing culture. A group of Chinese high-school students were able to contact them to use their costumes for a high school project, but apparently a multi-millionaire dollar company of Disney can;t hire them for a live-action movie. The color palette of this movie makes me want to throw up, Mulan was born into a low class family, and dyeing clothing during ancient times was very difficult. Another thing I hate about this movie was that Disney never bothered to look into Confucian texts about filial piety, one of the key virtues in the “Ballad of Mulan”.
Hahaha yes! Especially when the ladies were dressed up they look like clowns. And every shot in the palace with the court ladies, the colors were everywhere, making it seemed like I stumbled into the brothel. Lol. Also how they gonna make cheng pei pei the match maker and make her look like lao lao from chinese ghost story?
I’m sure that almost half of the colors in Milan’s color palette are impossible to dye during Ancient China. As a former student of Ancient Chinese culture, this movie hurt me on a personal level.
@@jasonhuang6078 I love your comment so much, I'm a devotee to Western historical clothing and really want to expand my knowledge towards my own Asian culture's dress, so could you recommend books or website to start learning about these topics?
@@KD-nd5gu ask big brother google he knows every thing
@@PyanY
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
I gasped when I first saw Cheng Pei Pei - she would have looked MUCH BETTER without any make-up.
I love Rosalind Chao, but she appeared SO OLD, with her horrendous "make-up" (Asians are young looking)
On a different note, + I realize this is not the mentality @ the time.
If I was Mulan's parent, I DEFINITELY WOULD NOT WORRY about her having "qi", even if the scriptwriters BASTARDIZED it here.
Having "qi" can improve the quality of life, for the family.
I would be MORE CONCERNED with the borderline moronic, silly, second daughter.
For these + many other reasons, the 2009 Mulan, with Best Actress Zhao Wei, directed by Hong Kong's Jingle Ma,
is the DEFINITIVE MULAN MOVIE for me.
This version also has Cantonese Dialogue, which is more similar to the Chinese, than Mandarin, Mulan would have spoken.
I love how an Ancient Chinese script from over a thousand years ago is more progressive and forward thinking than a lot of modern media today
There were a lot of tribes and countries* in China that were matriarchical. Or, at the very least, had gender equality/equity.
* China is like an Eastern version of the UK or Roman Empire.
@Dark of the knight Considering that the new version is supposed to take place during the Tang dynasty according to Architecture Design, that's actually really interesting and further proves my point.
Many refuse to change such as the poem Hua Mulan and the mandate it conveys.
THIS GUY GETS IT
Especially 9:54. That's exactly how I felt watching a lot of faux "empowering" stuff as a little girl. Either you're good at everything or you're bad at everything. It makes trying feel futile
Liked and subbed 👍
“It is the perfect time for a new generation of Mulan to inspire people, and you f*cked it up” GO OFF KING!!!
That was so well said!
The message where the father says: "The greates gift and honor is having you for a daughter" has resonated with me for years and it felt true to it's words because the father always loved Mulan for who she was. The 2020 version seemed to just have glossed over those words which just sucks man.
Same! That part makes me cry each time ❤️
And in the same way that line from the first song of the Disney version: "And keep my father standing tall" resonated the hell out of me as someone who grew up in a Chinese family.
With a father that looked lik. Xi Jinping what did you expect..
@@samuelsanjaya7857
That was not necessary
The 2020 version just glossed over every meaningful point of the '98 animated version.
Or more like, glossed over half of it and the other half was replaced by something, that spits in the eye of the original message.
Like Mulan having superpowers, instead of thinking outside the box.
tldr: Mulan 2020 is the feminist equivalent of "I have black friends"
nah, this is too close a relationship. more like "I work with a black person."
@@zshock4 I'M DEAD
Disney star wars was the same way. They cared about appearing woke, not about actually making a good story with feminist themes that complemented and enhanced the movie.
I've said it before but it's ironic that this is the same studio that dubbed most Studio Ghibli. They should have paid more attention to characters like Nausicaa, San, Chihiro and even Shizuku Tsukishima.
@@Knightmessenger excuse my ignorance but, what is "San"? (i cant precisely google it, u know the director so i can research it? same with "Shizuku Tsukishima", wich movie is her from?)
"Fo sizzle my nizzle, I listen to that funky hip hop like Vanilla Ice, I'm down with the homies."
I personally look at the newest version of Mulan as a prime example of toxic feminism that upholds patriarchal standards. It's like some terrible form of divine irony that a narrative that is suppose to empower women does so by glorifying toxic masculinity and subservience.
That is so on-point! In today's world feminist tag has lost it's respesct because everyone equates feminist with what correctly is tagged as femiazzi. And you have so perfectly described exactly what's wrong here which is making the world hate every "feminist", and even these so called "feminists" don't realize the harm they are doing to femininity. Females do not need to loose their femininity and adopt toxic masculity just to be equal to males.
What exactly do you mean by “toxic femininity” in this context? I only watched this movie ones and anything relating to feminism or toxic femininity did not even cross my mind😵💫 I just thought it was a boring movie with a ridiculous plot
@@DieFarbeLila88 By making an overpowered main character with no flaws as a woman then yells 'it's a true feminism!'?
@@saphirasorra2203 oooh! Yeah. Yeah, that’s - that’s a bit much 😂 I might have repressed that memory 🤣
i love how it is always the patriarchy's fault. ALWAYS. Accountability unknown eh?
"not one of the writers is even asian" This is hilarious to me. For a group that screams about diversity and inclusion, they're awfully exclusive. It also makes the attempts at 'proverbs' or 'sayings' kind of insulting.
