BEFORE: Last night for dinner, my wife said she wanted to order in Chinese food, so of course I leapt at the chance - this was after watching "The Farewell", of course, and all that delicious food seen in that film! It was kind of like "Big Night", only that featured Italian food. Hey, the way to big box office is through everyone's stomach, or something like that. I had Chinese food with a friend last Wednesday, too, just some soup dumplings and scallion pancakes with beef - and last night I had some boneless rib tips over fried rice, an egg roll and some shrimp toast. I guess if you add all that up, it's kind of like I've been to the Chinese buffet over the last week - but of course, I'd rather go to the buffet.
I'm kind of pissed at my parents because they've both tested positive for COVID, they're both double-vaxxed and boosted, of course, so they're asymptomatic, but still... They're in an assisted living facility for the time being, and while this seemed like a smart decision back in November, so they could be together and not get separated by any medical issues, now this decision seems rather dumb to me. Now they have to quarantine together in a tiny apartment for a week, and so they can't go down to the dining area or leave the facility, and we certainly can't come visit them now, as we planned to do this month. My advice to my father after his positive test was to go and sleep at the old house for a few days, so he wouldn't infect my mother, but he wouldn't hear of it, he doesn't want to leave her alone, and he admitted he was being selfish. What's the big deal, he could come visit her during the day, I just didn't want them breathing the same air all night. But he's abiding by the strict rules of the facility, which means they have quarantine together, as a unit.
Sure enough, two days later, my mother tested positive - well, what did they THINK was going to happen, with two people sharing the same small space? This was dumb, dumb, dumb, they should have separated from each other as soon as one got a positive test. My wife and I kept saying that if one of us tests positive, we should go get a hotel room and not come back to the house, it's just common sense, right? So now I have to check in on them, hopefully they stay symptom-free and this just means they were both exposed to COVID-19 and they don't count as breakthrough cases, and we hope the vaccines do what they're supposed to, which is lessen the severity of any illness.
Tzi Ma carries over from "The Farewell". Yes, the irony of my elderly mother potentially getting sick right after I watched yesterday's movie is not lost on me.
THE PLOT: A young Chinese maiden disguises herself as a male warrior in order to save her father.
AFTER: The "Mulan" remake was one of the big hits of 2020 - I'm looking through the list now of all the most popular films released in 2021, and there just aren't a lot of them. I guess that even after the pandemic hit, the studios had a backlog of films that were completed in 2019 and just released them over time, once the theaters opened up again, or they went straight to streaming. But from what I gather, at some point in 2021 that well started to run dry, because that list of popular films released in 2021 has a bunch of foreign films and Lifetime Network Christmas movies on it. Here's how it works by the numbers - for 2019, I've seen about 110 of the most popular films, with 6 more currently on the list. For 2020, I've only seen 47, with 17 currently on the list. And for 2021, I've barely made a dent, I've only seen 8 of them, with 5 on the list right now. Now, part of that process is natural, most of the 2021 films aren't streaming yet, and for those that are, I need time to add the cast lists into my system, and then it takes more time for me to link to them.
Still, I can't help but think that 2021 is essentially a rebuilding year in so many ways, and if I don't end up seeing a lot of them right away, that's kind of OK. I'm going to knock off a couple of them in January, but then February of course gets turned over to romance films, both old and new. So I have to start thinking about what my next benchmark will be after that, and how I want to get there. I'll keep adding the films dated 2021 as they become available to me, but I'm not in a hurry, I think I'd rather clear off some older films that have been on the list for some time.
"Mulan", of course, was controversially made available on the Disney+ platform, instead of being released in real theaters in the U.S.. So there are no real box office figures for how much money it made, but even the Disney subscribers had to pay an additional $30 if they wanted to see it early - for me, once again being late to the party paid off, because I waited until it became available on the service for no extra cost, and we're in our third year of getting Disney+ for free, thanks to a birthday gift from my BFF and two phone upgrades that each came with a free year of that service. (Next year we might have to start paying for the service, though.). Word is that "Mulan" made about $70 million in countries where it WAS theatrically released, and those were countries that didn't have the streaming platform. This was back in September 2020, and the next year other distribution companies like Warner Bros. experimented with a two-prong release, both in theaters and on the HBO Max streaming platform at the same time. Look, I don't want to tell any big media company how to run their business, but in the middle of a pandemic, people want their movies without risking their safety, and at minimal extra cost. Now I suppose at the end of the day, paying $30 to see "Mulan" at home is cheaper than four movie tickets (assuming a double-parent household with two kids) plus popcorn, candy, drinks, gas and parking. Look at it from that angle, and it's quite a deal - and if you invite the neighbors into your bubble, the cost per person goes down even more.
