It failed at bringing honor for the cow.

Lmao can you link the video essays

Check out Shadiversity's comment: it also failed at depicting warfare and the basic operation of weapons.

@@Seele2015au I.e, it failed at being "realistic"

@@Zestrayswede A large part of it also turned out to be the laws of physics too.

And it's not like it's hard to make a live- action horse have personality. I was a horse kid, I saw all those movies- it's possible, and apparently stonking easy since there's a metric fuckton of horse girl movies

My favorite cow

@@skarlettsapphire4065 hehehe i dont know, if i think this is great or stupid, so i likethe comment......hehehe damit

lol I'd say even the falcon had more personality lmao

The "Khanny baby, we need a ride" scene

Imagine draining a third of your blood to feel high and hallucinate

Also completely misrepresented Chinese mythology and history. Witches don’t exist in Ancient China and it just pisses me off so much that such a Western concept made it into a “Chinese” movie like this. Women practicing magic in Ancient China are valued as shaman and such. Only thing someone can get lynched for practicing magic is for inherently not being human, such as being a fox spirit pretending to be human. Also, fire phoenixes rising from the ashes wasn’t a thing, phoenixes are just cool birds that brings good luck.

@@sugarkane1571 i heard a chinese youtuber say that witches were in China but they weren't the same as what we got.

@@avivastudios2311 they were probably referencing the shaman thing

Got locations wrong. Mixed-era fashion left Chinese viewers confused about the time period. Witches are western mythology. Chinese phoenixes aren't associated with rebirth. Global audiences hated that she didn't have to work hard to get stronger. Pissed off LGBT by getting rid of Li Shang. Global audiences did not find Mushu offensive. Global audiences wanted the music from the old Disney cartoon.

Exactly! The juxtaposition of the happy, bouncy, "how do I tell my male friends that they're being incredibly problematic" number and the destroyed village with explicit child murder raised the stakes in a way that no other Disney movie has. They took the emotion out of the war.

​@@Richard-441exactly. That whole thing just made the film so much more memorable-

The sudden cut seeing the destroyed town with the soldiers realizing they found the girl worth fighting for

I don't know how many people focus on this, but that song is honestly the MOST realistic of ALL the musical numbers in the original film. It's a freaking marching song, soldiers sing it to keep morale up. And the emotional impact of the ending is so important to the movie-- This entire remake gets me so angry.

That analysis reminds me of something someone said about La La Land: the first half of the movie starts out with these colorful, carefree musical numbers. "A Lovely Night," however, ends the run of the major musical numbers. It's like reality sets in when the romance begins, which foreshadows the twist ending. The reason musicals exist is because music can convey things that the spoken word or even millions of dollars in cinematography can never *quite* convey.

I have an observation, which is kind of halfway to a theory. The end of "A Girl Worth Fighting For" is the last song that characters _in the body of a Disney movie_ sing in the Renaissance. Tarzan, as Sideways has gone over extensively, doesn't have the characters in-movie sing its musical numbers, and after Tarzan there's like, no in-world musical numbers except the villain song from Home on the Range all the way until Princess and the Frog in 2009. "Make a Man Out of You" gets reprised later in the movie to extremely important effect, but it's not actually being sung by the characters at that point, either. Until 2009, with one exception, the last time a Disney character sings an in-movie song is when "A Girl Worth Fighting For" cuts out. So is that point at the end of "A Girl Worth Fighting For" _itself_ the end of the Renaissance? That's a weird and almost certainly wrong statement, but I definitely feel like it's the end of something really, really big.

Absolutly. When I saw the scene in the remake I just had to think how much more of an impact it had in the original. I mean, they just cut to the scene, there was no contrast at all, which had made the original so much more powerful

@@InchonDM Your work...has just begun. :o

LMTO

Zuko knows something about honor

Some cows had to be dishonoured twice cause there was too much dishonour and not enough cows. That's how bad it was.

This comment is a dishonour to everything in the universe, lmao.

A DISSONORU TO MAI FAMURII

yep I felt the same during that scene, it's like they are trying to convey woman empowerment but at the end of the day falls into the stereotypical femme fatale action movie where a woman have stereotypical lady appearance to become deadly. I get it that they want to show that woman can perform as man despite their appearance, but realistically I bet all women would rather have proper attire/ self-groom for each activity. Letting down your hair and taking off your body armour (to show breast?) just to show that you are a woman during a battle is so holywood style of thinking.

Literally I almost screamed at that scene. And like, she also took off most of her armor too. Like again it’s supposed to be a “I’m revealing my true self” moment but IT IS LITERALLY THE DUMBEST THING EVER like she took off her armor as she was heading INTO BATTLE WHAT

i thought it was funny because alot of people complained about the original when mulan cut her hair because men had long hair too but i said even if thats the case i would still cut my hair if i was mulan it seems like less hassle. that scene just reminded me of all the problems that could happen because of long hair and wind

Especially strange because men didn't cut their hair short in that time period, so long, flowing hair wouldn't be considered an explicitly feminine trait...

@@amandacantcometothephone even then tho despite the inaccuracy there is so much emotion in that scene that for some they might not care. which in the remake when it does their scene (of course they don't cut the hair) it's left very stiff because it just cuts to her wearing the armour with a blank expression and remake mulan is like this for the entirety even lines like "I would rather be executed" comes out of nowhere and you can't tell if she is saying that legit or she is saying it as a metaphor.

Did he stop making videos?- 😭

@@residentstar I don't know what happened entirely, but based on other commenters, I think he was harrassed because of some of his videos and stopped? Take that with a grain of salt though.

Me, too - I SO WISH he'd return!

@@the6597 Oh dear, that sounds horrible...!

@@the6597 Not exactly, the problem was in 2021 there were a string of unfortunate events around Sideways and he had to move. Not only that but he is unable to post because the copyright system is a cunt and keeps striking his videos even though they are under fair use.