The writers seemed like they watched 2-3 Wuxia movies and then just thought they could write a good chinese disney flick.
@@MukuonChannel It seems more like they've just watched Kung fu panda 3...
thissss
@@happylobsterpatatas Kung Fu Panda trilogy is at least more charming than this.
@@MukuonChannel I totally agree with you. My point is they just took some Qi idea and other stuff, and managed to make it even more caricatural and less fun and charming to watch...
Wanting to appear progressive rather than actually being progressive is the current trend in movies, unfortunately; it's not just in 'Mulan'.
Progress shouldn't and cannot be achieved through pretense.
*regressive
@@bro4539 The writers are SJWs. They are intereted in progress, but only in their simplified, dumbed down cultish version. They don't understand the world around them and so they fail to understand what progress is really about.
Isn't it funny that when movies in the 80s/90s just had good female characters, it wasn't a thing, because they were simply a part of the story. (Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor)... hell even Wayne's World was directed by a woman. It's so weird, we've been there, so why do these try-hard movies fail at it?
@@dingus_doofus pinning it on the writers isn't fair. There can be studio influence or the director themselves who inject it themselves.
I watched Lindsay Ellis essays too
Animated Mulan: a woman can be just as capable as a man with wits, determination and courage
Remake Mulan: a woman can be just as capable as a man as long as she has quite inaccurate qi superpowers
How empowering 🙄
Even before the live action version came out, I already knew it wouldn't stack up to the other live Mulan movie, the one from China.
@@KevinJDildonik this mulan is basically chinese Rey, so yeah
@@KevinJDildonik I mean, Star Wars isn't a good example at all in this case. Star Wars is a universe that's full of Mary Sues and Gary Stus. It's a Universe that's established to have an underlying magical power that can make some people more capable than others. Ie a Force user vs a non Force user is a quick imbalance of power.
Mulan SHOULD be set in a 'normal' universe, beyond some folklore elements, and is also a previously established character with centuries worth of tales and media surrounding her already. The fact that her tale is about her determination and her training makes it absolutely ridiculous that Disney decided to give her magical powers that mean she faces zero adversity or struggle this entire movie was just shit and lazy writing.
Comparing that to Star Wars isn't really similar in context. Unless, of course, you simply wanted to take a jab at TEH ES JAY EWZ
Not even that woman can be just as capable. Women and men, femininity and masculinity need each other even within one person. That's what the original Mulan but so poignantly
@@od3910 it's all about balance, sometimes that modern audiences ignore, seeking only absolutes
I love how the word for "outdated virtue" sounds like "you fool!" in English. It's little things like that that make me smile at life.
To be fair, that's always tough in historical or fantasy-historical films. The people of the time were probably more pro-feudalism than anyone living today, so they have to soft-shoe it a little bit.
when a 90s animated movie is more woke then a 2020 live action adaption...
When a 1000 year old poem is more progressive than a 2020 movie...
@@AccentedCinema up till Tang dynasty, we have been pretty woke......in some aspects.
@@AccentedCinema this was deep
That's because the modern "woke" crowd are so "Progressive" that they wind up being "Regressive". They were raised with the idea that they must fight a problem that no longer exists. Thus (to use a metaphor) they are trying to force healthy people to take medicines that wind up being poisonous due to it not actually treating a illness. (I hope that made sense, because I really suck at coming up with metaphors.)
@@Snowmon89 are you really implying that women no longer face inequality
The whole “She’s suddenly perfect at everything” isn’t new to all these types of films because apparently empowerment is just make the character as perfect as possible without any flaws or struggles
Cough* star wars cough*
The last of us 2 to an extent too
And I really hate Mulan 2020 expression so stone cold
Wait wasnt she a prodigy irl??
A lot of female protagonist in fantasy are written in that way no conflict just able to walk through every scenario
Mulan 1998: Value of hard work
Mulan 2020: Value of natural talent
Whats funny is that nothing natural is promoted in 2020, expect being naturally wealthy.
@Angrry Ereg of course it doesn't. But the new movie really threw the whole "hard work" to cultivate chi in the trash can by giving Mulan chi from birth. It sucks
I don’t even care about the politics, removing Mushu was a very stupid decision. I’m a male and Mulan inspired me as a child . For me, it wasn’t just about being a female in a male world It was about not giving into how the world views you, but remaining confident in how you view yourself.
*There is no Disney Mulan Live Action Adaptation in Ba Sing Se*
_Here we are safe, here we are free_
Hahaha!
I'm so glad that they didn't make a live action ATLA.
I must make a visit to Lake Laogai.
@@hypothalapotamus5293 ummmm... Sorry to break you the news but they did. ಠ‿ಠ
Molonaro Lio
He didn’t miss anything. It was horrible..
”We want more realism!”
Gives her super saiyan powers...
Wow, so realistic and relatable.
Lol imagine if she did turn into a blue eyed blonde super saiyan, the world would call that Nazism 😂
1998 Mulan: Makes up smart, useful tactics, enforces the help of Mother Nature, adapts to situations
2020 Mulan: “I am with Chi and Chi is with me”
Omg can’t agree more,
*me in the cinema*: wtf is chi
the chi awakens
I love your profile picture lol
"That's not how Qi works!" - Han Dynasty Solo
May the Chi be with you - Mulan
"Mulan 2020 isnt malicious, its just stupid"
That made me laugh out loud af
Disney has become disinterested in its own magic
Disney be like: Haha CGI + live action cash cow movies go brrrr
This is such a sad truth. :(
As someone who grew up with Disney movies from childhood, it’s very depressing to see these uninspired and utterly disappointing remakes.
