Jingle Ma utilizing Jaycee Chan Just like he did his father Jackie Chan develops a strong emotional connection with Wei’s Mulan as well as the audience. However the film does not rest solely on the shoulders of Wei as the amazing supporting cast goes one step further than most war movies. Zhao Wei’s beauty would be her greatest strength and weakness as she takes up the her legendary role. It is hard to buy into the character's disguise because every motion of strength and compassion has a motherly touch. It may be seen as a big screen flaw that the lead roles have such beautiful actors as it is no surprise that the audience may see through Mulan's ploy and her feminine persona. A woman who must also disguise herself as a man to learn fighting skills in order to protect her family. In his earlier 2008 film The butterfly Lovers which is also known as The Assassin's Blade stars Charlene Choi as Zhu Yanzhi. This was not the first time that director Jingle Ma has played around with the concept of hidden identities. Playing on the bigger theme of devotion to one's country this has been a timeless message that has travelled throughout Chinese cinema since the early days of Chinese cinema’s inception with films such as the 1905 film Conquering the Jun Mountain which comes out of one of the four great classics of Chinese literature known as Romance of the Three Kingdoms written by Luo Guanzhong. Her performance brings the inseparable realities of war and all its hardships along with the contrast of one’s duties to the nation and family. Led by the outstanding Zhao Wei as the legendary Mulan.
Following titles such as the 1994 Drunken Master II as well as the 2008 title The Butterfly Lovers, we see his skills culminate into this theatrical explosion of emotions. AwardsĪ Warrior In Disguise: Is it Feminism or Nationalism?ĭirector Jingle Ma has continued his legacy of bringing action packed movies to the big screen with the hit film Hua Mulan. but be prepared because it's a completely different story.Original Release Date: November 26, 2009.Īlternative Titles: Mulan: Rise of a Warrior Mulan: Legendary Warrior.Ĭompany Information: Company Starlight International, Media Group, Beijing Galloping Horse.īox Office Statistics: $304 million. The scenes and dialogues between these women, however brief they may be, are very important, both for the words they exchange and for what this represents. We also find another Mulan's confrontation with a woman, an encounter that will lead to the resolution of the plot.
Some plot developments are very similar and some shots also look the same. It's a melancholy, bittersweet, but terribly realistic story.įrom the very first scenes it is clear how Mulan of 2020 was inspired by this film from many points of view. When Mulan returns home, her life is exactly the same and completely different. Not a naive and lively girl like the one of '98Īnd in these long years, even love struggles to find a place. At first it is denied the duty of war, in the end it is denied the duty of peace. She repeatedly wonders if it wasn't better to stay at home. That she really develop a talent for war, that comes later.īut this Mulan is a character who repeatedly questions herself about the meaning of combat, death and the loss of her companions. She’s saved only for fortuitous events and for as many randomness she arrives at the command of the platoon. She only asks to tell her father she died in battle. In the military camp it is discovered almost immediately that she is a woman and must be punished. Nothing she does is "extraordinary", she is an ordinary girl, in an ordinary village who leaves for the war only out of duty her father is too old and there’s no one else in the family so, since there are orders, she goes.
The real protagonist of this film is the war between the nomadic tribes of the north and the Chinese empire Mulan is just one of the characters who gets caught up in the conflict. Telling the whole plot would be very long because the original story covers at least 12 years. It is so different that it is even difficult for me to talk about it, you should see it. Take 2020 Mulan and forget it if you can. From ? Shows of this pandemic 2020+ ? - Second segment: summer break Take Mulan from 1998 and set it aside.