Don't forget that they have her make a winning move in Chinese checkers after studying the board for all of 2 seconds (near the beginning of the movie). Yeah, she's not the best fighter out of her immediate group, that would be Shang, she's probably not the fastest etc, but she's the smartest and the quickest witted while being good enough at everything else to make her a physical threat. Which makes her very dangerous without making her a super hero or undermining her fellow soldiers. Then the remake made her Rey

The scene in the original that paints Mulan’s relationship with her father always makes me cry. The raw emotion and love and affection between the two hits *hard*, but in the remake I kind of forgot that her dad was even in the movie I forgot a lot of people were in the movie.

@@Telcontar86 I see Rey as far more similar to the original Mulan than the remake. Yes Rey is born *different* but star wars does not try to hide her obvious weaknesses and intense physical struggles in the obnoxious way that 2020 Mulan hides hers. I would go as far to say that the new Mulan is more similar to Captain Marvel than she is to the original Mulan, which is so insanely annoying. I love that you highlighted the checkers match, because it also shows how effortless the flow of the movie feels, compared to the choppy feeling of this new, excuse me, trash.

@@chlojo1231 “star wars does not try to hide her obvious weaknesses and intense physical struggles” Yes. Yes it does. And it’s definitely obnoxious about it.

@@APinchofBazel Oh you're for sure right about that, but star wars definitely made a better shitty protagonist than the mulan remake

Me, starting to hum "Johnny comes marching home"

Also military cadences

And bagpipes.

Leaves from the vine...

THANK YOU

That's pretty much Disney with a lot of their live actions. They will take something from an old source material and use it as a reference for some brownie points, instead of utilizing it in a way that serves the story and its characters or have it very meaningful.

"Look, see? We know the words to the original poem, we get it, were hip to it... now watch as the little girl does magic cartwheels off the roof"

Why did I think of the Laurens Interlude

@@blessiemasancay4818 w h y

@@royal3809 idk ;-;

@@blessiemasancay4818 I mean... not the third act, obviously, but I guess I get it. But also, imagine if the ghost/vision version of Laurens, instead of singing three lines, just fucking writhed around on the floor and coughed blood. That would not be fun to watch.

@@baguettegott3409 sorry, sorry I actually pictured it and went Pfft-

EXACTLY! I knew from the moment I heard about her new chi powers that the remake would be garbage. The filmmakers literally missed the entire main theme of the original! Absolutely mind-boggling, I have no idea how they failed so badly to understand Mulan.

So much this! The original Mulan, especially in the I'll Make a Man out of You montage, showed herself to not be on the same level as a man AT FIRST, but she was smart and witty and clever, and turned that to her advantage. At the end of the montage, she was on the same level as the other soldiers, representing that despite her disadvantage, she was able to make herself as good as the rest of them with hard work. Mulan 2020 is born with 'qi' (which, my gods, is not even how it works) and her SISTER is not. Mulan is shown to be heads and shoulders above the other men, and she has to do NOTHING to accomplish that. She is not smart, she is not clever, she's just stronger than men because fEmInIsM. And her sister is matched at the end of the story, and is happy about it. So unless you're this superhuman bAdAsS bItCh, you are NOTHING and need to be happy with 'your place'. The original Mulan does things to become the person she is. She earns her spot into being invited by the Emperor onto his advisory council, which she DECLINES. Mulan 2020 does NOTHING to earn her place. She gets invited to become the Emperor's GUARD, and it's implied that she AGREES. Don't even get me started on the fact that NO ONE working on the damn script was EVEN CHINESE.

@@smeissner328 To be fair, ALL of the Disney live action remakes have been garbage, not just Mulan There have been 16 live action remakes so far and 14 more in the works Here is a list of all past, present and future remakes coming from Disney, note that the dates on them are the original planned release date before covid screwed everything up Jungle Book (1994) 101 Dalmatians (1996) 102 Dalmatians (2000) Alice in Wonderland (2010) Maleficent (2014) Cinderella (2015) Jungle Book (2016) Alice Through The Looking Glass (2016) Beauty and the Beast (2017) Christopher Robin (2018) Dumbo (2019) Aladdin (2019) Lion King (2019) Lady and the Tramp (2019) Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) Mulan (2020), Cruella (2021) Pinocchio Hunchback of Notre Dame Lilo & Stitch Little Mermaid Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Sword and the Stone Peter Pan Tinkerbell Charming Rose Red (I'm guessing either a Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood story) Jungle Book sequel (3?) Fox and the Hound Robin Hood

@@ravenbloom6732 Please see my post in this thread

@@ravenbloom6732 I couldn't agree more with you. Mulan (2020) was garbage and was made IMO in order to suckle at the teat of the CCP more than anything just like multiple US movies have in recent years whether it makes sense or not For example, look at Kong: Skull Island. It takes place near the end of the Vietnam war, right? So why is a Chinese national woman taking part in the Monarch research team? She doesn't even have an actual role in the movie really, they just introduce her in the briefing, say she's with the Chinese government and is basically never seen or heard from again Even worse is Transformers: Age Of Extinction, for one thing, the movie assumes that someone can drive from Beijing to Hong Kong overnight when in actuality is 1227 miles or 1975 Km. Next, when the battle with the transformers starts, the Hong Kong officials ask Beijing for help which the CCP says that they will immediately and nothing comes of it for the rest of the movie There are so many examples of this in recent American films it's getting ridiculous, introducing Chinese nationals into American movies for no other reason than to try to get into Chinese movie theaters and then not even letting them be part of the narrative, just letting the movie studios say "Hey, look over here, we've got a Chinese person in our movie, give us some of your money" Mulan (2020) is quite possibly the worst offender of this because not only doesn't it make any sense from a story, which is far better in the 1998 animated movie but all of the controversy in the making of the movie as well, which I'm not going to get into

It's also the last song in the movie!