We'll have to go look for it somewhere else then.
@@valeriexjohnson Lightyear is coming out soon as well
Actually, making a woman to stand equally with stronk independent alpha male is a magic itself for its never happened like ever.
Disney: We'll take out Mushu because we want the film to be more realistic. And we don't want to offend the Chinese people by portraying a sacred dragon as funny.
Also Disney: Here, Mulan is gifted with the CHI. She's basically a superhero. And a paper-thin phoenix as a bonus just to act like a compass for her.
And they also take out one of the most realistic thing from the animation: The ancestors. You can bet that when Chinese ancestors all gather in one room, they would bicker and fight like described in the original film.
Well obviously
@Keran Chen seriously Nickelodeon with avatar, a show from nearly TWENTY YEARS AGO FOR CHILDREN AGES 6-12, did better at explaining chi...
And let’s have none of the characters speak Chinese.
Mulan should join the Avengers.
Moral of the story: Either have super powers, or find a man
Lol
👏👏👏
LOL Feminist trash not satisfied with two feminist propaganda movies that depict a woman as superior to oppressive, bad men. Because in the second movie she is superior but it's BY BEING STRONG! AND THAT'S MASCULINE! Hilarious BS. This lying propaganda about women being as strong as men is in every Hollywood action show, but you still pretend that "ACKSHUALLY that's not REALLY feminist." Sick.
@@Grasslander ok sexist
@@Grasslander mulan fail but people still gonna defend sjw any way
I'm a woman (from Spain), and Mulan always had be my favorite film from disney. It has less songs, but i always feel so identified with her. No has super powers, no has an army, but she is witty, inteligent, and thats how she solved de problem. With inteligency and skill.
When the new move appers, it was... Horrible. The character, the story... Everything. And the worst, (in my point of view, i am not chinese, and dont kwom how they miss with culture and history aspects), is that the change Mulan. They give her superpowers to save the world, and tell that she can only save the world because the superpowers. That is absolutte disapointing, and take away all the inspiracy Mulan gives to others.
PS: I hope my english wasn't to horrible. I only want to share my thoughts about my favorite disney film
The only criticism I have regarding the 1998 animated version is the scene in which Mulan cuts her hair. In ancient China, both men and women never cut their hair since they believed that their hair was a gift from their parents. Hence, cutting one's hair was the ultimate act of disrespect. The 2020 Disney live action adaptation is an abomination. The best live action version is the 2009 movie, Mulan: Rise of a Warrior. ua-cam.com/video/0ep39N-vgDY/v-deo.html
I was so happy it had less songs than other Disney movies. As a kid I could not stand it when they break up into song and dance for no reason.
"Empowering Femininity"
that's such a good point, because Disney's feminism, Disney's "strong female characters" basically means women that can outman men. To Disney's writers, "Power", to begin with, means men's power: physical strength, ability to destroy, aggression, "empowerment" therefore becomes synonymous with masculinisation, so naturally, their "Strong Female Characters" are just a bunch of women that are even more manly than men.
This is not just a Disney symptom, it's been growing to this insane incarnation for a few decades now. Every 'strong female character' is like this. I'd be hard-pressed to find a 'strong female character' on tv that isn't these days. And it's not just in television, it's how modern feminism is. This third/fourth-wave feminism. All I see is women wanting an excuse to act like their imagined stereotype of 'toxic masculinity'. It's exhausting. It's come so far I am embarrassed. I will never be a feminist. I can't uphold this sexist ideal because that is what it is. Sexist. Current feminism just wants to 'empower' women by tearing down men. It's a product of mainstream media, Disney and Hollywood buying into it, feeding it, because it makes them money to kowtow but not actually care.
It's by design. If women become genuinely more powerful, then they become harder to manipulate. How can you convince a powerful woman to abandon her childhood dreams of having a home and a family with a man she loves in exchange for leaving her family home to live in an overcrowded city being some kind of waitress (food waitress, money waitress, paper waitress, etc.) during the best years she has for finding a man and starting her family? And if you fail to stop her from having kids, how can you convince a powerful woman that she should not raise her children and should instead send them away for government employees to raise them and teach them whatever the state wants to teach them?
The issue is control. A few people want to own and control everyone else. First step: Break the family. Method: Deceive young men and women; convince them that the way their parents lived is stupid and a type of slavery.
@@Wormwoodification I still identify myself as a feminist, but I really don't like the trope that the 'toxic masculinity' is viewed as something awesome if it belongs to a female character. It's fine if a story has masculine female characters, because some women are indeed more traditionally masculine than feminine, but excessive aggression and emotional repression are not something to be praised. The term 'toxic masculinity' is kinda misleading as well, it makes people feel like only men are like that, but women can very well have all those traits as well.
This idea is incredibly outdated form of feminism, as it is a second wave idea of trying to achieve equality. Show women are equal to men by showing they are capable entirely on traditional men's terms (aggression, strength, dominance, etc.) Third wave and onward is about breaking down that idea that women are valuable only if they can meet masculine ideals. Hollywood seems to have gotten stuck back in the 80s and hasn't move forward since.
BASICALLY THE DIRECTOR OF DISNEY RIGHT NOW IS FUCKING IT ALL UP, WITH THE SUPER POWERFULL PROTAGONIST like rey and mulan ,,ITS BEING WORST FOR FEMINISM holy crap, CHANGE THE FUCKING DIRECTOR OR THE PERSON GIVING THE DIRECTIONS ..jesus christ !
