It's always a red flag when you have 18 cuts within 5 seconds.

Wow, that first jump cut on the roof is truly terrible.

I feel like the bad cutting in the opening is a lazy way to hide the changes between actress and stuntwoman.

As an editor, this is AGONIZING to watch. I think you're right that it's not primarily the editor's fault. The director and cinematographer obviously have no clue how to shoot action, and it seems that the editor just had NOTHING to work with a lot of the time, with executives hovering over their shoulder telling them to cut faster so the kids don't get bored. What a shame. This could have turned into such a cool movie if Disney had any interest WHATSOEVER in actually creating films. Imagine if Disney had thrown their *infinite* amounts of money at a project that had ambitions of being a modern Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon? A true historical martial arts epic? What a JOY that would be. But nope, we just get more utterly soulless Disney tripe (and I say that as a fan of many of Disney's animated films).

Maybe it was great editing if his goal was to make the movie horrible in protest. So, 10/10 editor of the year?

Glad it didn't come in theatres. Would be another free pass for Disney: another a billion dollars profits for mediocre to shitty films

I think another aspect could be the editor not being super familiar with martial art film style editing. When I watch the Hong Kong greats like Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung talk about editing their own action scenes, which they often did, they talk about a lot of techniques that I noticed were taught as being "wrong" in film schools here. About purposely repeating an action across two shots because it lets the audience either follow the action and/or really feel the impact. But I 100% know that if I did such a thing while I was at film school, I would've been told by my professors it's wrong, even though the actual masters of the craft know it's right. And even if the editor here knew this, I wouldn't be surprised if perhaps the director, or a producer, or someone from the studio notices something like that and say, "Hey, that's wrong, fix that." Even though their "fixed" version ends up being a confusing mess like the final product and not something closer to great Hong Kong martial arts films of the past, in their eyes, it's the "correct" edit.

God almighty that triple cut of young Mulan without changing the angle is horrendous.

When the witch fought at the beginning I actually said, “Oh my god what the- what is happening? What’s with that angle?” You can’t feel any tension bleh

As a film student who just shot his first short, I can confirm this was caused by a lack of shots. The crew didn't shoot the necessary parts to properly edit these scenes. I had the same issue...

I always wonder when stuff like this is revealed by KZfaqrs for free. How did the production team with their millions of $$ not see it? Did they run out of time? Did too many people work on it at the same time? Did they think we won’t notice?

Chinese choreography is usually shot to edit - in that they usually don't shoot masters, but instead only the coverage necessary - which also was how filmmakers like James Cameron used to cover his effects shots - this way you have to be very deliberate about what you're revealing in each shot and you don't waste precious time making performers repeat the same long sequence over and over again from different angles. The choreographer, the stunt team, the director, and the DP will all have to understand how things cut together and the purpose of each shot. Mulan didn't seem to have been shot like that - it cuts to lots of wides that wouldn't be wides if shot in sequence. I remember hearing something that was kinda alarming when Niki Caro talked about filming Donnie Yen's swordwork and how he moved "too fast" for the camera and she had to "slow him down" - this has now become somewhat of a condescending trope by white directors whenever they wanna compliment these performers but have no curiosity or understanding of their craft so most of the time they can only say "wow this guy is really fast!" But Donnie Yen and Jet Li (and before them, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan too) grew up in front of cameras since they were kids. they're total pros. and in the case of Donnie, he also worked as a director and choreographer for a bunch of huge studio films, including his own. You think he somehow doesn't know how to move intelligebly for the camera? or is it more likely that the filmmakers have no idea what they're looking for, what they're looking at, and has no idea how to capture anything other than faces? It speaks to an arrogance and cluelessness that these filmmakers have for a type of action filmmaking that's actually extremely sophisticated and storied, but in recent times have been relegated to party tricks for superheroes.

the editing on this movie literally made me nauseous because it was just so fast and jarring and then when they keep turning the angle of the camera sideways- argh it makes my head hurt :(

I haven’t even watched this movie and from the small clips I’ve seen, the movie feels fake to me? I don’t know if it’s the editing, set or costumes but you can just tell it’s not real. Like it feels super set up. Now that I think about it, maybe it’s the acting. I don’t know but hopefully someone gets what I’m trying to say.

Good job Thomas. Appreciate yuh

The fight scene blocking and cinematography remind me a bit of that interview with Tarantino where he explains the Hollywood production pipeline style of cinematography he tries to avoid: “You have your main camera, and then you have a second camera, and you’re just placing it somewhere...it’s a sloppy, sloppy angle, but it’s just kind of there to give you more footage in the editing room and to make your day a little bit easier.”

i think they're trying to be confusing on purpose, because what they are showing is not interesting, so they mask it by making a mess. A lot of bad uninspired action movies does that.

