- This is my final post on Mulan 2020, in which I'll discuss the largest problem with the film: the protagonist. Liu Yifei, the actress who plays Mulan, is not good in the role. She's stiff, unemotional, and unconvincing. To be fair, as I said in my previous post, the writing does her no favours and I haven't seen her in anything else, so maybe she's capable of better performances. You couldn't prove it by this film, though. Also, Yifei, considering her- shall we say- troubling opinions, is an uncomfortable fit as a fighter against oppression since in real life she's all for it. I mentioned her support for China's brutal treatment of dissidents in Hong Kong; more recently she cut ties with Adidas because the company supports the Better Cotton Initiative. This group pulled out of Xinjiang, China due to the use of Uighurs in forced labour. I don't expect actors in films I watch to share my political beliefs... if I did, I wouldn't watch much. But I gotta say, Yifei coming out as pro-slavery is a bit of a sticking point for me, though apparently not for Disney. How's that for irony: the company which disappeared Song of the South has no problem with their Mulan star's approval of slaves picking cotton. But apart from issues with the actress herself, the character of Mulan in the 2020 movie just doesn't work, for a number of reasons.
2020 Mulan doesn't have to work for anything. She's the smartest, bravest, most unselfish, and- oh yeah, strongest and most agile person in China... her one flaw is being reluctant to admit to just how awesome she is. Even her chi is more powerful than that of any of the male characters who possess it; her only real challenge is, of course, from another woman- the bird witch, who is swiftly won over by Mulan's er, stunning personality, I guess.
At the end of the day, Mulan 2020 is a failure on pretty much every level. The bad guy Khan has no interesting back story or motivations; he's just your stereotypical power-hungry, brutish man. The witch is just as bad, except we're supposed to feel sorry for her because she's a woman being kept from her full potential by the patriarchy... ignore that large number of dead bodies that she's got piled up over there; they were probably just toxic males anyway. Yeah, I don't feel any sympathy for this homicidal maniac.
If anything, the good guys are even less successful characters, mostly because the principal characteristic for all of them is that they're not as good as Mulan. Thus they must be kept in mediocrity and relative obscurity so that there is no risk of them distracting from her brilliance. This is especially a problem with Honghui, formerly known as Shang. He's been so neutered by Disney, stripped of most of his masculine traits, that no one cares if he and Mulan get together at the end of the movie- including the two of them. He inspires nothing but apathy. As for Mulan herself, well, this film does a huge disservice to her character by making it so flawless. She's uninteresting because she has nothing to strive for or any personal flaws to overcome... she's the best at everything right from the start and the only question is, when will everyone else realize how wonderful she is? Then of course, there's the little problem that Mulan's star is a raging commie; it's a bit much to listen to her pontificating about loyalty, bravery, and truth, and about taking the "noble path" when you know that in reality, she's cheerleading for slavery and oppression. This is almost as gross as Disney pretending to be oh, so woke, but kissing up to China while turning a blind eye to their human right abuses in hopes of squeezing all the money they can from that market. It's bad enough that Disney does this; the least they could do is spare us their sanctimonious lectures about social justice. They have no moral high ground to stand on.