Your analysis is always so insightful and excellent. Loved this video. Man I have to rewatch the old animated Mulan movie. Its soo good
the shaolin himself is here
the last of us 2 ? ghost of tsushima ?
damn didn't expect u here, sag wallah er macht guter review
where's ghost of shushi-man review?... just kidding, take a good rest my friend
the mhaolin sonk is here.
The main problem in the live-action movie for me was how lazy and tasteless it was made. They literally made a character simply born extremely powerfull to avoid actually building one character.
In the live-action Mulan was never in danger (she could easily defeat the general and the bad guy), she never had to learn skills and everything works in her side.
Basically, what makes her special is being born the 1 in a 1000000 and pure luck.
Mulan, the choosen one, privileged natural born prodigy warrior Mary Sue. Very relatable.
@@Mockingbirding29 your missing about 3 zeros and then your logic is perfect 👌. 1 in an actual billion.
Sound a bit like Rey from Star Wars... OP characters are boring and difficult to connect with
oh wow this point is so well said . no character developement !!! ❤no matter how controversial this new Mulan is, i think we all agree on how the classic song Reflection is in our heart as always and beautiful. I have recently covered Reflection from the original movie on my channel, ua-cam.com/video/hrpAFh7Kcpw/v-deo.html please let me know what you think and if i did a justice to Mulan
I just wish "Hua Mulan" from 2009 movie would be promoted more instead of this Disney adaptation version. It's harsh, difficult, long and hartbreaking, but I just love it, it gives me everything I could wish for live action movie based on this story.
Too bad you didn't have an opportunity to mention that film here.
Clips of that version are shown at the end of the video.
@@gamestation2690 yes, but without actually naming it. I would love to see the recommendation like "by the way, those clips are from Hua Mulan move, if you are disappointed in the newest live action version, go check that out". But still, I'm glad to see those clips and I really enjoyed the essay!
The only criticism I have regarding the 1998 animated version is the scene in which Mulan cuts her hair. In ancient China, both men and women never cut their hair since they believed that their hair was a gift from their parents. Hence, cutting one's hair was the ultimate act of disrespect. The 2020 Disney live action adaptation is an abomination. The best live action version is the 2009 movie, Mulan: Rise of a Warrior. ua-cam.com/video/0ep39N-vgDY/v-deo.html
@@hadiyahalkauthar Cao Cao cut his own hair and considered it equal punishment as committing suicide. Although of course it was more or less a ploy to exonerate himself, the fact that people tolerated it showed that indeed people valued hair quite high.
@@real_dddf Cutting one's hair in ancient China was indeed akin to a death curse upon oneself, one's spouse or parents, since the only time ancient Chinese men or women would consider cutting even a tiny bit of their hair off was if their spouse or parents died.
Your nailed every reason this movie was absolutely an embarrassment beside the original Disney film. The biggest two things for me were 1) Mulan is now "the chosen one" sort of story. I HATE THAT. It's so boring and uninteresting. Completely dumbs down her character and takes everything she did using her wit and brain and just throws it in the trash. That was a huge mistake, and I think the biggest one. 2) MULAN AND HER FATHER. All of the wonderful emotional beats from the animated film aren't here. It's like you said towards the end, how her father tries to cheer her up after she fails in the beginning. How you can see how much she cares for her father when she thinks he's going to have to go to war and will die. How her father reacts when he realizes she's left (makes me emotional just thinking about it). And the beautiful reunion scene with possibly the best line from the whole film: "The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter." The line just brings everything full circle and sums up how her father has always felt about her and seen her, but now, Mulan can see it herself too. I just love that.
So yeah, the live action had huge shoes to fill. And it couldn't do that, which isn't a surprise, but man I didn't think it was going to be THIS bad. I don't think it could have been much worse to be honest.
2manynegativewaves Hahahah right?? Rey vibes completely.
I think the writers on purpose tried to kill or dismiss the father-doughter relationship, because their women "empowering" movie should be all about Mulan and HER honor, not the honor of her dad or the huge and mutual love and respect they share between each other, just because her dad is exactly that, her dad, a male authority figure. No way those dumb writers, in their trademark femenists mind set, were going to allow her dad to be such a big aspect in their Mulan's motivations as he was in the original movie.
@@doblove ^ Exactly this. Badly as they fumbled the "female empowerment" parts of all their recent films, you can always count on the new Disney Doctrine to enforce the "no good men" rule. Even if it ruins the story.
Yeah, they turned her character to a choosen one Mary Sue. Sigh.
@@doblove That's a really good point, I hadn't even thought of that!! And that makes it so much worse. Feminism and empowering women was never supposed to be about eradicating every healthy authority in our lives, female or male. It's so sad that it's turned into that, and media is just perpetuating that notion. It really takes away from what equality should be, and makes it something cheaper. I wish they'd stop trying to make every female character either 1) special and the chosen one (a mary sue) OR 2) strong in a masculine sense- because there is beautiful strength in femininity that we're just not getting to see in Hollywood (9 times out of 10) and that's really unfortunate.
"it's dialogue sounds like a white person's oriental fetish" hits the nail on the head.
thank you so much for sharing this! this was wonderful. you illustrated all my feelings about this burning dumpster heap better than i could. your insights are always so well-thought out and eloquent!
The dialogue sounds like what you would read when you open a whole box of fortune cookies.
This film is exactly like when you walk into a Chinese restaurant that claims to make authentic Chinese food, and they offer you General Tso's Chicken and fortune cookie.