Love it. Would be great to see more vids on editing.

This movie has a weird obsession with using scarfs/fabrics to knock/kill soldiers. I've seen it happen at least 5 times (3 by the witch and 2 by the emperor). Must be an embassring way to die...

I'm glad that this movie was just rotten on every single possible level: The main actress is a horrible person; the movie was associated with concentration camps; it's a bad remake; its story is bad on its own merits; it's poorly made; it upset lots of people for being an emblem of Hollywood selling out so hard to China; it upset China for bringing attention to their concentration camps. Just a comedy of disasters that were all 100% deserved.

At 1:45, I did the VFX for this sequence so can confirm they were two separate shots, not a digital punch in. It’s cathartic to hear someone else give voice to what I was thinking whilst working on it:)

Isn’t the stunt double for young Mulan clearly about a foot taller than her?

They shouldn't have made this movie.

The jump cut on the roof with the chicken where she stumbles over honestly almost seems to exist solely to obscure animating the CGI chicken turning around instantly.

*Problem with the cinematography, lighting, sound, or action in a take* Director: "Don't worry we can fix it in post!" If that is uttered on set, that should be a giant red flag to the editor. At least in my experience.

Looked it up, and literally none of the major production team outside of the actors were even Asian. And it really shows in how everything is shot and choreographed (without even getting into the cultural inaccuracies in the story). Everything just screams middling American action movie production.

The reason why you notice the issues is because they have been piled up abruptly very close to each other. So when you watch them all back to back, the entire thing as a whole feels jarring. Like you rightfully said, continuity error doesn't always take us out of the experience. In some cases it can enhance it. But editing needs to justify motivation, especially emotionally. Mulan's editing feels like it was made by an AI by simply slapping similarly looking shots together. It doesn't feel human. What's even worse is that the shots are probably not even that great to begin with, which makes things already bad for the editor. The film making is sloppy and it probably seeped in the edit as well.

Exposure blindness is definitely something I experience a lot, mostly when I'm rewatching movies, and something that was originally an issue, isn't anymore. Even if it's just something as simple as a joke I don't like. But it also happens when I'm doing creative stuff as well. But I think that the biggest problem with how its edited is the fact that the material they were given just wasn't quite good enough, and you never really know how a scene will look until you're editing. Especially with action scenes. what might look good on the day ends up being awful, and due to any kind of issue, you can't do reshoots/pickups. And you just have to wear those problems in the final cut.

Very, very interesting. The editing looked bad already after the two opening shots of the movie, over the fortress. At one point you mention "bad cinematography" but too many misplaced cameras are rather "bad directing" or "bad breakdown", which are not among the cinematographer's chores.

Can't wait to watch editors cringe-full response to Thomas' video.

The moral of the story is simple, film is a _collaborative_ art. You either succeed together, or fail together. But the fault can be no single persons to bear, just as the praise shouldn't be given only to an actor for their performance, a director for their vision, or a writer for their script.

I strongly recommend to watch "Jackie Chan - How to Do Action Comedy" video which also has good analysis of why such bad editing of action scenes happens

Perhaps the use of a child actor and limited time are also to blame. Definitely seems like the editor was working with scraps and trying to add excitement to dull footage.

Yes, an excuse to not work. Thank you sir.

In This Month's Issue of *Thomas Flight - Field Notes* I talk about revisiting terrible editing, give some thoughts on my "ex-favorite" director, and look at whether 2020 is killing cinema. *Read the issue and subscribe here:* thomasflight.substack.com/p/thomas-flight-field-notes-2-is-cinema?r=3ms9l&

After Thomas points out Mulan's Bad editing: Mulan wins Oscar award for best editing.

Michael Bay quietly cries at night thinking it's not his movie.

2:51 that scene from the godfather is also my favourite of the film. everyone likes to talk about the restaurant shooting as the scene where michael "changes", but the hospital scene is where his transformation begins and we see what he is truly capable of. he's cool as a cucumber while the other guy's hands are shaking, holding the lighter (fire, symbolic of power throughout the film) like it was always his to hold. brilliant scene

Who in gods name looked at this and said: "This seems worthy of charging people extra to see it early."

Ah, I see Mulan studied at the Taken 3 school of video editing.

My prof recommended to us students that look away for 20 seconds or look at something then look again on your work, to prevent exposure blindness or too much things going on your mind and for eye conditions too, It helped me a lot and working in a pressurized environment can really result to bad editing or bad work. Thank you for this content

When I first heard the phrase "shoot for the edit", I thought, well, duh, what else are you going to be shooting for? I understand why people say this now. edit: I can't get past the wide angle shot where the dude is just standing in front of the action.

