"This film looks even exotic to Chinese people"... 😂

As a Mexican-American, I was so engaged by this cultural and human movie review/critique. "Can you be a little more respectful of reality?" Excellent! Thank you.

There is literally an association with educated Chinese experts on Chinese historical clothing called the Chinese Costume Revival Association that uses historical evidence and research down by experts that dedicated their life to Chinese culture to recreate Chinese clothing culture. A group of Chinese high-school students were able to contact them to use their costumes for a high school project, but apparently a multi-millionaire dollar company of Disney can;t hire them for a live-action movie. Another thing I hate is that Disney doesn’t bother to read Confucian religious texts on filial piety, one of the main themes in the “Ballad of Mulan”, also an important Chinese virtue.

FUN FACT: The costume designer was paid to travel around European museums and some parts of China to design the costumes... 🤦🏻‍♀️. They could have just hired a Chinese person who is familiar with the culture.

Disney did it again, uniting the whole world, this time creating a movie every one hates.

As a Chinese-American, this whole movie yelled "token Asian friend" because they only had an Asian cast, but the production team was made of people who weren't. They could have saved so much money and hired an actual Chinese person (or someone who grew up in "the culture" at least) instead of flying all over to look at things... This made me feel like the producers are trying to prove that they can be "woke" or something about other cultures. My fellow Asian-American friends said this Movie is like a Westerner's fantasy of historic China. We know the poem is not a history book, but still, we expected something...better? (Another review from Xiran Jay Zhao compared her to Elsa, already born with power and then has to hide it, BUT she also has to also "find herself" or something, and then everything is okay in the end lol) [Cartoon] Mulan was relatable because she had to work to prove she could keep up with the army men while showing her cunning or intelligent side really. I can't relate to someone who is already born great. Thank you for this educational video.

Literally if you grew up watching a lot of Chinese wuxia dramas like I did as a child you would know that even warriors with the greatest chi had to cultivate it for years and years. Nobody is born with awesome chi right off the bat lmao. This movie is such a failure at all things. It failed to appeal to both western and eastern audiences. I'm furious bc the animated movie was one of my favorites of all time and the fact that this remake is even worse than the Lion King one says something.

“Whoever designed that should eat their pen” I CANT BREATHE I LOVE THAT

The fact that they completely overlooked the part of "hard work" I am not even Chinese and I am offended. Like we asians grow up with the words like "Hardwork is the key." "Patience brings sweetest rewards." and here this girl just developed everything without even working for it??? No training whatsoever??? Disney I beg you don't even think about touching anything indian.

They turned the cricket into a person, enough said.

The living structure Mulan's family lives in was based on Hakka walled villages and like Avenue X said, only really exists in Southern China like Guangdong. As someone who's Hakka, THANKS I HATE IT DISNEY. The circular villages' purpose were made to protect the families and villages from outsiders. And there is no theme about family values or filial piety in this movie, just some warped sense of western individualism. Its so disappointing.

In fact, one of the earliest attested martial arts theories in China was attributed to a woman, who was often referred to in the historical records as the Maiden of Yue (越女）,who lived during the Spring & Autumn Period (around 500 BC) . She taught swordsmanship to the soldiers of the kingdom of Yue (hence her epithet) and thus contributed to the kingdom of Yue's conquest of the nearby kingdom of Wu. There's a few more examples of stories from ancient China of women with extraordinary martial prowess (who, of course, attained their ability through work rather than being born with it.), like 红线、红拂女 etc ... When I first heard of those I thought they were from the novels of the late Ming Dynasty (1600AD) or later ... but then I found out the stories were already around by the time of the Tang Dynasty (700AD) and possibly earlier !!! (Yes folks, that's how far back the Wuxia literary tradition goes, complete with the femme fatales you see in popular Wuxia C-Dramas nowadays. They're in fact NOT just a modern invention!) Most importantly, these stories were written in such a way that showed admiration for these heroines rather than denigrating them as "witches". So the ancient Chinese *did* have high respect for capable female warriors, despite the overall atmosphere in society having more "domestic" expectations for women. In fact, the very fact that the Ballad of Mulan was written and passed down shows that at least a fraction of the people in China at that time found such a concept acceptable. So when in the movie Mulan is told, "if you show your abilities you'll be looked down as a witch", I felt like, "DUDE ! THAT'S NOT HOW IT GOES IN ANCIENT CHINESE CULTURE AT ALL !!!"