Not to mention that the cook or about every employee in the restaurants don't come from China or aren't Chinese at all.
@@olymolly3637 And They just hire a bunch of Chinese waiters and waitresses, and put a few Phoenix statues that look like chicken at the front door... Good strategy!!!
@@miacao9766 showmanship 101?
True
Hahahahaha
The four lines at the end of this video from the Ballad of Mulan itself, are more empowering than the whole live action. Beautiful video. Everything is nicely explained.
Damn, that sponsor message is more brutal than animated Mulan's kill count!
i'm impressed tho 🤣
That burn was hotter than a European Phoenix
I'm a Black girl but I always looked up to Mulan growing up because I was bullied as a kid and it was nice to have a Disney character who could fight back. I respect the Princesses before her on the roster because most of them were abuse victims who had to depend on others to get through it all, but it's also important to see someone who is defending themselves and their loved ones and not being disrespected for it.
It's really infuriating to see such a beautiful story get bastardized in a blatant cash grab, and the fact that the movie was filmed in the place where Uyghur Muslims are being tortured and killed at this moment is disgusting.
Dru Reeve the target audience for this particular movie (2020 version) isn’t black, nor is it white.
@Dru Reeve troll
Dru Reeve Dru Reeve Dru Reeve I think she was trying to say that it is much more difficult to find non-white characters who have so much humaneness and admirable character. It’s something different that, although she may not be a Chinese descendant, she can relate to because she is also facing as much patriarchal or societal pressures.
And as a black girl, if she was in a white-racist neighborhood, went to a white majority school, or to be honest, EVEN if she wasn’t living in America, she would have faced so much hardship-
*In fact-blacks in America aren’t the only ones facing racial injustice. It’s on an international scale, but a lot more subtle than USA’s.*
Also.......
If...... If I was the one who commented that, but started off with-“I’m a Pacific Islander, but I always looked up to Mulan because I was bullied” you wouldn’t have criticized at all WHY I was introducing myself as a Pacific Islander.
I think that says more about _you_ than you think.
Rather than going-Oh you must be an ‘American’, you guys are always on about your race-Maybe you should ask yourself, am I saying something problematic? Am I, by the harsh dictation in my comment, only perpetuating a system that’s trying to shame black voices into silence?
I’m not black, and I know this much. You might not be a bad person, so I don’t want to bash on you without considering that maybe this isn’t something you know.
But if you’re looking to not unintentionally sound hurtful, I would suggest educating yourself with the topic online. Please have a good day.
_P.S. OP! If I got anything wrong, please feel free to correct me. I just didn’t feel right not defending you when you introducing yourself as black gets hit with such an insensitive comment. Other races are more unlikely to receive such treatment. I’m very sorry. Please don’t take their words as a representative of non-black commenters, common as this might be._
@@allensmatchmaker3823 wow, you know, i dislike this being turned into a race issue, i just thought she mentioned being black just to say that race had nothing to do with her relating to the character
@@allensmatchmaker3823 you seem really passionate about the whole race discussion but i dont think this has to do with it
Empowerment now means you are born better than everyone else and they are keeping you down because they're jealous. You don't have to work hard or have any hardship to achieve this level of greatness.
Yeah I hate the new normalcy in culture where everybody and everything is absolutely perfect.
Everyone has opportunities to improve.
that's not what "empowerment now" means, that's what misogynists think it means.
They are given the opportunity but are not willing to work hard for the outcome
They want the easy way out. And I have a huge ideological disagreement with that
Someone told me something very wise that I want to add:
Action is not without reaction. So when you keep kicking down someone who can beat you up because you think they're too guilty to respond; based off, they've been kind enough to let you off the first time, you must be very careful if you're going to keep going about it. They can stand up enraged and you can bet they'll never listen to reason again.
This is what empowerment must understand. The powerful and the rich can also be Oppressed at heart, and just like a tamed lion can realize their destiny as per what people think of them is a wild lion, can casually proceed to kill the lion tamer, ending the circus.
@@mikei6605 More like misandrists
I love the story you told at the beginning of how significant Mulan was to the youth and China overall, and your class' reaction to the animated film at the theater. Great way to start the video essay.
“If the animators joined SKILL SHARE.”😂😂 And man, what a bummer about Mulan.
seriously that ad placement was so smooth and unexpected xD
I couldn’t stop laughing at that part 😂
lol that line made me think of the orbit on twitter and the whole "well if you stanned Loona" thing
It really falls in line with what Lindsay Ellis said about Disney's new brand of "girl boss feminism" what's just one woman doing the man thing and being recognized for it instead of critiquing the gender roles themselves (Mulan being a qi warrior (wtf), Jasmine becoming sultan, etc.) It does nothing to question or hold patriarchal systems accountable and only insists that a woman must become like men to be considered equally valuable. Sigh.
That is the whole western entertainment in a nutshell. Women aren#t allowed to be feminine and men are not allowed to be masculine. In front of all black men in current comics.
Cú Chulainn okay, but "femininity is default state", really? You have a valid point, but don’t go as far as to become like NoBullshit where every woman that isn’t sexualized and hyperfeminine is automatically feminist propaganda. Your criticism should rather be that they aren’t depicted as real people, rather as stripped down ideas of people without the character. Not that they aren’t feminine enough for your liking. OP put it better.
Cú Chulainn it was an example on what line you should not cross. You called femininity the "default state" of women, which is untrue. Femininity and masculinity are social and cultural concepts, varying from place and context, there is no "default state" and there is nothing wrong with 'masculine' women. A masculine woman can be great if she is written as a good character.