The question then became, regardless of the potential savings vs. a trip to the movie theater, was the MOVIE worth the cost, you know, as a movie. I'm just not sure, because we've SEEN this story before, in animated form, sure, but it's the same story as before, right? Well, not exactly - there are a few notable changes from the 1998 animated film. First off, all of the animated sidekicks were cut out - no talking dragon, no horse sidekick, no cricket sidekick. (Basically, the Disney animated film was just "Pocahontas" in China, and "Pocahontas" was just "The Little Mermaid" on land. Go ahead, prove me wrong.). There is a "Cricket" here, but he's a human soldier - I can't tell if that's an homage or an in-joke.
The original animated film also had the Chinese army battling the Huns - in this new version, the invading army is made up of Rourans, and I'm not sure what those are, but it seems that revisions to the script were made in order to not piss off the current Chinese government, who I guess are all descended from Huns. Look, I know that one of these years, China's going to take over the world for real, and that will be that for the EU and the U.S., among others. So clearly DisneyCorp didn't want to anger their future overlords, I get that - they want to still be standing once the other governments crumble, and the way to do that is to make movies that will play in Beijing. It's a smart business strategy in the short term, too, because it's easier to make back your budget when the film plays in China. This may explain why Disney filmed partially in the Xinjiang region, and got some blowback in the U.S. because of known human rights abuses that happen there.
More controversy came when the public found out that the majority of the production team for this film were not of Asian descent (sure, the actors were, but actors are a dime a dozen, and they aren't the decision-makers during film production...). No Asian director, no Asian screenwriter, what kind of message does that send? Then another controversy arose when Disney removed the character of Li Shang from the story, it seems that they felt having Mulan fall in love with her superior officer (and having him fall in love with her, especially when he thought "her" was a "him") sent the wrong message to the kids - clearly they were trying to avoid a "me too" backlash with a person in power being attracted to someone under his command. But, in the years since the first "Mulan" film, Li Shang became something of an LGBTQ icon, a man who fell in love with a woman, only he thought the woman was a man. So now Disney got dinged for trying to straight-wash the attraction between two soldiers, by splitting the Li Shang character into two new characters, Commander Tung and Chen Honghui. Oh, like I suppose having a fellow soldier, not her commander, with feelings for Mulan/Hua Jun is that much better?
There's another new character, a female witch working for the opposing army who can turn into a falcon - the original film had a falcon character, but not one that could turn into a human. This witch character, Xianniang, seems quite problematic where Mulan's own story is concerned, because now she acts as sort of a foil character for Mulan herself, since they're both talented, powerful females who are struggling to advance in a man's world. So, are they enemies, or allies, or what? This, unfortunately, is anything but clear. Xianniang seems to see right through Mulan's disguise of a male soldier, and appears to encourage her to come out as female, even though that's against the rules of the army. (To be fair, Mulan's caught in a no-win situation here, she can't tell the truth, that would get her kicked out of the army, but lying is also an infraction, so that would get her kicked out, too.). Xianniang seems to suggest that Mulan's never going to succeed or become her best self unless she fights as a strong woman - which seems to be a better message to send out to the kids, but it's also a bit murky.
Further evidence that this Xianniang character doesn't make any sense - she's a woman, so therefore her talents are undervalued by the patriarchal society. Except she is treated as an equal by Bori Khan, which explains why she is in his service. But then she betrays Khan by aiding Mulan? This character is all over the place, her loyalties don't follow any pattern, completely inconsistent.
What is "Chi", anyway? It's some kind of energy, but it's like The Force in "Star Wars", it doesn't really exist, right? I know millions of Chinese people do those tai chi exercises and try to harness this invisible energy, but it's a load of crap, right? The movie falls into the narrative trap of suggesting that "chi" is real, that it allows people to do amazing things if they can just tap into it and harness it, and as far as I can tell, this is a bunch of hooey. I see people breaking bricks and boards with karate chops and I'm quite sure this is all a bunch of simple magic tricks, like they pre-cut the boards or something, or they can tell just where to hit them. The only place I've seen people do really amazing martial arts stunts is in the movies, and I know that's all wire-work and special effects, so again, that's a form of magic trick. Show me somebody, just one person, doing real, seemingly impossible martial arts tricks in the REAL world. Didn't think so.
So the story's a bit wonky here, if you ask me, because Mulan's success depends on one of the villains turning the tables on her commanders, just because she wants ALL women to succeed, and that's not possible for Xianniang, because she's being held back and controlled by men. Why can't we have Mulan figure this out for herself, why does she need a villain's help to get further in the man's world?
While I'm at it, they really downplayed how difficult it would have been for a woman to pass as a man - where was the hair-cutting scene, isn't that an essential part of the story? Sure, I get that they wanted to have a big movie moment where she reveals her gender to her fellow soldiers, and for that she needs long hair, but she could have grown it back by then. The biggest inconvenience for her in this films seems to be an obvious need to avoid showering with the other soldiers, for fear of revealing her gender, and then after a while, she smells pretty bad. It's a wonder that her bunkmates didn't carry her out to the showers themselves, or drop her in the river just to make camp life more bearable.