Nice pfp :)

@@ms.porter4385 Thank you. :3

Ooo if you haven’t seen a video trashing the cultural aspects of the movie I recommend this one kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hJmBftRjmcuUeIE.html she goes really in-depth where they dropped the ball (which is a lot)

Me neither, I find KZfaqrs trashing this flick FAR more entertaining than the film itself! 😂🤣

Yeah trashing bad movies is a far greater art than the average movie these days. All hail Mr. Plinkett! Also give us the Rise of Skywalker Plinkett review already!

And because they make money off of it, they'll keep doing it over and over. It'll never stop.

Different company, but it was the same with the music in the Hobbit movies. The theme for the ring wraiths was randomly used in battles in the Hobbit even though there were no ring wraiths. Because it sounded cool and that was all that mattered, apparently. -__-

This is such a perfect comparison 🙌

I think we can all agree that Disney, despite being bigger than they've ever been, is essentially dead. They're a soulless empty corporate shell of what they used to be.

@@johnnytopside2396 Or...and bear with me, they've always been a soulless empty corporate shell. It's just become more obvious.

And some of them are really goofy. There's a French military march from the Napoleonic wars about how much the singer likes fried onions and how there will be no onions for the Austrians because they're all a pack of dogs.

the ‘clown/circus’ theme that everyone knows of was also a song that people marched to war to, i’m pretty sure

Or, hear me out,... bare necessities. I'll see myself out

@@dmitriid I liked that one 👍

But then there is Wagner :D

Does this make NF modern opera?

@@dmitriid bear necessities

Plus, the song plays into the overal theme of the movie...Mulan is kind of unusual in that it doesn't have the common set of songs for a Disney musical. There is no I want song, no side-kick song or anything like that. Instead every single song is about expectations and gender roles. "Honor to us all" describes all the expectations which are put on women (and mostly by women, btw), "Make a man out of you" describes all the expectation which are put on men (or soldiers) and "A Girl worth fighting for" describes the expectations men put on women. And "Reflections" is naturally about Mulan's inability to fit into any of those expectations.

Also we got no other song until the triumphal comeback of Make A Man Out Of You so even if the person watching doesn't notice it, the impact of the village scene lasts til half of the final act.

​@@swanpride Reflection is definitely an "I want" song. In the movie it's indirectly stated as a question: "When will my reflection show who I am inside?" The question's derived from a desire for this outcome, and it's in response to Honor To Us All, the scene-setting and context for the audience against which her want contrasts. It's even more explicitly stated in the full version of the song ( kzfaq.info/get/bejne/it-VfrSctNzOgJc.html ), where the second verse opens with the direct "I want" statement: How I pray, that a time will come (

This is HUGE. That abrupt cut and segue into "The Deserted Village" is a musical gut-punch if there ever was one. It's got to be one of the cleverest bits of sonic storytelling in all of Disney.

@@ShjadeNexayre You could interpret Reflexion as I want song, but honestly, a "true" I want song is about the Protagonist stating what goal it wants to reach. Reflexion is more saying that Mulan doesn't know herself what she actually wants, but she really would like to know herself. The only "goal" you could attach to the song is the wish to fit in. And yes, I know the full version, but the full version didn't make it into the movie, and that was a really good decision. Reflexion was supposed to be a full fledged I want song originally, no doubt, but it ended up being more a song about self-Reflexion, which is exactly why it resonates with so many people.

While I can admire and credit someone's work, I don't default to thinking something is good because I liked another thing they did. Summed up best as "I dont look at the name, I look at what they did." Nintendo is incredibly depressing to me and my best explanation. The way they treat their fans is... not something I appreciate, put lightly. But I love quite a few games they made. What I've played is genuinely great. Just run by people that need to back off on the greed.

If you want someone to consume better media it also helps to show them better things :) don't disparage your sibling too much but show them something different.

is “reflakes” a typo or an intentional thing? and if so are u one of those weirdos who things “snowflake” is like. a good insult that still carries weight? 🫢

@@gregoryford2532 I...I wasn't joking.

Omg😵🥺

@@gregoryford2532 Its called symbolism bruh. The girl they're fighting for is the girl who was slain by the huns and left behind that doll.

DAAAAAANG

Damn.

Disney: “we cut the music to adhere more to the original story” Also Disney: "CHI = MAGIC"

Disney: we can't have a talking dragon because it's not realistic, nor is singing in an army Armies: (chant/singing) i don't know what you've been told Disney: well...let's just add magic, shapeshifting, and a phoenix for realism. But no singing

Yeah, that was just the, being lazy. It’s more expensive to get a full village

@@MetaphoricallyRose No he(she?) meant the house design, it was from the wrong era (it didn't exist until centuries later) and region (the movie set in northern China while the houses showed are used in southern China)

Disney: “we cut the music to adhere more to the original story” Also Disney: _hires a white lady with no background in Chinese history, mythology, or cinematography to direct_

Nah fam, it's totally foreshadowing for her post war PTSD, waking up at three am from a night terror, looking at herself in the mirror, and going "Oh God, I murdered so many people in the avalanche and almost killed my whole legion"

I mean, honestly, this isn't me talking you down or anything, but there are so many things above this one in the list of "things that don't make sense". The entire movie just seems random.

See I wouldn't have had a problem with them getting rid of the musical aspect of maybe they did what they did with reflection and have the instrumental in the background for the relevant scenes

They used it cause it sounded pretty with no regard for the lyrics and meaning of the song

That's who she is-a mass murderer! lol

DECEASED. BEHEADED.

3:26

ikr that's so good

That's a film I'd watch

Turandot should really just be turned into a movie.

Same.

Absolutely same, you are so good at introducing and explaining ideas

Ikr, I barely know a thing about opera but when you ranted about it at the beginning of your video I felt like I should be taking notes because it was so cool and informative

Same!

