Wuxia fans, what's your opinion about the new movie Mulan?

Is it good and bad? There's like a thousand tweets I've saw in my TL saying it's garbage. (Still haven't watched it, and I'm deciding if it's worth watching or not.)

For me, I'm not considering myself as a wuxia fanatic, ancient china culture expert or anything like that. But they got so many things wrong, like Mulan wearing her hair down, some hystorical myths, etc.

 

Any Disney movie garbage, that’s my opinion though, I don’t think it’s anything Wuxia/historical though the trailer does make it seem like that. It’s disney after all, it’ll be toned down for kids to understand like Aladdin. P.S, most adaptions like Mulan are always inaccurate lol

It’d be great if there were more movies that look like Wuxia in the West though, like Ghost of Tsushima even if it’s a game the movie/cutscenes are worth it (I am afraid of Hollywood tho)

 

dont expect it like the cartoon.i dont know maybe the new film take a new source.

 

This film isn't really a wuxia film to begin with; especially if you think of wuxia as modern wuxia. In general flims can borrow ideas from wuxia but they're really the kind of works that are particularly good at delivering the proper wuxia flavor. Longer works like TV shows are way at that. So in this, I don't think the Mulan film is going to be particularly good at this, but I don't think it's really trying to either.

As for historical accuracy, the film isn't interested in that either. For starters, the story of Mulan is supposed to take place in Northern Wei, and Northern Wei would look so different that it wouldn't even look like a Chinese dynasty. This kingdom is ruled by the Xianbei, and they're a nomadic people in northern China, and they would look like the Mongols or the Huns. Making a film that follows the actual history would be cool and all but it would look so weird that not even Chinese production companies would do it.

 

Just watching youtubers review it... out of the four I watched so far they say it’s not good compared to animated mulan.

Though I’m interested in seeing a Chinese review it cuz definitely interested to hear how accurate or inaccurate it is.

I so far like the reflection and loyal brave true songs tho. But has not watched it ... probably will wait it out

 

I... liked it

 

not watch it yet but considering nee aladdin nah~
anyway why you think it wuxia tho? sure wuxia usually revolve on military, people around it and martial art but nah forget it~
it is better if you watch movie on clear mind and don't compare it with previous title~

 

Weirdly enough most i heard it was better as a standalone wuxia movie rather as mulan movie. Instead of normal girl, apparently Mulan had special chi power or so i've heard.

 

Watch the classic 1964 HK opera film version of Mulan with Ivy Ling Po instead.

Also can you imagine casting Donnie Yen in Mulan and not making it a musical.

 

I don't think I can bring myself to watch it, I was hoping they would remove all the fantasy elements from the remake and make it more of a historical drama, even if not necessarily in the correct period for the original Mulan tale.
But as far as I can tell, for all the fantasy elements removed from the animated version they have added in even more ones and made them play a greater part in the plot.
It might work ok as a fantasy action flick though I guess.

 

Not as good as the animation, if the animation was a 9/10 then the live-action is a 3/10

 

You should watch Matchless Mulan if you want it more historically accurate (it's also made by actual Chinese filmmakers). It's much grittier, darker, and free to watch on youtube. youtu .be / Co5K-6xfx0g (Remove spaces)

 

Why is it Wuxia?

 

Why would you assume that Mulan is supposed to be normal in any version of her story? She's certainly extraordinary in both attitude and accomplishment no matter how you look at it.

You can try the 2009 film starring Zhao Wei. It's even set in Northern Wei and the enemies they're facing are the Rouran; just like in the original story. Of course the film does pretend that Northern Wei is supposed to look like the Han dynasty but we can't have everything.

Good point. I think that for a lot of people, the combination of Chinese culture + martial arts automatically equals wuxia. It's sort of similar to how a lot of posters on NU make assumptions on what wuxia stories are like even though it's obvious they've never actually read it.

 

The cartoon one is better, i see some clip in yt, its not too good imo.

 

Yeah it has been on my backlog for years, one day I'll probably take the time to watch it.
As for Northern Wei, it did get heavily sinified toward the end didn't it?, though that would have still been decades after the setting of the film, not to mention over two centuries after the Han dynasty.

 

It did, but only to a degree, and as you pointed out not until long after the Rouran ceased being much of a threat. In the original Ballad of Hua Mulan, her ruler is mentioned as both an emperor and as a khagan so we should have a pretty good idea of how much of the Xianbei identity is in that story.

And the differences would be very obvious at first glance. Northern Wei armies are based on their nomadic origins: soldiers would have to provide their own weapons, armor, and horses, and they earned no salary. And as the Xianbei are a Northern tribe, this means that they'd have the same kind of equipment as you'd expect from any other group like this: the Mongols, the Huns, the Jurchens, etc. What's also interesting is that Northen Wei only conscripted men from military families and that ethnic Han families are specifically excluded.

 

Normal as in simple countryside girl without any special magic power working hard to become greatest heroes instead of she has hidden special magical chi powers which make her actually strongest from beginning because she was a fated one or something.

At least that was i've heard. Take it with lot grain of salt.

 

Unless I'm mistaken the sinicization is also partly responsible for the dynasty's split and eventual downfall, since it was an effort from the imperial court that alienated their own Xianbei power base.

 

Easy pass. Maybe when its free on TV. The animation was one of my fav.