This movie is bad is because of an incompetent director, end of story. Everyone working on this project is just trying to cover up or fixing her incompetency. She is inexperience for this kind of movie. Disney make a gamble and they lost.

I am so glad I found your channel. Your videos are SO interesting. I am learning SO MUCH and getting answers to a lot of questions I had. I want to go to film school so bad.

I watched some reviews pointing the editing being bad, but I couldn't understand the why. Thanks for the analysis

the way you point out the specifics that an untrained eye like mine senses but wouldn't be able to put words to is SO satisfying. i watched the sequence and felt its wrongness and then got told why in the most direct and simplistic way. your videos are just some of the best.

"Exposure blindness," Is something I know well, but I never knew there was a word for it! Thanks, Thomas Flight.

I think part of this is that the director, DP, and editor all seem to have no action type experience. I lay that more at the feet of the DP and Director because like Thomas said - if they didn't shoot the wide shot the editor can't cut to it.

I really appreciate how the content of this video reflects directly with how you criticized your Bohemian Rhapsody video after Ottmans response. Also like you mentioned in that response video. I did not realize I was taken out of these Mulan scenes because the editing, the scenes just felt off and didn't even make sense in regards to the rules the movie itself sets.

Found this channel today while scrolling through KZfaq and I hope I could’ve found it sooner, great work!

Thanks for this video, it was really interesting. It's been about a decade since I learnt the rules of good cuts vs bad, so it was cool to have a refresher with such good examples

Don't forget about lack of takes. I don't know how rushed Mulan was in filming, but the first scene with Young Mulan looks like it may have had very few takes and too many angles that didn't match at the seams. In the end, the Producers get final say and there's plenty of studio hands on this for sure. Great job on the video! I too was jarred after watching the film and the editing issues were immediately noticeable.

Now i realise why that fight action scene felt so bad.

I don't remember the video name but there was one about the difference between action scenes in western movies compared to chinese/asian movies which is kinda fitting for a super westernized movie that tried to pride itself in being chinese lol. Western movies are littered with cuts during action scenes which makes the fight hard to follow and usually to cover up unbelievable action. The video used Jackie Chan's movies as an example of action scenes with very little cuts that made the action and choreography more immersive.

Wow i don't know how I stumbled on this but great analysis. This looks like a lot of work to do this so good on ya mate.

I always love your videos! Thank you!

It looks like they needed cut the scenes shorter to fill in the stupid phoenix bird into the movie. The roof scene, I feel like they cut out the part the girl struggled to get up the roof. Also many emotional scenes cut short that not even feel the emotion in the later part of the movie. Bad edits can also happen because of bad directors or producers who want to have stupid changes, but not do a reshoot for them but just fix it in post.

Im in the middle of editing my first feature and your series is gold! Any other resources you would recommend? Been studying everything Walter Murch I can find! Best Regards!

7:43 The way that chicken flew up in the air just throws you off.

that jump cut on the roof makes me actively angry

what font is used for the thumbnail

thats not just bad editing but bad cinematography as well ,jeez that camera movement lol

That roof scene looks straight out of a bollywood chase scene .Weird angles and no continuity !

My first thought when watching that opening scene is that it was trying to recreate/pay homage to the opening scene with the chicken in City of God. A sequence that uses hundreds of fast cuts, jump cuts, and jarring edits to brilliant effect. But the filmmakers of Mulan seemed to fundamentally misunderstand why that style worked so well in City of God and tried to force it into this movie regardless. Truly awful stuff.

The more I see of this film makes it look like that infamous fence-jumping in Taken 3... There is no rythm or rhyme or reason to the edits. It's just cutting for the sake of cutting.

Great informative video Thomas!

The amount of cuts in this movie actually hurt my eyes oh my

Amazing video as always!! I was wondering if you may look into the Oceans 11 (2000 movie) analysts on the amazing sporadic editing, how to make a quick movie easy to understand, fun snappy script... I think the oceans movies are well know. But no one seems to talk about how well crafted oceans 11 is made because its so amazingly fun that people over look it in the technical movie making.

man.. really cant fault editors fully with bad editing. in projects i was always tasked to edit videos and most of the time i try to be there when they shoot something because good lord the rest of the team always give me half ass clips, not to mention lack of material. im not a professional, only doing it out of necessity for a school project but imagine actual editors only working with what they have.

I'm glad you made this. Don't feel like you're overlapping with the "bad editing" theme - I actually love the subject and think you should make a series on bad editing in film! It's super interesting and helps sharpen my focus on that sort of thing when watching movies. Great job on this :)

It’s hard to fathom how such an widely anticipated film could turned out this bad. That cut on the roof is truly terrible.

I really enjoyed your critique on this film's editing, very informative and respectful :) thank you! I learned so much.