Plot twist: you probably already have

Can you tell me how to watch Operas? My friend and I thought one day "ah wow, there is an open air opera screening next to our place, lets go watch it" but we didnt know anything about the plot and I^m not sure now whether it had subtitles or not but we left after a while because we didnt understand anything and it was in italian. Do you have to read the plot beforehand or how does it work? (I'm an ultimate noob in this, I'm sorry)

I have never been to an opera or watched it. Closest thing was watching that famous Bugs Bunny cartoon, reading and watching The Phantom of the Opera. Pretty pathetic but I’m poor and don’t understand Italian etc So yeah, I’d like to hear more about opera!

@@xxMpEGxx Currently the Metropolitan Opera has a different opera each day on stream for free. A great opportunity to discover a huge repertoire. And if it doesn't suit you on one day you can always check in the day after. It also comes with english subtitles and usually a short introduction to the plot. The link would be metopera.org I think.

​@@MistbornPrincess Phantom of the Opera is one of my absolute favorites and that's my second recommendation after Pagliacci. For both of you, It's a mix of an experience, some operas will have librettos (Small books) that have all the words and lyrics, and even stage directions, which you can use to follow along and experience, which is great when the opera isn't in a language you understand, but other times they leave things untranslated, which isn't all that helpful. In this video Sideways talks about the recitative and the aria, The recitative is most often what gets translated, if translating is being done, because it's about the story, it's telling you what's happening and driving forward everything. The aria is often what ends up remaining untranslated, because it's less so about the words, and more about the emotion, the feelings, and I like to use Pagliacci as an entry point for operas because it has the most iconic Aria (In my opinion) and you don't need to know the words, you know Pagliacci has had his heart torn in half just from the feeling you get from it. There's resources that contain translated libretti, such as www.murashev.com/opera/Pagliacci_libretto_English and so if you find an opera you want to watch, you can take a look to see if translations exist and follow along with it.

@@MistbornPrincess you don't have to be rich to watch an opera, as long as you have internet and the right resources you can watch one, or some of the pieces in them! I love opera, though I've never been to an opera house. You can try researching some operas up. A good starter might be The Magic Flute, La Traviata, or Carmen by Bizet. It's best to watch with subtitles so you know whats happening and read the plot on wikipedia or something.

Exactly, this was clickbait

Same.

Same, I completely forgot what I was here to watch until he started talking about Disney again. 😂

I was just looking for Sideways opera video and was wondering "where was his talk about opera again? Oh right, it's in the Mulan video"

@@lyleinnoe2210 No it wasn't LOL

A whole video about opera PLEASE

@@laurenberck55 agreed, as a musically ignorant individual I'd like to know the intricate difference between opera, musical, and anything else in-between.

Yeah i'm not sure how Sideways doesn't know his audience is literally here for that

Opera is lot like Shakespeare or any of the dozen books they force you to read in high school. Everyone is vaguely aware of it, but unless you sit down and explain WHY it's important, no one cares. There are millions of musical theater fans that have no idea why they should care about Opera, despite Opera being a direct ancestor of musical theater.

I literally forgot this video was about Mulan lol. I was so happy to be learning about opera and musicals. Maybe it's not information I actively sought out cause I didn't even know where to start tbh but it's information I'm happy to have gained regardless if I'm unlikely to really use it. I want a whole and full breakdown about music in general, the genres, terms, vocabulary, THE WORKS AND ALL!! Honestly just knowing he enjoys talking about music is so fun and the fact it's informative is a major plus but his enthusiasm is the best :D

Is it too soon to call this a cliche?

My favorite

*lose

Kenobi: that's, why I'm here.

The worst part was: The director/ producers mentioned they made the remake because they wanted it to be more culturally accurate, AND YET THEY MADE IT WORSE. If anything, the original isn't that far away from being culturally accurate. They only flaw I saw in the original was the dinner scene where the family only ate rice and tea.

@Victoria Saade I haven't even clicked on the link and I think it's our beautiful deity, Xiran Jay Zhao Edit: I'm right

Most importantly: -include Mushu

@Victoria Saade Yep! I watched that video before. As an ethnic Chinese, I also hate 2020 mulan, chi can be quite bullshit

@@Raya-ir4tm it shouldn't be that hard to do both tho, it's their job. They said they wanted to be make it more representative, but they truly didnt care because they failed at that too and only made it worse :/

Exactly. That was from day one my biggest worry. Mulan sticks out even between the Disney Princesses because she doesn't really have a clearly defined goal. Her "I want song" is basically about her not knowing what she actually wants, outside of really desiring to have some place in the world. She doesn't go to war to prove anything, but she is a selfless person who wants to rescue her father. And she succeeds the moment she forgets about gender stereotypes and instead just relies on her own abilities, especially her smarts. I just knew that the people behind the remake wouldn't "get" this. And from a purely feminist perspective, it is basically the Wonder Woman phenomen. Like, as happy as I was that we got finally a Wonder Woman movie, it didn't escape my attention that they changed "Amazones are women who got superstrong because they were able to develop without the interference from man, and Diana is the strongest between them, since she proved herself in a competition" (which was the back story in the TV show, which turned the character into a feminist icon) to "Amazons have been created by a male god to fight their war and Diana is extra special because she was specifically created to be a weapon against Ares". One story is empowering, the other is basically saying that Wonder Women is a special case. And that is exactly what they did with Mulan, she doesn't succeed as a standard women, oh no, she is just a special kind of women.

@@swanpride I didn't know that about Wonder Woman! That's very interesting, thank you for sharing :D

@@swanpride although to be fair, the first Wonder Woman movie focused more on Diana's internal conflict about humanity being worth saving over her conflict with powerful men ...at first...until they had David Thewliss fight her in CGI armor...

@@swanpride R.I.P. Cloris Leachman

honestly, from the first trailer, i was like "holy shit she's so boring it's probably gonna suck". never before have i been so satisfied to be right about something.

That's most of what I took from this, not gonna lie.