@@fen4613
There are some psychological studies that indicate that femininity and masculinity could be much more than social and/or cultural constructs. These studies are largely empirical, and thus far from guaranteed truths, but they do make sense; culture and society don't come out of nowhere, they are the result of the base human psyche that responds to the environment it inhabits. The fact that males and females tend to fill similar roles in most cultures across space and time would indicate that masculinity and femininity are, in fact, hard coded into the human brain.
Personally, I stand by Carl Jung's thesis that man and woman possess both a masculine and feminine drive, and that they are simply more prevalent in the respective gender. Therefore, one should be free to embrace or reject both however they see fit. But stating that masculinity and femininity don't exist and are just a product of society is a dangerous idea that creates more confusion than anything
Chazaqiel Is this misunderstanding-ception? I didn‘t say they don’t exist. I said there is no "default state", because humans no longer have an inherent nature, we‘re cultural beings. Rolls being similar in most cultures could also be mainly explained through biology when we first developed cultures (which started before the stone age even), males tend to be bigger and build up muscle faster, while also having higher testosterone levels. You can’t really choose your preferred role in society if you couldn’t stand in a fight and are indoctrinated by 'tradition' centuries after. Being oppressed isn’t being feminine. If you leave a child without other people, it will either die or become feral, unable to mentally develop, because we’re so dependent on culture. If it wasn’t strictly cultural, a feral female child would suddenly act feminine and start caring about making makeup from dirt? Femininity isn’t natural, it’s observed, learned and then maybe adapted. Obviously that decision of adaptation isn’t as black and white nor conscious, but it’s definitely not because it’s a default. I really don’t know if we’re arguing the same side or not, I‘m kinda confused by now.
"A white person's oriental fetish"
As an Asian that lived in a western country for more than half his life, I find this statement amusing.
The big giveaway was the reborn in fire phoenix when the phoenix in asian culture has absolutely nothing to do with fire
@Sketchy Stuff Yeah but this would theoretically take place in a time period when western culture wouldn't have yet been mixed in yet.
@@dfnt12 浴火鳳凰 is an imported concept, but it date back quite early and was somehow associated with Chinese Buddhism. This version of Mulan is also a rather late iteration anyways. There are much more serious errors in this movie than this debatable one.
@@hc8714 I mean yeah the entire movie was pretty garbage. We were mostly specific discussing how the movie seemed to be written from the perspective of a white person with an asian fetish.
I have not seen this movie but that made me laugh anyways.
The Real Mulan used her ingenuity, smarts and skills to beat the enemy.
The Fake Mulan used her Disney-given princess powers to beat the enemies in the movie.
When I was a little girl, I loved the animated Mulan because she was like me. I was not special, in fact, I was a mess. I was a nervous child who had very few friends because I was always daydreaming instead of trying to fit in. Mulan also struggled to fit in, and I knew what that was like. Watching Mulan grow stronger through her different way of thinking was inspiring, because if she could do it, so could I.
This remake ruined that. I’m no longer Mulan, I am the sister. No, I’m worse than the sister because I fail to fit in. Not like this new Mulan, who fails to meet expectations because she’s too good. She’s too talented, too strong. The sister achieves what society expects of her. I must really be more of a mess than I thought if I can’t relate to any of the characters.
They took out all the inspiration for a girl like me by taking away all Mulans flaws. She’s an outcast because she is too amazing. The most relatable female character in the remake is the hen Mulan chases as a child, and that’s not very empowering.
I have actually found this problem in the new crop of female heroes. They are almost impervious and seem super human. I mean, isn't a hero or heroine face the greatest battle not outside but within themselves?
@@thatindiandude4602 EXACTLY EXACTLY EXACTLY!!!
Also final fright approaches, excellent comment, this why I l9ve this comment section. I am learning a new perspective
I was also, and still am, a girl who fails at both (traditional) femininity and (traditional) masculinity. I'm just a nerd who doesn't care about manly activities such as sports/cars/weapons etc., nor womanly activities such as makeup/fashion/housework/childcare etc. I'm socially awkward and just stay at home reading, writing, and watching movies.
A loooooot of movies. I love them. I also love Disney animation movies.
So thanks, Disney, for ruining one of my favourite Disney female characters AND one of my favourite Chinese cultural/legendary figures, at the same damn time. What a stunningly awful and foolish job.
Atleast there is now inspiration for people who are “naturally talented “ and surfer because of it. we spend too many movies on the struggles of the not so talented at first sight that we forget that people “who are perfect “ without trying have hard lives too. I’m happy I can actually relate to this movie.
I was a history and art history major. Feeling deeply offended by this movie, which is full of historical errors.
It's OK to change the original plot or even "alter" the history "a little bit" for the sake of better storytelling. BUT, it's an entirely different story if you claim that the movie is "based on" an actual historical story but didn't respect the historical details at all. Let me give you a few examples:
The round dwelling building that Mulan’s family lives in is located in southeastern China, whereas historically Mulan was from central China. Such buildings didn’t exist until 700 years ago, whereas Mulan’s story took place in 450AD. The story and the building are about one thousand years apart.
The costumes and props are historically misplaced as well - those hair accessories only existed in late Tang dynasty, not Northern Wei dynasty in which Mulan was from - again, many hundred years in between the two.
Half of the poetry that appeared in the antithetical couplet on the matchmaker’s doorframe was from a play that was written in Yuan Dynasty, which is nearly 900 years after Mulan's story. The other half was probably written by a present-day Chinese - these two halves don’t even match by classical Chinese literature rules of tone patterns and symbolism.