Also, when all the soldiers were having difficulty carrying buckets of water up that big hill, wouldn't it have made sense to show that Mulan was able to do this, because she'd been doing "womanly" chores for so many years, thus she had an unpredictable advantage during basic training? Seems like that would have made sense here, only this Mulan was clearly raised as an upper-middle class girl, and I guess they don't do chores? All she needed to do was to prepare for marriage and children - I know that's patriarchal and awful, but I guess it beats fighting in the army, doesn't it? Again, really unclear, foggy messages here where gender roles are concerned. In order for the "old ways" to be seen as in need of being replaced, they need to be portrayed as more awful, and it seems that Fa Mulan had a pretty nice life, if all she had to do was practice gymnastics and get ready for marriage. Just saying.
Another NITPICK POINT - along with this mystical "chi" energy that Mulan supposedly has, and again it's unclear if this is a human thing, a female thing, or a witch thing - I mean, Mulan can't transform into a falcon, but she can balance on a horse and kick a spear thrown at her right into an enemy soldier, which is pretty cool, and none of the other men seem to be able to do this. So if women have this weird energy which can be harnessed to do cool stunts and near-magic things, why aren't they allowed to fight? Right, it's the patriarchal system, I get it, and you keep raging against that machine, girls. But in this fictional world where women can do magic and cool weapon stuff that men can't do, it wouldn't seem to make sense to keep them off the battlefield, if the men knew their was a tactical advantage and women could kick spears back at their opponents, shouldn't the rules change to take better advantage of that resource?
We keep hearing about how professional sports are sexist, because the major league sports are still 99% men, possibly even 100%. Sure, there's the WNBA now, and women's soccer is more popular than men's soccer in many circles, but where's the integration? Shouldn't there be a female "Jackie Robinson" type that can break the gender barrier in pro sports? Track and field, swimming, all the Olympics, everything's still separated by gender, especially gymnastics - men's gymnastics and women's gymnastics aren't even the same events! There was that female baseball team a few years back, the Silver Bullets, but who do they play? Only men, in exhibition events, the last I heard. I think maybe a few women play hockey, but that's it - but if a woman came along and could throw a knuckleball, or kick a field goal, better than any man, don't you think that would go a long way towards integration? That's kind of what I'm saying about Mulan, if she (and other women) could do things on the battlefield that no man could do, you'd better believe the rules are going to change, and very quickly.
And another thing, wouldn't it make sense for the story to take further advantage of Mulan's real gender? Couldn't one of the villains have an enchantment on him (or her) that said he can't be killed by any man? Then she'd be more valuable, from a tactical loophole perspective, because she could kill that villain when none of the other soldiers could - that's the thing about magic, it's very literal and an evil sorcerer who was also sexist might think that "man" meant all of mankind, and not think for a second that a woman would be any threat to him. I remember some story that took advantage of this loophole, but now I can't remember which one, maybe I've just seen too many movies. Ah, right, this was the Witch King in "Lord of the Rings", I just looked it up. He was defeated by Eowyn, who of course was a woman. OK, so maybe the makers of "Mulan" didn't want to rip off Tolkien, but I still think this could have been a cool addition to the story.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that when you strip this story down to the basics, and JUST make it about a woman dressing like a man to fight in the Chinese army AND you take away the sidekicks as comic relief AND you take away the songs, it's a bit boring by comparison. Anyway, we've had lots of strong woman characters since the first "Mulan" film came out, like Wonder Woman, Black Widow and Captain Marvel, so this isn't necessarily the same ground-breaking idea that it once was, especially if we have to all remind ourselves that this was a different time, with different rules, before we can appreciate it. I'd love to say it's no longer necessary, but I'm not really sure, of course girls can enjoy watching girls kick ass on film, they should feel represented in the action genre, but it's close to normalized now, not like it was in 1998.
Now the transvestite (almost transgender, but obviously they're not going THERE) issues seem more important than the equal rights ones, but I don't think they really focused on that enough here to really take advantage of any cultural relevance. Now, in the NEXT remake of "Mulan", her gender reveal should be followed by her commander and/or love interest saying, "Well, nobody's perfect!" in a sort of reverse homage to "Some Like It Hot". But then, I suppose that would be problematic, too, for a number of reasons.
Also starring Yifei Lui, Donnie Yen (last seen in "xXx: Return of Xander Cage"), Gong Li (last seen in "Miami Vice"), Jason Scott Lee (last seen in "Seventh Son"), Yoson An (last seen in "Mortal Engines"), Jet Li (last seen in "The Expendables 3"), Rosalind Chao (last seen in "The Laundromat"), Xana Tang, Ron Yuan (last seen in "The Accountant"), Jun Yu, Jimmy Wong (last seen in "The Circle"), Chen Tang (last seen in "Let's Be Cops"), Doua Moua (last seen in "Gran Torino"), Nelson Lee, Cheng Pei-Pei, Vincent Feng, Roger Yuan (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Jenson Cheng, Akra Das, Jen Sung (last seen in "The Happytime Murders"), King Lau, Crystal Rao, Elena Askin, with a cameo from Ming-Na Wen (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet").
RATING: 5 out of 10 imperial outposts
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