Yup it was but put it in the hands of an amazing performer (Pavarotti and Corelli), you're gonna side with him

jeprody

Put that on a shirt.

However as Sideways just pointed out in the description, he already won. Now the song Nessun Dorma is how he waits for her chic to guess the answer to his hard Jeapordy question which is his name

I never really saw the message as "these gender roles are too rigid," but rather "Do what you can do within your own abilities. Accept your differences and solve problems in your own way." It felt less about gender roles (I know that lent credence to the movie's plot, but it wasn't just about men vs. women) and more about finding your own way. Even amongst the men in the movie, there were unique limitations they each faced.

All in all though, I agree that this remake tears down the entire message of the original.

I think the chi and the gender-chi are even two issues. The gender-chi seems very hollow as a thought out idea like it's just "chi in women is bad because sexism" when they could've done something with it. Idk, make it that super-chi in men is usually different and having "man-like" super-chi is bad. So Idk, women super-chi would be about healing or soothing or something like that whilst we see the "male-version". Mulan having it as a woman could just break open the gender roles some more. That the way you super-chi works isn't bound to gender but to ones character/nature. The super-chi in general bothered me because in the original Mulan worked for her skills. It was her own strength and mind that got her to be one of the top warriors. Here, it's just that she remembered she has this cheat-code and she has been perfect to begin with. Like that's the reason she succeeded. Giving her superpowers somehow felt more sexist because why can't she do it naturally?

As a Chinese person the whole super-Chi thing just pisses me off to no end. Chi is an essence of being, like blood, and gender role blood is just so dumb. I’m not criticizing super-Chi as a concept since it’s pretty common practice in power fantasy media in China, but even in those, the Chi is trained and honed for years until the user becomes super sayan or whatever. Not only does this make it seem that power is male dominant, it’s also inherent, that you’re born powerful rather than made powerful. And one more addition, in the words of Knuckles the Echidna, “anytime someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo.”

Well said!

I guess it could symbolize "breaking free", but if it's their only shorthand for that, it just seems half-hearted

It’s not empowerment if the enemy can easily yank your hair or you can’t see what you’re doing because of your long ass hair that should had been tied! Chi ≠ Realistic, DISNEY!

True. And they could save time by plugging in orchestration for Solsbury Hill.

The funny thing is that there is nothing empowering about this movie

And taking off your armor Like I guess it's about not hiding your feminine body, but armor keeps you alive, what are you doing?!

@@FluffyBunniesOnFire - The live-action film makes no attempt to redefine what Reflections means, nor does it swap between a minor and major key. It's as if the filmmaker said _"I want this moment to feel like Mulan,"_ so they dropped Reflections into the timeline. Since the film never established what Reflections is meant to evoke, by default I assign the original meaning it had from the animated film. Frankly, "Honor to Us All" was the main theme of the original film, as per the opening titles, so if they wanted to evoke a "Mulan theme," that may have been a better song choice.

@@TwentyPercentDash the "main theme" or "Mulan's theme" is the leitmotif that pops up in the score in Short Hair and Gratitude and like a dozen other songs

~WHAT DOES MY REFLECTION SHOW, WHEN I'M KILLING THESE DUDES?~

Disney was trying to be more faithful to chinese culture and the 1500+years legendary poem known as ballad of mulan. First of all lets start with the replacement of mulan's name as Fa mulan in the cartoon to Hua mulan in the remake, Fa is the other dialect (which is Cantonese) that people in guangdong and hongkong used and that is not accurate since mulan lived in northern china (northern wei dynasty) not southern china and Hua mulan is the correct one and Hua mulan means as "blossom magnolia". The emperor's name "son of heaven" also taken from the ballad. In ancient times man and woman had long hairstyle but styled in a different ways where man always made bun and girls comb their hair if you cut your hair it meant as a disgrace to your family thats why they took it off. mulan father was a noble war hero which was described in the ballad of mulan and her father trained her since she was a kid n it was accurate in the ballad that she already skilled even before she joined the army the animated mulan created different story by adding a sympathy that she didnt know everything. The phoenix fenghuang symbolizes both genders man and female n it suits mulan character as well as a replacement of dragon that cannot be used as a compannion, mushu was too direspectful since in chinese culture they potrayed dragon as big and powerful and often potrayed as the emperor not like tiny stupid little lizard with weird accent. The leader of the huns name also accurate to the ballad since they used "KHAN" because the northern invaders(the mongols or turkic) often called their leaders as "KHAN" but "BORI" was actually not the real name of their khan. In the beginning where mulan rides a horse and she finds out 2 rabbits running side by side was actually taken from the ballad and it is a metaphor. And the place where mulan lives not really that accurate it is fujian house it is located in china but not in northern china which every part of china has their own style of buildings. and the witch is a development character of the falcon from the animated. in chinese culture there's a woman who can shapeshift and it is called "fox spirit" or the nine tailed that use their powers to deceive people(evil spirit) with the practice of "taoism" which i thought that was a concept that disney has taken . Mulan identity has never revealed during the 12 years of war she was the one who revealed herself when her comrades visited her in her village and all of them were shocked but also happy and respected that mulan is a girl. The ending of the ballad was a metaphor from the 2 rabbits. The inaccuracy in this movie were the concept of "chi" which disney described it as a super power . And when mulan fought the huns in the battlefield they called her a witch and that was confusing me.

