of such classical, epic filmmaking. There are no
green screens here. On Disney remakes of late,
there have been stunning sets, incredible
computer-assisted wizardry, and pioneering
razzle-dazzle all round, from CG elephants to
CG mice. Not a single living creature graced
The Lion King’s digital plains. Mulan, though,
ostensibly remaking the 1998 cartoon classic
but delving back a lot further, is diff erent. This
is old-school filmmaking, a grand vision enacted
on a grand scale. This, then, is how the world’s
biggest animation studio sheds its skin.HIRING A FRESH VOICE
“I KNEW THAT they had wanted to talk to
me about it,” says Niki Caro, sitting down with
Empire in London this January. “And they knew
that I was interested. But I wasn’t the only one.
I had to do my fi ght for it.”Caro likes a good fi ght, on screen as well as
off. The New Zealander enjoyed huge success
with her second feature, Whale Rider, 2002’s
touching, hugely spiritied story of a Māori girl
battling to prove to her father that she’s capable
of being a tribal chief, despite tradition dictating
a male leader. For Caro, Mulan, one of China’s
most beloved warriors, is the perfect fi t.
Whether she was real or not, Hua Mulan, the
young Chinese warrior who disguised herself
as a man to take her ailing father’s place in the
army, is said to have lived somewhere around the
fi fth or sixth century. The earliest known telling
of the Ballad Of Mulan, which brought her
story to the world, was written soon afterwards.
Disney has been working on this new take for
almost as long.
“I’ve been on it since the beginning of time,”
jokes Reed. “I worked on the original ballad inEVE DIRECTION:mountains, surrounding
us, dwarfing us. The beauty, the peace here in New
Zealand’s Ahuriri Valley is intimidating. Then
suddenly, on a nearby ridge, dozens of spear-
wielding Huns arrive on horses, as ominous as
the clouds above them. This is Disney’s very
live-action take onMulan, and the Huns—led by
Jason Scott Lee’s fierce, heavily scarred warrior
Bori Khan—survey the land, emanating evil.
“Every day in this location has been
unbelievable,” says producer Jason Reed,
taking it all in. It’s September 2018, and the
Mulancrew has been here a week. “Coming
to set every morning with the sun coming up
on these mountains...it’s amazing.” There’s
nothing else quite like this scenery,
and it’s rare, also, to be in the midst