'i don't know how to praise it...the people are all in focus?" Oof, talk about damning it with faint praise. That was brutal.

Disney: Singing songs during wartime? Naaah, thats not realistic enough! Also Disney: magic! 🤩

I'm glad someone brought up the clothing thing. For thousands of years, the colors purple, violet, and indigo were incredibly difficult to obtain and even harder to produce. Making those colors into dye for clothing was even rarer, as such purple and violet hues were often considered the global symbol of extreme wealth and royalty for most countries in Africa, Europe, and Asia. It was easier to obtain a chunk of gold and diamonds than something made with a purple /violet paint or dye.

biggest issue I had is that Disney stripped the whole theme of "Family piety" or Filial responsibility from the story. Even the cartoon version had this aspect in it. When you take a story with the moral of filial responsibility as it's theme, and strip it out you remove the whole backbone and point of the story. Its a theme that westerners and easterners both understand inherently, yet somehow Disney's crack team of millennial diverse writers can't manage to catch the central core to the story. Hell, even cheep wuxia and xanxia web-novels do a better job of representing the themes of Filial responsibility. so as a wuxia (which this is desperately trying to be) it even fails at the basics. Furthermore the writer/directors don't even give mulan a heroes journey. this is a terrible work of fiction, it doesn't function as a morality tale, it doesn't function as a fantasy, it just is a waste of time to watch. BTW: I'm not Chinese, and have no one in my family as Chinese. And even I knew this failed on all levels; I just happen to enjoy Chinese webnovels.

Yeah you nailed down everything. I soon as I saw where she was living, how colorful the setting was, and her flying on the roof top. I was like this is gonna be bad. Also the makeup thing was awful. There is also this scene were she go back to the battlefield and take part of her armor off. Who takes their armor off and let there hair dangling in the air in a middle of a battle.

As someone in the United States, one of the first things I heard about this film when it was in production was that it was meant to be more faithful to the original ballad (which is why they had no Mushu), so they shouldn't even be allowed to use the "it an adaptation of the adapted cartoon" excuse.

If I want to watch a Mulan movie without the songs and quirky magical aspects, I'll just watch the Chinese adaptation. That was more "realisitic". And no one would raise an eyebrow on the romance because by the time they "fell in love," she was already a general like him. Plus it's Chen Kun 😍.

Mulan living in a house from southern China might not seem like a big deal for a lot of people but it would be like if in the movie Braveheart William Wallace lived in an Italian villa instead of a Scottish farm.

Cartoon mulan was cultural appropriation, but was magical and had heart, so we were carried away and didn't really focus on the mistakes. Live action mulan is just as ignorant/exploitative, but was dull and had no heart, so all we could focus on were how wrong everything was. lol

Cricket and dragon is not real but sure let’s bring in a witch and Qi

re: the whole makeup thing, it REALLY felt like they were going for a pointed DIG at Chinese culture, it had a very "haha look at these weird foreign people" vibe, and I have to say that the original movie's matchmaker scene felt pretty similar but this felt even more overt.

The movie is the Panda Express of Chinese movies.

Totally agree with you! We don't see mulan working hard to become strong. She's just a prodigy! At least the animated version showed her struggling through the soldier training and gradually getting stronger using her own talents to achieve the goal rather than just pure strength

I think the best thing coming from the Mulan remake is all the historian and history and literature nerds coming together to rip it apart and give us a much more entertaing lessons about the source material.

As a non-Chinese who watches Chinese costume dramas, this movie's costume design is turning me off.

"Can I just fan girl?" She says while holding a fan against her head. I see what you did there lol

The worst part of Mulan is that it can't even keep itself consistent I just don't get it why Mulan had to hide his "chi" as a guy.. If it's fine for guy to use Chi then Mulan literally have 0 reason to hide his "chi" whatsoever, why did she hide it in the first place? The emperor said that no woman should use Chi then wtf he's literally fine when Mulan actually use Chi? Forget realism or external consistency, the movie isn't even consistent when judged by it's own logic.

