SciFiNow – September 2019

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AFTER A FALSE start almost a decade ago,

Disney got cracking on a live-action remake of

its 1998 animated fi lm Mulan in 2015 and we

fi nally got a fi rst glimpse of the product of its

efforts when the studio posted the fi lm’s trailer.

It logged more than 175 million views in its fi rst

24 hours, including 52 million from China alone.

But we’re not surprised though, it’s pretty heroic.

THE TRAILER

The fi rst trailer for the fi lm was everything

we could have asked for: it included all the

best scenes from the animated fi lm, from the

tea ceremony with the Matchmaker and the

army training montage, to the deadly mountain

pass avalanche and Mulan running across the

rooftops of the royal palace in her bid to save

China. The remake looks more like a Wuxia epic

than a Disney musical adventure, but we’re very

much okay with that. One thing that audiences

did notice about the trailer is that there was a

lack of Mushu, the dragon guardian voiced by

Eddie Murphy in the animated fi lm. But there’s

no need to panic: Disney has confi rmed that

Mushu will, in fact, appear in the remake.

CASTING

After that weird rumour fl oating around that

suggested Scarlet Johansson would be taking on

the role of Mulan in the remake, we’re pleased

to know that Disney ended up hiring a largely

Chinese cast. Chinese-American actress, singer

and model Liu Yifei (Hanson And The Beast)

is taking on the title role, while Donnie Yen is

playing Mulan’s mentor Commander Tung;

Jet Li is the Emperor of China; Nelson Lee is

the Chancellor, the Emperor’s advisor; Jason

Scott Lee is Bori Khan, a Hun warrior intent on

avenging the death of his father; Cheng Pei-pei

is the Matchmaker, the woman who judges

potential brides; Yoson An is Chen Honghui,

a recruit who becomes Mulan’s ally and love

interest (basically the equivalent of the animated

fi lm’s Shang); and Tzi Ma and Rosalind Chao

are Mulan’s parents, Hua Zhou and Hua Li.

NO SONGS?

Though it’s one of the least musically heavy

Disney musicals, weighing in with just fi ve songs,

if we’re including the end credits bop ‘True To

Your Heart’ by 98 Degrees and Stevie Wonder,

Mulan featured some cracking bangers. The fi lm

kicked off with ‘Honour To Us All’ to introduce us

to the heroine’s life, millions know the words to

‘I’ll Make A Man Out Of You’ (or have it on their

workout playlists at least), ‘A Girl Worth Fighting

For’ was the perfect comic relief tune just before

the fi lm got dark, and ballad ‘Refl ection’ has

earned its place in many a Disney songbook

and has also gone on to be something of a

LGBTQ+ classic. However, director Niki Caro has

said that the new fi lm won’t be a musical, but it

does sound as though the classic songs will still

be worked into it in the form of instrumentals.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY

Though the fi lm is a live-action remake of

Disney’s Mulan, it seems as though it’s going

Everything we know about Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan...

WORDS POPPY-JAY PALMER

DISHONOUR

ON YOUR COW

to borrow more from the folksong ‘The Ballad

Of Mulan’ than the animated fi lm, based on

the story of the legendary Chinese warrior Hua

Mulan. In the animated version, the heroine

is still a young Chinese woman who disguises

herself as man to serve in the Imperial Army

to protect her ailing father, but it diverges from

the original folksong. In ‘The Ballad Of Mulan’,

Mulan disguised herself and left for the army

with her parents’ blessing, rather than cutting

off her hair and fl eeing her family home under

the cover of night, and she already had all the

skills — martial arts, archery, sword fi ghting —

when she enlisted. She served for 12 years, still

disguised as a man, before turning down an

offi cial post in order to return to her family. We

love the Disney classic, but the studio heavily

Westernised the tale and made a lot of changes,

so we’re excited to see some of those changes

reverted back in the live-action version.

Mulan will be in cinemas from 27 March 2020.

The fi lm is reportedly as inspired by the

original folk song as the Disney fi lm.