Also, in Northern Wei, people sat on the ground instead of on chairs, which was the custom back then. The textile dyeing techniques were very underdeveloped, meaning that those various bright colors in the movie didn’t in fact exist at all.
Mulan practiced Tai Chi by the lake, which was created in the 13th century - again, Mulan's period is between 4th - 6th century.
So many more errors, which I'm not going to list individually.
You CANNOT just squeeze all the Chinese cultural elements that are well known in the West into a film and claimed that it's made for either the West or the East (if not both). Disney is filthy rich and located next to UCLA, UC-Berkeley and Stanford, which are all top school in East Asian studies. I just don't believe that Disney doesn't have the money to employ a professor as a "real" cultural expert to correct their mistakes.
All the historical inaccuracy, plus the weird script (no character arc, artificial dialogues, wrong interpretation and presentation of feminism, etc.), just enabled me to believe that this is an arrogant, shallow movie. A magnificent failure.
I'm kinda down if they want to make things colourful, it is a kids movie after all. But jesus you know your shit! Haha
it would be absolutely foolish to entertain the thought that disney, as it is at the moment, would actually give a shit about historical accuracy over pandering the hardline feminists and trying to score brownie points with the extreme sjws. The original movie was already more of a proper female empowerment artwork than this, they didn't need to change anything. Yet they did, only because they wanted to prop a woman up on a pedestal and over glorify the fact that she's a woman. Ironically, they did so by dismissing all things feminine and portraying this character as being "manlier than men". For all intents and purposes, this movie's idea of "empowering women" is basically just to slap a pair of tits on a man.
The story of mulan is meant to show that the differences between men and women don't really matter all that much, and that both femininity and masculinity have their fair share of worth.
Another way that the movie angers me is how it mixes up East Asian culture. In one scene of the movie, the witch is shown to be using a shuriken.
A shuriken (Japanese: 手裏剣; literally: "hidden hand blade") is a Japanese concealed weapon that was used as a hidden dagger or metsubushi to distract or misdirect. It's basically those throwing stars you incorrectly see being used by ninjas on Western TV
tldr; according to Disney, the Japanese worked with the Mongols.
You think this is bad?
Have you seen Disney's version of Pocahontas?
@@BustyBraixen I don't think they are pandering to extreme sjws or feminists. I think they are just tone deaf? Because like you said, they are completely missing the mark on true feminism. This video essay does such a great job at explaining everything!
Mulan returning home got me tearing up no lie. It reminded me how much there will always be people that already loves you regardless of who you are.
@@livrk8005 That scene gets me every time.
Not everyone sadly
I don't know much of chinese culture and I now have an even further appreciation for the 90s version. Didn't catch the subtlety of her performing out of compassion and protection rather than out of duty.
That was the smoothest transition to a Skillshare sponsorship I’ve ever seen
I was shocked to see the phoenix.. the most powerful mythical bird creature in chinese culture, reborn by arising from the ashes of its prior self, being portrayed as what seems like a kite flying weightlessly in the skies... WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM.
Exactly my thought xDDDD
It was a sick burn too
sliding into some shade with style.
Lmao, and it was a savage roast to 😂
The fact that the only person who doesn't care about Mulan being a woman is the main villain is pretty ironic.
"The soldier from the mountain."
Shan Yu didn't think twice about Mulan being a woman. He legitimately thought women were allowed in the imperial army
@@kentinson1670 I always thought that was kind of funny
Northern nomads have more liberal view when it comes to female empowerment.
@@kentinson1670 that's actually because the Hus are inspired by the Xiongnu tribe. Historically, the Xiongnu are actually more liberal with their women, than say the Han who adhere more to confucius values. So it doesn't really matter to them (Hu/Xiongnu) whether thr warrior are men/women, they're just simply warrior.
@@reisatsuki5891 that would have been so interesting if they addressed that in the movie. There was so much potential and they just threw it away.
Wisdom: I'm equal to you, but my strengths and weaknesses are different, and I'll find a way to do the same task you do using my strengths.
21st century: Anything you can do, I can do the SAME WAY better.
I read the 21st century quote to the tune of the broadway song "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)".
Nowadays women might be able to take testosterone and get the physical strength of men and achieve the same, but, is this normalization of sex change correct morally? Because naturally it is not.
And in the future when technology allows complete and unnoticeable sex change, will it be acceptable as common occurrence? Is the media normalizing and implanting such idea in the masses?
Initial D logic, except this very logic failed its owner big time.
@@CaminoalInti please don't be transphobic. Its unnecessary.
@@CaminoalInti unfortunately no, even with sex change women cannot reach the same amount of testosterone males naturally produce, hormones alone do not decide physical strength
I know I’m late, but disney’s mulan was really special. I was adopted at one and a half. I never really was in touch with my Chinese heritage. I always had thoughts in the back of my head. Thoughts of doubt, thoughts of abandonment, thoughts that I never was enough. I always watched Mulan whenever I felt insecure about myself. I always used Mulan as a role model. She was strong. I felt a comfort watching Mulan. I know I’ll never really feel comfortable with my Chinese heritage.
Disney: "Let's get down to business, to defeat, the Fun."
Disney Then: Let's make a movie where children love to inspire to became what they are.
Disney Now: Let's make a movie that can give us Money.
Yeah... Jackie Chan sang the original Chinese dub didn't he?
This makes me sing along haha
@@GordonGordon he did!
"Heed my every order, and you might, cash in!"