Let's admit that this movie just like a Governor Tso's chicken, Disney hired a bunch of Chinese actors made an awful dish that never existed in China, then call it this is story of Mulan..

A movie about Chinese culture, brought to you by westerners with little to no desire to learn or translate Chinese culture. By the way, it’s an all Asian cast, but everyone is speaking broken English, despite Jackie Chan movies and Crouching tiger hidden dragon being loved in the west. I know that Parasite is a South Korean movie, but despite it being the first non-English foreign movie to win best picture, the people at Disney felt insecure that a non-English movie would turn off some people. This whole movie should’ve been discarded.

I think this boils down to the fact that there was no Chinese person in behind the camera positions. since the trailers, I lost all hopes for this film, because the whole matchmaker look is such an inexplicable mess that no person who had ever seen a Chinese-made movie or drama would ever be okay with. Even low budget webdramas have more awareness of aesthetics than this. Regarding the acting, I feel like this is just a project LYF, Gong Li, Jet Li, Donnie Yen all did for the lols because it isn't like they have anything to prove in terms of their careers in China anymore. Everyone was just there to cash in their Hollywood paycheck and good for them.

Disney should have talked to Dreamworks about how to tell a good story that pays homage to Chinese culture.

"WHAT THE HECK IS THAT CHICKEN?" 😂😂

So basically, the Chi is like the Force in Star Wars XD

We live in a strange time when the Chinese start to appreciate the animated movie over the "realistic" film. My observation as a westerner is that people aren't as mad with the cartoon anymore because there never was that promise of a "faithful and realistic" adaptation of the legend. It was Disney's take on Mulan. It wasn't perfect (I may be one of the few that didn't care for Mushu) but it never promised to be 100% accurate. This movie, on the other hand, promised a historically accurate version of Mulan. Now, I would have been down for that since I don't know the original legend and it would be interesting to see a more faithful version of the tale. Hell, a more realistic take on what China looked like back then would have been interesting since C-dramas aren't that popular over here. I had the same feelings for the remake of Aladdin when they announced it; it would have been awesome to see the original tale on screen that was historically actuate for the time. But, Disney just couldn't decide if they wanted to actually make a realistic movie or just remake the cartoon in live-action. They did the same thing with "Mary Poppins Returns"; it looked like they wanted to do a sequel but also wanted to remake the original film. They just couldn't decide so they just fused the two ideas together and now we have this monstrosity. I think the two big reasons why this movie failed is that a) most of the creative decisions were made by "woke" white people and b) Disney wanted to play cheap stripper for the Chinese population/government. But I'm just an ignorant white girl so any Chinese people are free to criticize my take on this.

Her makeup during the matchmaker scene reminded me of Homer's makeup shotgun.

Not gonna lie when I saw the southern buildings in Mulan I was already beginning to hesitate but no mushu was what really sealed the deal. And lol yeah, in Chinese culture and literature/mythology there is no such thing as born with full power, even gods who are born with astonishing powers have to train to really become superpower. There is just no born with it, even if you have talent, you have to hone your talent for it to be really worthy of awe.

They mentioned Chi in the movie, that's when I wanted to throw my phone at the TV

"He looks like a bamboo shoot!" made me laugh out loud so hard!

The earliest Fujian buildings 土楼 is about 1000 yrs after Mulan's time during the Ming dynasty ... This is just the kind of mistake that can be simply avoided if they consulted with any Chinese who has common sense ...

As always, great review. I agree with everything - when I saw Ming-Na Wen's makeup in her cameo, I was like...how did you manage to turn that woman into this caricature. I've never liked Liu Yifei - I think she's wildly overrated in terms of literally everything she does. She's one of those actresses that is exceedingly graceful and elegant--as she over emotes or under delivers her lines. Sure, if you like that kind of thing but she can never move the dial on humanizing her characters. I was bitterly disappointed that they chose her to be Mulan (but also, not at all surprised because the casting of this movie is straight out of Hollywood - who are the 4 Chinese actors we know: Gong Li, who hasn't been in a Western film in a long time, Jet Li who is all but semi-retired, Donnie Yen because he was recently in a Star Wars movie and Liu Yifei because she speaks English pretty well. The only person missing from this line up is Michelle Yeoh). I wasn't going to watch it anyways but now I really don't need to. "He looks like a bamboo shoot" - made me laugh out loud. Nicely done.

