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Accented Cinema - Mulan 2020, a case of failed empoweredment.
- Thread starter RestEerie
- Start date
Really, watching this video just makes me sad because almost all of the live action remakes have wildly missed the mark, to the point that I sometimes wonder if the new staff even watched the originals. They obviously have but it's not that they're coming up short of the high points of the animated versions, in most cases such as The Lion King, they're going in the opposite direction. Of the ones I've seen, the two that came closest to capturing the magic of the original are The Jungle Book and Aladdin.
This video is amazing, so thanks for sharing. I will definitely have to check out their other works if they're even a fraction as good as this one. I'm definitely glad I held off of viewing it.
"Big budget virtue signaling."
Thanks for the video, it was great. That was a good analysis, and it shows how feminism is as important as ever. I don't want to hear anybody saying feminism is now "obsolete and unnecessary".
Thanks for the video, it was great. That was a good analysis, and it shows how feminism is as important as ever. I don't want to hear anybody saying feminism is now "obsolete and unnecessary".
Still side-eyeing any and all of the reviewers that gave glowing praise to this hot mess.
I feel like people didn't want to dunk on a "cultural" film, so thought they were being progressive by saying they like it.
I feel like people didn't want to dunk on a "cultural" film, so thought they were being progressive by saying they like it.
OP
OP
I have to be honest, as an ethnic Chinese myself, watching this Mulan movie bastardizing our culture is kinda disrespectful and the resulting film is what I will classify as a 四不象, a mismash trying to resemble something but ends up looking and feeling like nothing.
When the movie starts talking about 'chi', I was like....'u wut m8? We star Wars now?'
When the movie starts talking about 'chi', I was like....'u wut m8? We star Wars now?'
So it's hollow, full of inaccuracies and leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Just like fortune cookies then.
The sad thing is that the film seems so bad that it makes boycotting it a bit hollow.
I think the surprising thing from the video is that the original Mulan was actually good, even though it is as 'fortune cookie' as the remake in that it is written and directed by white men. In every single aspect, this remake sounds like it is much worse than the films it is referencing or emulates.
I think the surprising thing from the video is that the original Mulan was actually good, even though it is as 'fortune cookie' as the remake in that it is written and directed by white men. In every single aspect, this remake sounds like it is much worse than the films it is referencing or emulates.
I dunno about super powers cause I haven't watched the movie, but in the analysis in the video, she's definitely a prodigy whose just naturally gifted at everything
Basically she has more midichlorians than any other woman.
If you don't mind spoilers
So they make Mulan special by saying she has qi/chi. But it is totally unclear what exactly it is. And whether other people have it. And what it actually does. She's just seemingly better at fighting.
The writers have no idea what chi is. And I don't know why some people said the wuxia in this was good because there was also no wuxia. Donnie Yen didn't even get a proper fight.
The movie is just next level of bad.
She would fit right into the Avengers movies.
She would fit right into the Avengers movies.
His mention of feminism reminds me of the obnoxiously faux feminism Disney tries to pass off as genuine in their remakes. The animated counterparts might not always be bastions of progressivism, but the creators then weren't making half-assed attempts like with Belle in BatB and the little girl in Dumbo
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Definitely will watch this later. This movie is god awful and I've already posted enough shit gifs in the review thread for people if they want to see just how dumb this movie is.
will definitely give this a watch later
From the director that said singing in a war camp is unrealistic to adding running up walls, Chi, witchcraft, insane kung fu kid mulan......this director, actually this whole white washed ass production team was fucking trash
will definitely give this a watch later
From the director that said singing in a war camp is unrealistic to adding running up walls, Chi, witchcraft, insane kung fu kid mulan......this director, actually this whole white washed ass production team was fucking trash
I had doubts about the remake, but for the wrong reasons. Losing the charms of the animated version was the least of the its problems. That "I'm born a badass thanks to fuckin' chi" is so dumb and lazy. What the hell did they fill the rest of the movie with if she didn't even need to train?
It's a pretty great video.