I liked original movie , its the best ,but I like to new version of original movie Mulan ,like them both. Maybe you think I don't like new version, I like it ,but didn't know this video was explain opera singing and talking about new movie in modern version .haha

Everything Sideays said, plus your comment PLUS they ruined the father-daughter relationship which is another key part of the story. I get so mad, don't think any of the other remakes have annoyed me as much (except maybe Jasmine's Speechless song, in the original she was always outspoken, rest of the remakes are just meh)

also they "promised" to be accurate to Chinese culture but bastardized the concept of Qi (which is basically life force in ALL people not just men), added witches which aren't a thing in Chinese mythology, added that phoenix-rises-from-ashes bullshit which is EGYPTIAN NOT CHINESE, got the time periods of the fashion wrong, AND SO MANY MORE

I actually vocally gasped when I watched a review after rewatching the original movie and heard mulan say "I know my place" and that be treated as the thesis of the movie when it was the antagonistic view of the original

The main actress had three expressions throughout the movie and two of them did not require any facial movement whatsoever. She looked like a botox ridden 50 year old crone, struggling to emote. Her delivery did not help too. I've read somewhere the Chinese audience mocked her for her lack of affect and inability of emoting.

@@azmodanpc You're not wrong, we think her acting sucks too.

雙兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌？that's the last line of the original poem, literally literally every kid learn it in elementary school *grade three*. It's not small and it's not obscure to EVERY Chinese.

@@doc0core They meant the detail that was in the remake, not the actual ballad itself :)

@@lotuscrest You missed the point.

@@doc0core It's clear that you have missed the point. You conjured up an insult that didn't exist.

@@AK-wb2ww you conjured up an misunderstanding that didn't exist. I was not insulted by the film. I was insulted that you AK knows me better than me.

Hope you're doing great!

Your “current self” is a delusional plagued on by society encouraging these degenerate views instead of being straight up honest with you. No matter how times you wish you could be the gender you want to be, you’ll never be able to achieve it.

Reflection from the original Mulan hits on a different level when you’re trans/nonbinary

@@mysticwater9056 You mean mentally ill

I've heard that "Reflections" from Mulan has become an anthem of sorts for the transgender community, and while not exactly its original intent, it's cool to hear how it affected you in that way. The difference between the 98 Mulan and the remake is just mind-blowing

THIS COMMENT WINS

Sideways (this vid's critic) is only half right. Yes it's the lack of the song and total lack of character, but it's soooo much more they fucked up. Just like Indiana Jones 4 that opened with those terribly CGI chipmunks you could tell that it was gonna be a shitty movie, so too with Mulan. You start the movie with a young Mulan that shows skills that even a circus acrobat would be jealous at (poorly executed though coz you can see on the feet that it's just wire work) and you know straight away it's gonna be Mary Sue Mulan. Hence the repeat of that 'reflection' song. But it gets even worse as when she throws off her armor and disguise, the ENTIRE reason for the entire movie goes to the fucking toilet and you realize that the writers cared absolutely ZERO about the story and all about empowering women... which they executed in such a poorly way that at best it looks like a mockery of female empowerment.

@@stijnvdv2 and how much they misrepresented Chinese culture.

Disney was trying to be more faithful to chinese culture and the 1500+years legendary poem known as ballad of mulan. First of all lets start with the replacement of mulan's name as Fa mulan in the cartoon to Hua mulan in the remake, Fa is the other dialect (which is Cantonese) that people in guangdong and hongkong used and that is not accurate since mulan lived in northern china (northern wei dynasty) not southern china and Hua mulan is the correct one and Hua mulan means as "blossom magnolia". The emperor's name "son of heaven" also taken from the ballad. In ancient times man and woman had long hairstyle but styled in a different ways where man always made bun and girls comb their hair if you cut your hair it meant as a disgrace to your family thats why they took it off. mulan father was a noble war hero which was described in the ballad of mulan and her father trained her since she was a kid n it was accurate in the ballad that she already skilled even before she joined the army the animated mulan created different story by adding a sympathy that she didnt know everything. The phoenix fenghuang symbolizes both genders man and female n it suits mulan character as well as a replacement of dragon that cannot be used as a compannion, mushu was too direspectful since in chinese culture they potrayed dragon as big and powerful and often potrayed as the emperor not like tiny stupid little lizard with weird accent. The leader of the huns name also accurate to the ballad since they used "KHAN" because the northern invaders(the mongols or turkic) often called their leaders as "KHAN" but "BORI" was actually not the real name of their khan. In the beginning where mulan rides a horse and she finds out 2 rabbits running side by side was actually taken from the ballad and it is a metaphor. And the place where mulan lives not really that accurate it is fujian house it is located in china but not in northern china which every part of china has their own style of buildings. and the witch is a development character of the falcon from the animated. in chinese culture there's a woman who can shapeshift and it is called "fox spirit" or the nine tailed that use their powers to deceive people(evil spirit) with the practice of "taoism" which i thought that was a concept that disney has taken . Mulan identity has never revealed during the 12 years of war she was the one who revealed herself when her comrades visited her in her village and all of them were shocked but also happy and respected that mulan is a girl. The ending of the ballad was a metaphor from the 2 rabbits. The inaccuracy in this movie were the concept of "chi" which disney described it as a super power . And when mulan fought the huns in the battlefield they called her a witch and that was confusing me.

@@jalifritz8033 many of the parts of the live actions were accurate to chinese culture and the legendary poem . But i thought they were uninformed about "chi" concept. Mulan father at the very beginning told that "chi" is the boundless energy of a life itself. And the general donnie yen also said it "everyone born with it" both of them said the right thing but after some scenes and dialogues of the movie they forgot it and started to make it feel like a "superpower" instead of a "energy of life" . I understand that they were trying to make it like wuxia genre where people can run on walls and do the impossible movements its just an asian aesthetic style of a movie but i do realize when it connects with the wrong informations of chi people started to think that chi can make people run on walls etc 😂.The witch actually a development character of the falcon from the animated movie. There is a chinese mythology a "fox spirit" where they potrayed a woman who can shapeshift to a fox their powers is to deceive people(evil spirit) and absorb "chi" and use the practice of taoism which i think disney also has taken that concept.

I'd totally listen to him talk Opera for hours, I'd love to hear all his thoughts on the subject 👍

I did the same thing lol

I saw this comment before I was even a minute in - congrats on top comment - and it still happened to me.