You should take a look of how "bad" editing continuity can be intentional and even good. Specifically in Shutter Island where the editing makes the viewers feel uneasy and question themselves.

I sat down to watch this, saw the opening chase scene, paused rewound, timed the scene and counted the number of cuts in the scene, and decided maybe this wasn't for me

For those who commented or will comment that "tHe EdItInG iS bAsEd oN aSiAn MoViEs" or something like that, as an Asian, I can confirm that the editing in Asian Movies is not like that and the editing in the live-action remake of Mulan is terrible.

by the way the shot/reverse shot isn't a prime exemple of good editing. It just shows he knows basic stuff.

I haven’t watched the movie but some of those edits made my brain and eyes hurt just watching

Could you make a video comparing good action sequence editing and bad action sequence editing? Especially wrt to fight sequences.

I can't believe you missed the scene at 40:40 when the camera shows a spear being thrown at the ground when both of them are visibly holding their's.

The shot of the leg is so bad it makes the scene look like an amateur chase movie shot by some kids in one day

I feel like Disney is now rushing animators and editors to make movies more quickly. It happened with Frozen 2 and now with this movie. Had they had time, they would have studied wuxia films and understood them. But they didn't, so they made this mess.

This reminds me of a non official norm within hifi; You can get bad speakers to play decent/good with a good amplifier, but you cant get good speakers to play good with a bad amplifier.

felt my soul leave my body at 8:12 with how jarring all these consecutive cuts were.

How did this turd cost 200 million? Also, Coulson has 44 credits but 18 of them are short films, made from 1988 to 2017. Probably not much action packed affairs.. Maybe, in addition to what you suggested, he just doesn't have much experience cutting action.

Disney has time and again shown to have such bad morals. Again in this challenging times they show no loyalty to a cinema industry that is hurting bad. Not to mention that MULAN has glaring political issues and is generally a pretty bad film.

Oh I'm so ready for this breakdown, thank you!

*move one step ok cut, move the camera! Move the camera! Ok continue! *Move two step Ok cut! Move the camera again

These action scenes look like what happens when a producer sneaks into the editing room--or when an editor has a comittee of bosses making arbitrary demands over his shoulder.

That inexplicable roof cut must've been the director asking the editor for Mulan to trip without a decent shot of the girl actually tripping.

I looked it up and other critics have also mentioned about the bad editing : loudandclearreviews.com says "Mulan (2020) is beautifully designed but undercut by poor editing and some strange storytelling decisions. " slantmagazine review says "disorientating editing that chops up the action" _Vox: "Caro’s direction is strong at various points throughout the film, particularly during the action sequences, which are often clever despite some awkward editing."_ I think that the editor's participation while scripting, directing and shooting was not considered much which might've led to weird footage leading to bad editing...

Small correction: you said 360 degree line. It’s 180 degree line. Most people in your audience probably knew what you meant though so not a big deal. Great video!

Me while I was watching Mulan: *This is so messy.* This guy: Lemme explain why Thank u man

I think the point of the cuts when she's on the roof in the beginning are for the first one is to add an emphasis to her tripping and falling. Without that jump it probably didn't look, or feel, like it had as much weight when they were going over the footage, so the cut makes the fall feel faster (tied with the sound effect) and trip feel harder/more reckless, and then the second jump cut is probably to balance out the rhythm with the first one.

that first opening scene of chasing the chicken was so bad that we turned off the streaming app and went to watch something else.

Just Loved the video, really showed something unique and interesting points about video editing. Please do a video on Resident Evil the final chapter, would like to know what you can give advise on there. :)

Interesting content! I'm actually very curious if any types of language barriers between people had anything to do with this. It would make sense.

hey what is the word you always use ? i am not sure to understand ? ( not a native english ) seems to be a cinema rule )

I like to make movies as a hobby and I have read books on editing before. They broke several important rules in these scenes. 1: The cuts were not invisible. Typically the perfect time to cut is right in the middle of an action, Such as jumping and swinging a sword. 2: Some cuts were unnecessary and creating confusion. Such as the Jump scene from 3:57 or the chicken scene in 3:29. I know some of these cuts are made for the sake of the VFX, But they were too confusing and I felt lost. 3: Not technically a rule, but action scenes (such as 4:03) are often too fast to tell what the heck is happening. Movies such as Batman Begins have had this problem, But in the age of CGI and Visual Effects, We can work around it. It's sad that an amateur artist can point this out about a professional company with a massive budget, But Disney has become such a money-hungry company that they now suck at movies, And any attempt to create something decent fails for them.

As I predicted, Mulan won another award. This is a biggie. Mulan Wins Action Movie of the Year at 2020 People's Choice Awards.

My friend said this movie was better than the OG. Ive really lost hope in humanity.