It's a pretty great video.
She's basically a super hero or a jedi and the woman villain is a magical witch that can shapeshift.
Damn even through his calm expression you can hear a ton of anger behind his "You F*ck it up" and "Bullshit"
What other Asian properties do they have though? If we talking about some TV stuff Im pretty sure they wont invest.
OP
OP
Oh I totally forgot about this, even with Feggie at the wheel there is no guarantee Disney did not make some changes to please CCP and even if movie is free from Disney influence movie now have a VERY rocky road a head.
Also Kelly Marie Tran in Star Wars. Like holy shit, what they did to her character is unbelievable.
They also changed the Ancient One in Dr. Strange.
edit: the one Asian-related property that they didn't mess up was Agents of Shield with two strong Asian female leads. That's partly owing to Maurissa Tancharoen as Executive Producer.
The thing with the chi is you can kind of see what they tried, since Mulan is told to suppress her chi but the commander (thinking Mulan is man) tells her to embrace her chi. So Mulan not hiding her chi, that's empowering, right? But it falls about under the slightest bit of scrutiny and also when trying to glean any kind of real world lesson. Because the closest allegory to chi would be natural talent. And what happens if you don't have that? Well...according to 2020 Mulan, if you're not a man I guess you're just shit out of luck. What a message.
I watched the new film with someone who was that little girl who felt represented and empowered by the original animation. She hated the new one.
Watch this channel, subscribe. He does excellent videos with a perspective I don't see anywhere else. I especially recommended his two parter about Chinese female action heroes in cinema.
Watch this channel, subscribe. He does excellent videos with a perspective I don't see anywhere else. I especially recommended his two parter about Chinese female action heroes in cinema.
Amphibia is a show where the main characters are Asian. Ms Marvel in Marvel Rising. Brenda Song had several tv shows. Colleen from Iron Fist.
Some Pixar movies have Asian main characters such as Russel from UP and Hiro from Big Hero 6. And the Short movie Bao is about a Canadian Chinese family.
Jungle book and Aladdin.
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RLM recently used the word "passive-progressive" in a review. This review too goes in that direction and I don´t disagree much. WTF is that phoenix about btw? He too was flummoxed. It is the most confusing part of the remake outside of how they do qi. The film is both badly made and fully nonsensical.
I found it weird how he handwaved away the original´s lack of popularity in China. It's one of the reasons why the remake is the shitshow it is.
www.baltimoresun.com
Not that his childhood experience of liking the film as part of a class trip with the rest of the kids isn´t valid but that´s not how the cookie crumbled overall and over time. He should have also mentioned that Mulan´s family helps her to become a man to take her father´s place in the poem. Neither Disney version sticks to the poem in the end.
Edit: The full 1999 Baltimore Sun article for Europeans without a proxy:
BEIJING -- At first glance, it seemed like a terrific formula: a Chinese folk tale filled with adventure, Disney's masterful animation and tens of millions of Chinese children raised on Western movies.
But instead of cashing in at the box office, Walt Disney's "Mulan" has bombed in her ancestral homeland.
"Mulan," which has grossed about $300 million worldwide, is the legendary story of a brave young Chinese woman who joins the army during the Sui Dynasty (589-618 A.D.) in place of her sick, elderly father.
But when Disney's version closed last month in Mulan's home province of Hunan, it had made barely $30,000 -- about half the take of the Hollywood comedy "Rush Hour," featuring Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan. The movie opened in Beijing in April, but at a recent 7 p.m. show at the capital's Dahua Theater, all but about 30 of the more than 400 seats sat empty.
How is it that a national heroine who helped defeat foreign invaders has had such a hard time winning over her own countrymen? The answer lies in a mix of culture clash, modern technology and old-fashioned protectionism.
Trying to shelter its domestic film industry from foreign competition, the Chinese government first released the animated adventure in late February, just after children had returned to school following Chinese New Year, the biggest holiday of the year. Because of China's lax enforcement of intellectual property rights, many kids had already seen the film on pirated video compact discs anyway.