Pros: “it’s high definition and people are in focus” I laughed and cried. Thank you so much for this amazing review. It made me realize just how little I know about Chinese history (being from Argentina and from a really Western oriented culture). I’m really excited to check out more of your channel!!

Hollywood is lately under the impression that “the hero’s journey” and “feminism” aren’t compatible. And if Americans say otherwise, we’re called sexists lol. Please send help.

I just hate how the used and misunderstood chi completely, in all the Chinese dramas I watched it toke all the characters their entire lives of mastering and reading every single martial arts text ever written. No one is born with “amazing” chi, neither is it just men that can do martial arts. It’s just some poor excuse for feminism and takes away from the amazing tale of a normal women who didn’t need superpowers to be respected.

All the movie's inaccuracies aside, this is basically a free lecture and thank you so much for sharing this with us. So much background, knowledge, and honestly I'm more into this than most of the classes I'm taking haha. You're awesome, this video is awesome, and again thank you for giving us this content ^ . ^

As I watched this movie I thought, 'everything about this looks wrong.' How do these peasants have so many colored fabrics? Why do these buildings look so fake?

"He looks like a bamboo shoot" - DEAD. Also can't unsee. xD

Pretty funny that "Loyal Brave and True" is essentially the FBI motto (Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity).

For a second I thought the embroidered bird on her train was one of those weird snails from medieval illuminated manuscripts

I just recently discovered your channel. Your videos are great for people like me who went to China for Mandarin Chinese study. Your content is great, keep up the hard work! 大赞！

I honestly hate to say this but this version of Disney's Mulan is text book cultural appropriation. They took mythology/lore from another culture and reworked it to fit their narrative, then interlaced and misused parts of that cultures spiritual beliefs as a "magic power" to move the story along. From a cultural perspective its just trash... and on top of that it was just a bad movie. I was heart broken because the original animated Mulan was on of my favorite Disney movies.

So basically this is like how every person of English ancestry felt about Arthur: Legend of the Sword or that awful motion-cap Beowulf! Basically this beloved legend became another victim of modern Disney's complete ineptitude for writing any characters or plots and brazen white-washing behind the scenes (all of the writers and filmmakers were white, not a one of them was Chinese except for the cast and some of the crew).

"He looks like a bamboo shoot" I'm CRYING I laughed for a straight minute

I'm terrified by the fact that they could nominate this ugly mess for Best costumes design

Mulan is basically a Mary Sue in this movie. Plain and simple, and it took all the enjoyment from watching her on screen from the original, among all the nonsensical things removed and added to this soulless remake. I adore the animation, so after seeing this borefest with spoon-fed female empowerment I definitely wouldn't have minded getting a shot by shot remake of the original...There's nothing wrong with that, it just took out all the fun and charm from the movie, and in its attempt to be more grounded it instead made everything but flat and unfeeling. So I couldn't help but roll my eyes during the battle sequence when Mulan, the unbeatable chosen one, OP protagonist stripped her armor and rode off to fight the antagonists...which should've been the very reason why i was watching it. So yeah, I agree with you in everything 100 percent. I expected far more from this, far, far more. They should've just let a director familiar with this genre of movies (and culture) to work on this one, as even to a mostly ignorant westerner like me whose only touch with Chinese culture is through the shows and movies I've watched, the "highlighting" of this culture in this movie felt almost always off, or that it missed the mark in some way...And in the end, did we see all that much more Chinese culture than we did in the animation? The costumes, cinematography...it could've indulged in the glorious Chinese beauty and grace, but well...we know what happened.

"like morgan freeman, who can read a manual like a poem," mood

You spoke out what was on my mind after watching it. I was super excited for this movie. Its got a good cast but the movie did injustice to the story of Mulan, the cast and certainly to the fans who waited to watch it

I'm glad you reviewed this for us, as well as cutting the live stream down to a more manageable length. Thank you! 😁

AvenueX: Mulan wasn't even really Han Chinese. I don't think Westerners even bothered to look into it... Disney didn't even bother to look into Pocahontas's real life, which was NOT a legend but a REAL historical person in American History.. She was the first baptized Christian in North America, but it is portrayed as if she is a pagan her entire life. This is not true. She marries a man (NOT John Smith) and goes to England as a converted Christian. The sad news is they didn't even bother to keep Mulan's movie-accurate either, from a cultural perspective or a literary, they just wanted to make sure she did not fall in love with a man. Good ole Disney and Western writers. Not concerned about the original content for Pocahontas or Mulan. They will just make it up as they go along, I am NOT watching this show in protest. I LOVE the Disney Mulan animation because of the story, the music, and the strong female character overcoming odds for the love of her family (something the Chinese culture celebrates) but I am not interested in watching the current screening of Mulan. BTW, this is an excellent review.