Appreciating the musical nod literally requires you to have watched the original. What a stupid concept when a remake requires you to know the original to understand the emotion of a scene

It appears very little reflecting occurred at Disney during this production xD

@@DarthFerder It's just so hackneyed and lazy; they expect *you* to do all the work while they just half ass elements from the previous version like "you recognize this, right? Nostalgia, right?! YAY NOSTALGIA!" That's why all of these remakes suck they not only can't stand up on their own, they don't WANT to stand up on their own. Love or hate the Maleficent movies, at least they're trying to do their own thing and will live or die by their own merit. But these other movies don't even TRY, and Mulan is the worst example of it yet.

I haven’t watched it yet and don’t plan on watching it but all I have to say is THEY CUT IT OUT?! That was literally one of my favourite songs from the classic Mulan!!!

@@into.moonlight christina aguilera covered it for the credits like she did in the original but yeah i was sad to see there was no reflection :(( x

Excellent parenting there.

some of the newer ones I think are still good (non- life actions ones ofc) Like tangled or even frozen (once you get over how obnoxiously this franchise has been hyped up)

You'll do the world a Huge favor if you do so

The new jungle book was really good tho in my opinion. But that's the only remake I have a high opinion of.

You’re on the right path, for sure 👌

But I literally hate the marshmallows in Lucky Charms bahahahah Lucky Charms with no marshmallows is like my dream cereal, but yes it’s a good analogy

This is the exact point I had to pause the video because I was WHEEZING. It's so perfect.

@Cat Egorical I hate Honey Nut Cheerios and the marshmallows in Lucky Charms. Ever since I was a kid. To be honest, I don’t under why but I understand the metaphor since my sister would love the marshmallows

@Cat Egorical Wouldn't regular Cheerios be the same, not Honey Nut Cheerios?

@Cat Egorical It's less so people wanting the marshmallows and more... the rest of the cereal is just so unbearably bland. I never wanted to eat Lucky Charms because I thought the marshmallows were too sweet and the cereal proper was the exact opposite extreme.

#everysidewaysvideoever

I'm more impressed that you had desire to see it in the first place!

@@ohno8398 Well, I watched it because the original Mulan is one of my all time favorites. And I saw the trailers and thought, "It can't be that bad" and I was wrong.

Holy cow your everywhere!

Watch the actual chinese mulan movie it's way better and also available on youtube

@@nadyanathania3847 link and/or search term?

Not to mention the way the power is treated is completely asinine. Magical women in ancient China are not stigmatized, they’re valued as shaman and such. The whole idea of witches is completely foreign. Even more, even if she was accused of being evil or something, she would be accused of being non-human, like an fox spirit or something. This movie feels like the Monkey King was written with a combination of “My powers are so powerful no one would like me” fanfiction, an European plot pretext, and an attempt at female empowerment. Not only was the protagonist too perfect, there is no struggle or really anything interesting, and emotions and plot are just thrown in to limit the protagonist’s and antagonist’s powers.

I was also happy about his explanation^^ I like opera a lot, but never heard a proper explanation. Now I can proudly say I like Arias XD

Literally same😆

One thing I would like to point out though, is that Opera hasn't always been an amusement exclusive to rich and educated people: people from all social classes used to enjoy a good night at the theater watching the latest representation of Mozart's Don Giovanni or Verdi's Aida (of course, the rich could afford the best seats, and the poors had to be content with seats farthest from the stage, and with the worst acoustic), and some opera pieces were so widely popular that people would sing them on the street while attending to their business. Eg Giuseppe Verdi was so popular even within the poor, uneducated masses that on the day of his funeral people all over Milan broke into spontaneous choirs of his famous "Va pensiero" (which was also interpreted as a metaphor of italian condition before unification, and as such had been popularized as a hymn of the Italian Unification movement). So I don't really know how it came to be that nowadays Opera is commonly regarded as an exclusive of the highest social classes that the common folk could never understand or enjoy, but since I have worked as a trainee italian teacher to foreign Opera singers, and I plan to become a teacher of italian language and culture to foreigners, i would really like to contribute to the death of this misconception, even though I myself am not the greatest fan of Opera.

In a video that has NOTHING to do about opera

@@lyleinnoe2210 have you watched the video? Cause if you just went off the title this makes sense, but if you watched the video then what happened.

Imagine Pavarotti singing this lyric instead of original Italian lol

Especially delivered in that mozzarella white voice that's *just* this side of expanding the consonants.

Technically not true, since the "Jeopardy" part happens before this song. It's more like "there's a bonus round and I'll win this one too".

Something similar happened with me, my bf and 13 reasons why.

Not only kept it under 25 minutes, but somehow talked about the movie for less than 10 minutes! He spent most of the video talking about the history of operas and musicals. Which, admittedly, was a lot more fun than the Mulan remake.

well you must be some big Karens because I loved this movie..

Literally, every time i say about a movie "this wasn't as bad as the live action of mulan" to anyone... I get the response "ypu can't keep comparing things to the worst thing ever made"

@@stephhhsmiiith Just because they didn't like the movie doesn't mean they are Karens. They are entitled to their own opinions about the movie and they didn't bother anyone.

It's meta commentary for how this whole movie represents Disney having an identity crisis, being torn between pandering to it's western audience and pandering to it's eastern audience.

@@bengwynn935 this is one property Disney should just leave alone. All the politics surrounding it, it’s not worth it. You’re ALWAYS going to piss off someone

@@bengwynn935 if only they were self aware like that lmao

They couldn’t make “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” Mulan’s theme song, because, well obviously, that would undercut the whole “girl power” vibe, even though out of the two it’s the better option. There’s absolutely nothing empowering about “Reflection,” but “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” is pure hype from start to finish. That song gets me so powered up to defeat the Huns.

@Fkeu "We're bleeding (money), making us the victor!" - Disney Accountants, probably.