But the most intriguing reason for the movie's poor reception is that some people here just don't think Disney's Mulan is very Chinese.
Filmgoers occasionally refer to the cinematic heroine as "Yang Mulan," or "Foreign Mulan" in Chinese -- while complaining that she looks either Korean or Western. Others say her character does not exhibit the same depth of filial piety as her literary predecessor.
"She's too individualistic," says a 45-year-old theater ticket-taker who gives only her surname of Liu. "Americans don't know enough about Chinese culture."
Hollywood movies are enormously popular among young Chinese. When trying to find common ground for conversation, Chinese and foreigners often resort to the language of film.
China, however, allows only about 10 foreign movies in each year, so most viewers here rely on pirated video versions that have been copied or shot in theaters outside the country with hand-held video cameras.
The results are often hilarious: Audience members cough audibly or stand up and block the screen. One pirated version of "Mulan" has its own built-in laugh-track of giggling children in what appears to be an American theater.
For film companies, though, the rampant piracy is maddening.
One day recently, Jack Valenti, chairman of the Motion Picture Association, stood along one of Beijing's busiest boulevards and haggled with vendors over pirated copies of the Adam Sandler hit "The Waterboy" and the "Jurassic Park" sequel "The Lost World."
"This makes me want to throw up," said Valenti, who was in town to lobby Chinese leaders for more market access and picked up the video compact discs for about $2.40 each to show his colleagues back home.
Despite their fondness for Hollywood films, many Chinese are wary of and a bit nationalistic toward foreigners' attempts to portray or define their country. Beneath the increasingly sophisticated veneer of cell phones and office towers in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, China remains a fairly traditional society.
And this is where Disney's "Mulan" may have run into trouble. Some Beijingers say they found her too self-aggrandizing -- a no-no under China's Confucian culture, which emphasizes values of modesty and community.
In the original tale, Mulan passes herself off as a man to join the army, protect her father from military service and bring honor to her family. In Disney's version, however, she is also trying to break the bonds of a patriarchal society in which she has no place. After she is unmasked, Mulan explains that she has come to fight not only for her family's glory, but for her own as well.
"Americans who have experienced the once-hot woman's liberation movement obviously have difficulties understanding Mulan's traditional behavior and why this story has spread so widely," a recent editorial in Shenzhen Panorama Weekly said.
Mulan isn't the only character in the film who doesn't espouse traditional Chinese values. Not surprisingly, some complain that Mushu, a jive-talking dragon whose voice is provided by Eddie Murphy in the film's English-language version, is just too American.
For instance, when Mushu accidentally smashes a sculpture that holds a much more powerful dragon who can help Mulan, he tries to cover it up. Hiding behind some bushes, Mushu dons the stone head of the dragon and pretends to be the great dragon himself.
A Chinese dragon, however, would never do such a thing, says Lisa Niu, a 28-year-old who works for a foreign-owned telecommunications company. Having lost considerable face, he would be obliged to slink off in embarrassment.
"This is not a Chinese dragon," says Niu, while acknowledging that a dragon brazenly trying to duck responsibility is much funnier than one which is merely embarrassed. "I can tell the people who designed the dragon are from America."
Ironically, the poor turnout for "Mulan" follows a lengthy effort by Disney to get the movie shown here at all. Chinese officials held "Mulan" hostage for months because they were still angry about Disney's 1997 release of "Kundun," a Martin Scorsese movie which recounted the life of the Dalai Lama and China's occupation of Tibet.
Whatever cultural differences "Mulan" has exposed, some of the film's universal messages were not lost on the most important viewers: kids.
"I learned to be fearless and just go ahead," said Tang Xiaoyang, a 10-year-old boy who went to see the movie in a theater after a pirated copy he bought turned out to be too blurry.
"I like Mulan," he added, "even though she is a woman."
Notice how the remake addresses these "negatives"? Badly but it does. Did this exact breakdown fuck up the remake? Lol. The CCP also buried the film back then despite granting a release.