The Color Palettes!!! Kudos!! Thank you! I thought I was the only one who noticed it or maybe I haven't seen enough reviews. However, I did not think the color palettes go together too.

Disney is being lazy and sadly racist. Being from the US and someone who loves cdramas, I just cannot do Orientalism. I will not be watching Mulan.

Loved this video. Your excitement about history is infectious. Thank you for providing all this information!

I recently watched the 2009 Chinese language film , Mulan : Rise of a Warrior. It remained true to the original story , and Mulan did not have to rely on stupid , lazy , supernatural powers . My biggest criticism of it was that not for one second did I believe that the main character was anything other than a beautiful young woman . I would have loved to have seen that story re-made with a "Hollywood" budget and technology.

This may seem insulting and I apologize for it but you're one of the few to acknowledge Mulan as legend and not historical accuracy (9:20-9:36). I understand why many Chinese audiences were upset with Disney. Although Mulan is a ballad, its not necessarily on historical fact, entertainment companies should respect a country's culture and customs in a film. For example, I am not Mexican but Disney were quite accurate with Coco. There's several versions of the ballad, entertainment companies have many liberties to explore the story of Mulan. Now, the feminism in Mulan 2020 killed me! As a woman, I felt humiliated and degraded by this film. Mulan 98 was the "Limp Noodle" of the group, which wasn't entirely her fault (Yao & Ling bullying her) but that's what made her training and transition so special and unique. In "Man out of You", instead of taking Sheng's rejection personally, Mulan grows tougher skin and begins to really apply herself (pillar scene), she becomes more of a critical thinker (especially mountain scene, ending), she works hard bc she's not there for approval but to protect her family. Mulan 2020 is actually a boring character bc she's born lucky....I would've loved it if Caro & Disney explored "Man out of you" bc its not just a song. it has a really good message to it, that would've been nice :) Feminism and Qi really bothered me in this film

I would be excited to see you talk about The Three-Body Problem in more detail! Great analysis!

I love the poetry! More poetry, please! Love these topic breakdowns! ...I'm sorry I missed the livestream...

Thanks for the recommendations at the end, I'll love to watch an actual Chinese production of this story. Loved your imput, too!

I missed this part of the live-stream so thank you for taking your time to upload this 😂 Speaking of Chinese live action Mulan, there's a new one called Matchless Mulan that just came out this year too. I watched it to cleanse myself of Disney's version. Now I'm wondering what do you think of it.

Challenge: Take a shot every time she complains about how ugly the movie is.

Thoroughly enjoyed this review! You are so articulate and sharp ! Thank You, Avenue X! Keep on educating us to have a critical mind, please....we need that! :)

You said everything I wanted to say about this movie. Thank you!!! (& I love your sass. XD New fan here!)

I've come to know Northern Wei and Song kingdoms on Untouchable Lovers starring Song Weilong and Guan Xiaotong hihi.

YES, It's like a podcast about chinese literature, I love it!

Loved this review. So well read and researched. Thoroughly enjoyed every second.

I had to pause your video to just let you know me too with the evermore song. I still listen to it. It's so damn good I- >

True facts: When my bro and I were watching this film, we didn't hear the "main male lead's" name when he was introduced, so we kept waiting for them to say his name again, but they don't until almost the end of the movie! We ended up just calling him "Blue", because he wore blue in his first scene and that was all we remembered about him.

I mean considering during the Northern Sri dynasty, while the imperial paternal line were Xianbei people, they lived Han culture lifestyles and actively sought to assimilate with the Hans. The Emperor literally forbade the speaking and writing of the Xianbei language and script and heavily encourage intermarriage with Hans, if I remember correctly, most if not all Northern Wei empresses were Han women. This actually caused a lot of resentment from some Xianbei nobility which planted the seeds to the eventual fall of Northern Wei.