@Fkeu I don't know the origin of the joke, I've just seen it around somewhere.

78 seconds is a lot of time in a movie, dismissing it as "it's just 78 seconds" is nonsense. 78 seconds is the length of a lot of action scenes.

@@browncoat697 Did you miss the part about internment camps or are you just that apathetic and stupid?

@@artificialraspberify they agreed with op and went further into it?

@@artificialraspberify dude they are agreeing with you chill

yah, and it's not like they were there for literally 78 seconds and then dipped out on the 79th second. they would have had to do a lot of things to get those 78 seconds of footage. and paid to do those things. also fuckin'....are there no other places with rolling fields and mountains? MUST they have done it within the radius of literal concentration caps?

Not to mention that despite Mushu's comedic aspects, he is still a Chinese styled dragon, whereas this movie has an Egyptian styled phoenix

I was so confused when I saw this movie because they made such a big deal about how realistic the movie was going to be. I honestly thought I was watching the wrong movie. Talk about false advertising!

Mushu's also arguably more Chinese than Falcon Lady. With Mushu, they definitely included *some* Western elements, like having him breathe fire since he's a dragon, but overall, he still more strongly resembles Chinese dragons. Meanwhile, witches, like Falcon Lady, as an element of folklore are distinctively Western and not at all Chinese.

Honestly if someone told me the Chinese Gov't was just giving Disney stupid ideas and snickering everytime Disney blindly accepted it as totally a thing in Chinese culture I'd believe them.

@@justineberlein5916 yeah, there's no witches in Chinese culture, let alone is most asian cultures. It's usually a priestess of some sort but they're usually highly praised and respected so ?????????? That's like basic knowledge of asian history, I see it all the time in asian historical dramas but apparently that's something they missed????????

and i cant believe that 2020 version was supposed to be more realistic!

Perfectly summarizes 99% of "strong female protagonist" movies nowadays.

Actually no: 2020 Mulan was "You can achieve your goals as long as long as you practice the CCP sanctioned martial art, the Tai Chi". No seriously, this entire movie was meant to be only Tai Chi propaganda. the CCP is investing immenstly in promoting Tai Chi as if it was the ultimate martial art, since most chinese Tai Chi practicioners have been bribed or threatened into the CCP pocket and at this point it's being used as part of their political machine.

Disney probably: “We wanted to make a movie for young girls to feel inspired by. We wanted to give them a hero they could look up to and emulate.” Young girls watching the movie: “I don’t have super powers. What now?”

That's Disney now, they can't write female characters anymore, just Mary Sues.... God forbid women have any personalities or faults!!!

I'm just reminded of the Enterprise bridge crew talking about the Tamarian culture in "Darmok" Data: "They seem to communicate through narrative imagery - a reference to the individuals and places which appear mythohistorical accounts." Troi: "It's as if I were to say to you, 'Juliet on her balcony'." Crusher: "An image of romance." Troi: "Exactly. Imagery is everything to the Tamarians. It embodies their emotional states. Their very thought processes. It's how they communicate and how they think." Riker: "If we know how they think, shouldn't we be able to get something across to them?" Data: "No, sir. The situation is analogous to understanding the grammar of a language, but none of the vocabulary." Crusher: "If I didn't know who Juliet was or what she was doing on the balcony, the image alone wouldn't have any meaning."

It's not like the stories went away. And making poorly constructed remakes won't convince people the story is good, if their first impression is that there's nothing impressive to look at. The presentation taints the story. Sure "new people" will watch a remake, being new in they weren't around when the original was released, but it's hardly as much of an art-sy goal as it sounds.

The only remake that stands on its own is 'Cinderella' (which I love to bits and will duel anyone who trashes it). It's not so much a remake of the Disney animated film, as a retelling of the Charles Perrault fairytale...which is why it works. None of the other Disney remakes are worth the airtime we give them.

@@chizzieshark I've gotta agree with you there. Most of the remakes are either forgettable or remembered for being bad. But Cinderella has one of the highest rotten tomato scores for a remake, along with, in my opinion, being just a tad better than the original. The original was definitely magical, but the remake feels very fresh too

Exactlyyyyyyyyyyyy

Mozart: *has an actual piece dedicated to shit*

@@ecstasycheese7390 really? Which one is it?

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eZ1oe6Whkr_TpZ8.html

Mozart was a fucking madman.

@@TomEyeTheSFMguy One's called Leck Mich Im Arsch and yes, those words mean exactly what they look like, it literally reads word-for-word "Lick Me In Ass" Mozart made a lot of references to poop tho, to the point where theres a whole wikipedia on it with even more compositions referenced lmao.

For you none of them worked so you learnt how to use thu’um 👍😅

@@somenitrogenconsumer8859 wow

That’s profound

@@charleskulvet4911 as a bit of a musical theatre student, I'd say it's at least accurate

@@DrNeonGaming I haven’t looked at it from that angle, but it reminds me of poetry (maybe singing itself is poetry in motion) Poetry engages both our brain hemispheres, allowing subconscious thoughts to surface. Maybe even more powerful when joined with others

Yes

I mean I'd prefer them just knocking off the pointless remakes and just make good new animated movies, but they're never going to do that. So I'll settle for this other thing they won't do.

@@wadespencer3623 it’s so weird bc the people in charge of things like remakes and live action films aren’t the same ppl who handle Disney animation studios? Also you. Kinda can’t say that anymore since Disney animation studios is coming out with a lot of new content ...

@@milanjam "it’s so weird bc the people in charge of things like remakes and live action films aren’t the same ppl who handle Disney animation studios?" Technically true, but there's a lot to do with allocation of resources within the company. Money you put into meaningless remakes is money you're not putting into anything else. "Kinda can’t say that anymore since Disney animation studios is coming out with a lot of new content" Only movie I'm aware of is that new dragon movie... and I said I wanted a GOOD new movie.

Unfortunately, they would be just too stubborn to do something like that.