I found it weird how he handwaved away the original´s lack of popularity in China. It's one of the reasons why the remake is the shitshow it is.
Baltimore Sun: Baltimore breaking news, sports, business, entertainment, weather and traffic
Baltimore Sun: Your source for Baltimore breaking news, sports, business, entertainment, weather and traffic
Edit: The full 1999 Baltimore Sun article for Europeans without a proxy:
BEIJING -- At first glance, it seemed like a terrific formula: a Chinese folk tale filled with adventure, Disney's masterful animation and tens of millions of Chinese children raised on Western movies.
But instead of cashing in at the box office, Walt Disney's "Mulan" has bombed in her ancestral homeland.
"Mulan," which has grossed about $300 million worldwide, is the legendary story of a brave young Chinese woman who joins the army during the Sui Dynasty (589-618 A.D.) in place of her sick, elderly father.
But when Disney's version closed last month in Mulan's home province of Hunan, it had made barely $30,000 -- about half the take of the Hollywood comedy "Rush Hour," featuring Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan. The movie opened in Beijing in April, but at a recent 7 p.m. show at the capital's Dahua Theater, all but about 30 of the more than 400 seats sat empty.
How is it that a national heroine who helped defeat foreign invaders has had such a hard time winning over her own countrymen? The answer lies in a mix of culture clash, modern technology and old-fashioned protectionism.
Trying to shelter its domestic film industry from foreign competition, the Chinese government first released the animated adventure in late February, just after children had returned to school following Chinese New Year, the biggest holiday of the year. Because of China's lax enforcement of intellectual property rights, many kids had already seen the film on pirated video compact discs anyway.
But the most intriguing reason for the movie's poor reception is that some people here just don't think Disney's Mulan is very Chinese.
Filmgoers occasionally refer to the cinematic heroine as "Yang Mulan," or "Foreign Mulan" in Chinese -- while complaining that she looks either Korean or Western. Others say her character does not exhibit the same depth of filial piety as her literary predecessor.
"She's too individualistic," says a 45-year-old theater ticket-taker who gives only her surname of Liu. "Americans don't know enough about Chinese culture."
Hollywood movies are enormously popular among young Chinese. When trying to find common ground for conversation, Chinese and foreigners often resort to the language of film.
China, however, allows only about 10 foreign movies in each year, so most viewers here rely on pirated video versions that have been copied or shot in theaters outside the country with hand-held video cameras.
The results are often hilarious: Audience members cough audibly or stand up and block the screen. One pirated version of "Mulan" has its own built-in laugh-track of giggling children in what appears to be an American theater.
For film companies, though, the rampant piracy is maddening.
One day recently, Jack Valenti, chairman of the Motion Picture Association, stood along one of Beijing's busiest boulevards and haggled with vendors over pirated copies of the Adam Sandler hit "The Waterboy" and the "Jurassic Park" sequel "The Lost World."
"This makes me want to throw up," said Valenti, who was in town to lobby Chinese leaders for more market access and picked up the video compact discs for about $2.40 each to show his colleagues back home.
Despite their fondness for Hollywood films, many Chinese are wary of and a bit nationalistic toward foreigners' attempts to portray or define their country. Beneath the increasingly sophisticated veneer of cell phones and office towers in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, China remains a fairly traditional society.
And this is where Disney's "Mulan" may have run into trouble. Some Beijingers say they found her too self-aggrandizing -- a no-no under China's Confucian culture, which emphasizes values of modesty and community.
In the original tale, Mulan passes herself off as a man to join the army, protect her father from military service and bring honor to her family. In Disney's version, however, she is also trying to break the bonds of a patriarchal society in which she has no place. After she is unmasked, Mulan explains that she has come to fight not only for her family's glory, but for her own as well.
"Americans who have experienced the once-hot woman's liberation movement obviously have difficulties understanding Mulan's traditional behavior and why this story has spread so widely," a recent editorial in Shenzhen Panorama Weekly said.
