A Timeless Retelling of a Chinese Legend: Mulan(1998)

Although Mulan was released in 1998, this Walt Disney film is truly timeless, incorporating elements of feminism, romance, and war. Most recent Disney movies incorporate some level of defiance to society’s norms such as Beauty and the Beast(2017) and Moana; however, this movie was a complete defiance to a society that did not respect women as equals.

In that time period of the movie, it was clear that upholding the families honor as a women meant impressing the matchmaker and abiding to the matchmaker’s plans of marriage. Unfortunately, a series of unfortunate events occured anytime she tried to uphold her family’s order. She arrived late to the matchmaker, didn’t spend the time to memorize her recitation, and lost focus when pouring tea. All of these events reminded her that everything she did to play her role as a women was not truly her. The beautiful song “Reflection” constantly forced her to asked the question: “When will my reflection show, who I am inside?”. Her father, previously a war hero, was injured and was required to volunteer to fight alongside the Chinese Army against The Huns, who were lead by Shan Yu.

The night before, she saw her father’s weakening health and took his place in the war, dressed as a man. Her ancestors tried to prevent her from reaching to the campground, so they sent Mushu, a tiny dragon and a disgraced former guardian, to send the stone dragon to protect her. He broke the statue instead and decided to aid Mulan on her journey, despite his initial attempts to dissuade her from joining the army. He terribly advised her on how to act like a man when training under the command of Captain Li Shang. Considering her initially lacking military skills as well, Mulan was the most hated soldier throughout the beginning of training. However, she found strength and developed intelligence through persistence, and slowly became a role model for the rest of the men. She even developed an interest in Captain Li Shang.

Musho creates false order that commanded Shang to follow the imperial army into the mountains. They found everyone dead, including Shang’s father, a true hero. After herds of Huns appear on the edges of the white mountains, Captain Li Shang orders the last missile to be shot at  Shan Yue, however, before that happened, Mulan cleverly aimed the missile at the tip of a mountain directly above the entire army, wiping almost the entire army in one blow. After this occured, Mulan was wounded and all the soldiers discovered she was a woman. Captain Li Shang and the rest of the army ignored her when she told them, at the large celebration, the Huns were alive and intended to capture the emperor. Mulan saved China and the emperor from the ruthless Huns, and as a result, became one of the most respected woman and hero of all time.

       In an era where women were quite frankly not respected as people who had the ability to make decisions, Mulan found the courage to follow her heart and become who she really was for the sake of herself despite what was expected of her. This empowering and much needed message, even today, leads me to give a rating of 4.5/5.