This and the 2019 remake of The Lion King are perfect examples of movies that REALLY don't deserve a remake.
Because back then, the original movies from the 90s were made with heart and soul put into it.
While the 2020 and 2019 remakes were made as tasteless cash-ins profiting on nothing but nostalgia.
I’ve been rather annoyed by the constant stream of shitty remakes this past decade.
If you want to bring an old story to a new audience, then just re-master the animation and audio quality.
There, saves money that’d otherwise be wasted on trashy remakes ruined by politics and bad writing.
@Shawn Hawk2102
Pardon my contrary opinion, but if there's any film Disney could remake it was Mulan. If there's a remake they needed to get right IT WAS MULAN!!!
Seriously there's excuse for this. It could've been closer to the ballad, while maintaining what made the first Disney adaptation a classic. But noooooooo, they messed it up.
I’m the black sheep here who actually enjoyed both movies.
Mulan is the one that is acceptable to have a remake. The Lion King? No. For me Mulan is quite decent. I give it a 7 out of 10. My only problem is that the lack of humanity, because in this one she has chi.
Mm...I'm of the opinion that EVERYTHING can be adapted and remade, no matter the initial quality. Writers and artists all around the world have been doing it since Antiquity, and big names too, like Shakespeare. It's only in the last decades that it started getting a bad rep. The problem is not with adapting, but with HOW people are adapting. Lately it's a joke. There's zero attempt to make something decent and provide an innovating, personal perspective into a story. It's just about money. The last Disney remakes are the most obvious examples.
"I think one was male and one was female" that line slapped me across the face SO hard. How little do you have to care to completely desecrate the meaning of the poem? I'm so sad, Mulan deserves better.
…oh my god, I just realized how bad that is
(for any who still don't get it: the biggest problem is that the sister *could tell the difference)*
Mulan: Rise of a Warrior>>>>>>>>>>>>Mulan 2020
I am not Chinese, but I am a woman. Mulan is special to me because she is smart and kind and she was able to outsmart her enemies while also being skilled physically. I love her and I think the new version missed the point completely.
7:07 I think my favorite part about how this is executed is in the spirit that Mulan fulfills Chinese tradition in the face of ritual. She saves her nation and her family (A theme that is absolutely #1 in Confucian teachings but is widely present throughout most Chinese teachings) without having to choose one or the other through a way that both should condemn, if you were to "follow the rules" of Chinese society. It's the exact same kind of themes extolled throughout Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist philosophies; they might all disagree on a lot of things, but all of them have nothing but praise for the person who understands the spirit of the rules over the letter.
There's a pretty popular Chan (Zen is the Japanese word for it) Buddhist poem about two monks coming across a woman who needs to cross a river, but didn't feel safe crossing alone. The older monk, without hesitation, carries her across the river despite the sacred vow of a Buddhist monk being forbidden to touch women.
This shocks the younger monk, who desperately tries to hold his tongue, but a few hours afterward, cannot help but ask, "Didn't we take vows not to touch women? Why did you carry that woman?"
The older monk looks flatly at his junior and replies "I set her down at the bank hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?"
There's a lot of ways to interpret this fable, but the way I first saw it was in the disconnect of knowing and understanding. The younger monk is caught up in the rules, but the older monk understands _why_ the rules are in place, and understands that in order to fulfill his responsibilities as a good Buddhist, he must prioritize the mindset of the Buddha over the ritual of the religion. He saw someone in need, and helped them, as Zen Buddhism asks of its adherents.
And in a funny way, that's not a Chinese-only philosophy. See Matthew 12:1-13 in the Bible for a very similar message that developed independently in a very different part of the world.
This comment deserves more likes
This comment really does deserve more likes. It gives good perspective. Hope more can see it!
What a comment
Love this comment 🤩💞
Wow love this
"It wanted to look Chinese" I honestly think that Disney is trying to avoid people calling them out for racist stereotypes by not adding more Chinese elements that could look like it's a stereotype which is pretty funny.
Apparently, they originally asked Ang Lee to direct the film, and he said "nah". I wonder how many Chinese directors were pitched the story.
Strait up culture appropriation tbh
@Cats are Awesome Because he was occupied with another movie at the time. I think it was Thrilla in Manila.
Not only Disney is desperate to avoid the audience calling them out, they are also desperate to please the Chinese Government officials responsible for greenlighting this movie past censorship. A lot of this film's production reeks of official ideological propaganda.
It's interesting how in China almost nobody is talking about this live action film. But existing ones I saw are all criticizing the film.
And to me one of the biggest problems is just how historically inaccurate the film is, while still trying to be stylistically realistic. They brought in concepts like Chi, use architectures that doesn't reflect the real place mulan is from (the building she lives in was only seen in Southern China and is related to a specific group of people 客家人, while the character Mulan is from a poem in northern ancient China). All these things just feels really weird together with the realistically-looking armors and clothes.
The movie is apparently being utterly savaged in the country it was attempting to pander to. Turns out, they too can see that it's just Western writers accessorizing with a foreign culture.
twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1302620415861325824
I sincerely hope no one outside of China watches this movie and think Chinese people value these outdated moral.
@@AccentedCinema The only people that value the outdated morals are the writters lol
The moment I saw the trailer where she lived in Tulou...I knew its gonna be bad, I already have a wtf moment...
Bruh the film just got banned in China
It hurts because I was a child when Mulan came out. I felt so empowered as a little girl. As a woman now I watch the new version and weep. I don't want a superhero, I wanted a girl like me being strong in the real way.