I loved this. Thank you for your perspective and knowledge 🙏🏼🙏🏼

Ok, first off, thank you for this amazingly in-depth review, especially in regard to historical placement. Second, holy balls. I've not heard of Three Body Problem, and - after minimal research into the novels - have dropped everything to begin reading them. Thank you for enriching this stranger's life with your vid!

Something that bothered me alot with film is the dialogue. Forget the fact that Disney went to all the trouble to have a Chinese cast in a weirdly colored Chinese setting only to not speak Chinese. :P The lines themselves are HORRIBLE. I can understand theatrics or formality, but what we got is just cringe. I was curious to see the perspective of a native Chinese on the film, and this video is the second one I've come across. Glad I found this vid, since it is the rare one that touched on the film being oriental for the sake of it despite claiming to be more realistic such as the village being out of place for its setting, or the neon bright colors in a period where such colors wouldn't exist. But, hey, doesn't matter if it looks fake and ugly, 'it looks Chinese, right?' And, yeah, previous video I watched, the reviewer lost his cool a few times given he was very much inspired by both the original ballad and the cartoon. He brought up the final line of the poem regarding the two hares running side by side being indistinguishable, and how Disney used that as a throwaway line. Like I said, he lost his cool in a few places. Oh, and thank you for giving me more reason to be wary of Netflix.

I literally just had a mulan ad before this.

Just had to say your enthusiastic nerdiness is very disarming and immediately enjoyable to watch, I didn't really care about this movie at all but now I feel like I need to watch it just from listening to you :D

omg, I love this so much. Thanks for the maps and explanations -- from a Westerner who is *trying* to learn.

"It's high definition and people are in focus" ROFLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love your work

I agree with your sentiments. They should have either: done a remake of the animated version, gone full in for their made up magical version of ancient china, or have done an English remake of China's 2009 Hua Mulan.

Love your stuff ❤️❤️❤️❤️

"Brave, loyal and true" for this movie was "Have courage and be kind" for remake Cinderella.

As a visually orientated person, I just can’t stand the makeup, costumes and set designs in this film. Objectively ugly, by all human aesthetic standards.

Did anyone else notice that they took out all the songs, but kept some of the lyrics as dialogue that was really awkward

This is an excellent and informative review. Thanks

💗💗💗 subscribed! I felt your frustration! 🌷

从此替爷争。。。not 父。。。my teacher would beat me with a stick if I got it wrong...I don't think the history is super important in a fantasy...however...at least don't get it so obviously wrong...like the '有情人终成眷属’ on the door...that is from 元 dynasty...like 800 years later...I live in 燕山...you know, 燕山胡骑鸣啾啾...I was so looking forward for this movie...but this movie is sooooo bad...I have no idea who this movie made for...if this made for people love the cartoon, they should not have changed it so much from the cartoon..if this made for Chinese people, they should at least consult some Chinese people while they were making it....if this made for Children...they should make it fun...if this made for feminism, they should build some strong female characters...they did nothing above... BTW, I growing up with the TV show 花木兰 with 袁咏仪 and 赵文卓,焦恩俊，孙兴...I love that show...

"it's ugly" thank you. As someone who watches Chinese dramas that can be possible references, and the fact that it's so accessible, it's upsetting they couldn't be bothered to research. It's so disappointing.

Thank you very much for this video. I found it very informative.

I'm so glad that this is the explanation of the movie I clicked on. I appreciate how thorough your explanations are!

"what the heck is that chicken!" lmao xD

I'm mexican and when i was a little like in the 2010 my uncle worked in a movie rental and he give me and my sis movies that he think we could like (cause my sis and i are always be history nerds so they were alot of documentaries)one of those was an actual chinese movie of Mulan (it was a color but old like from the 60s-70s) so having that movie as a point of start of comparison for both disney movies make both weird to me (the animated at least always give me a good time)

I'm five minutes in and already loving this. I was fascinated by ancient China as a kid, so this history is so COOL! Thanks for posting this.

The sass, the anger. I'm here for it. Thanks for this! Fun and informational :)