41
uncomfortable and we don’t break
into song to tell us the subtext.”
They swapped the musical
numbers and funny animal side-
kicks for a large-scale war epic in
which Mulan takes her father’s
place in the Imperial Army. “It’s a
woman’s story that has been told
for centuries but never by women,
and we felt like it was really time
to tell that story,” says Silver. The
question is whether Generation Z
and millennials, who fell in love
with these animated tales as
kids and helped boost Aladdin
to its $1 billion global haul, will
embrace the direction. “To be
honest, we really go by our gut
and what creatively excites the
team here,” says Bailey. “I think it
shows that there can be different
approaches to these [movies] that
have v a l id it y.”
When word leaked that Mushu,
the silly dragon sidekick (origi-
nally voiced by Eddie Murphy),
would not be included, some fans
expressed disappointment on
social media. But the character’s
disappearance makes sense in
the Chinese context. “Mushu was
very popular in the U.S., but the
Chinese hated it,” says Rosen.
“This kind of miniature dragon
trivialized their culture.”
Unlike its Marvel-branded
films, Disney live-action mov-
ies must appeal to significantly
younger audiences. Yet Caro
wanted to make a real war movie.
“You have to deliver on the war
of it,” she says, “and how do youdo that under the Disney brand
where you can’t show any vio-
lence, gratuitous or otherwise?”
She took advantage of the film’s
stunning locations, like setting a
battle sequence in a geothermal
valley, where steam could mask
the fighting. “Those sequences,
I’m proud of them. They’re really
beautiful and epic — but you can
still take kids. No blood is shed.
It’s not Game of Thrones.”
Disney’s past live-action per-
formance in China is a mixed bag.
Both The Lion King ($120.5 million
there) and Jungle Book ($148 m i l-
lion) enjoyed strong showings.
Aladdin earned only $53 million,
while 2017’s Beauty and the Beast
took in just $84 million (though it
earned $1.3 billion worldwide).
Of course, the expectations for
Mulan in China are much higher.
“They will eventually release it
in China,” Dergarabedian notes.
“It’s just a matter of when and
what effect that might have.”
Some analysts forecast that the
film could match the success of
the Kung Fu Panda series. The
third movie, released in 2016,
earned north of $144.2 million
and became the country’s big-
gest animated film ever. It was
praised for being a Hollywood
film that understood and showed
respect toward the Chinese
culture. Panda, however, had the
advantage of being a Chinese
co-production, which guarantees
a larger share of the market — an
advantage Mulan doesn’t have.
Caro thinks about the film’s
fate there in more than simply
financial terms. “Of course it’s
vitally important that it succeeds
in China,” she says, “because it
belongs to China.”“My sets aren’t macho
in the way sets
generally are because
I’m female and that’s
the source of my
strength,” says Caro,
above with actor
Tzi Ma on the set of
Mulan and below
with Liu.