Mulan isn't the only character in the film who doesn't espouse traditional Chinese values. Not surprisingly, some complain that Mushu, a jive-talking dragon whose voice is provided by Eddie Murphy in the film's English-language version, is just too American.
For instance, when Mushu accidentally smashes a sculpture that holds a much more powerful dragon who can help Mulan, he tries to cover it up. Hiding behind some bushes, Mushu dons the stone head of the dragon and pretends to be the great dragon himself.
A Chinese dragon, however, would never do such a thing, says Lisa Niu, a 28-year-old who works for a foreign-owned telecommunications company. Having lost considerable face, he would be obliged to slink off in embarrassment.
"This is not a Chinese dragon," says Niu, while acknowledging that a dragon brazenly trying to duck responsibility is much funnier than one which is merely embarrassed. "I can tell the people who designed the dragon are from America."
Ironically, the poor turnout for "Mulan" follows a lengthy effort by Disney to get the movie shown here at all. Chinese officials held "Mulan" hostage for months because they were still angry about Disney's 1997 release of "Kundun," a Martin Scorsese movie which recounted the life of the Dalai Lama and China's occupation of Tibet.
Whatever cultural differences "Mulan" has exposed, some of the film's universal messages were not lost on the most important viewers: kids.
"I learned to be fearless and just go ahead," said Tang Xiaoyang, a 10-year-old boy who went to see the movie in a theater after a pirated copy he bought turned out to be too blurry.
"I like Mulan," he added, "even though she is a woman."
Notice how the remake addresses these "negatives"? Badly but it does. Did this exact breakdown fuck up the remake? Lol. The CCP also buried the film back then despite granting a release.
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RLM recently used the word "passive-progressive" in a review. This review too goes in that direction and I don´t disagree much. WTF is that phoenix about btw? He too was flummoxed. It is the most confusing part of the remake outside of how they do qi. The film is both badly made and fully nonsensical.
I found it weird how he handwaved away the original´s lack of popularity in China. It's one of the reasons why the remake is the shitshow it is.
Not that his childhood experience of liking the film as part of a class trip with the rest of the kids isn´t valid but that´s not how the cookie crumbled overall and over time. He should have also mentioned that Mulan´s family helps her to become a man to take her father´s place in the poem. Neither Disney version sticks to the poem in the end.Baltimore Sun: Baltimore breaking news, sports, business, entertainment, weather and traffic
Baltimore Sun: Your source for Baltimore breaking news, sports, business, entertainment, weather and traffic
Edit: The full 1999 Baltimore Sun article for Europeans without a proxy:
BEIJING -- At first glance, it seemed like a terrific formula: a Chinese folk tale filled with adventure, Disney's masterful animation and tens of millions of Chinese children raised on Western movies.
But instead of cashing in at the box office, Walt Disney's "Mulan" has bombed in her ancestral homeland.
"Mulan," which has grossed about $300 million worldwide, is the legendary story of a brave young Chinese woman who joins the army during the Sui Dynasty (589-618 A.D.) in place of her sick, elderly father.
But when Disney's version closed last month in Mulan's home province of Hunan, it had made barely $30,000 -- about half the take of the Hollywood comedy "Rush Hour," featuring Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan. The movie opened in Beijing in April, but at a recent 7 p.m. show at the capital's Dahua Theater, all but about 30 of the more than 400 seats sat empty.
How is it that a national heroine who helped defeat foreign invaders has had such a hard time winning over her own countrymen? The answer lies in a mix of culture clash, modern technology and old-fashioned protectionism.
Trying to shelter its domestic film industry from foreign competition, the Chinese government first released the animated adventure in late February, just after children had returned to school following Chinese New Year, the biggest holiday of the year. Because of China's lax enforcement of intellectual property rights, many kids had already seen the film on pirated video compact discs anyway.
But the most intriguing reason for the movie's poor reception is that some people here just don't think Disney's Mulan is very Chinese.
Filmgoers occasionally refer to the cinematic heroine as "Yang Mulan," or "Foreign Mulan" in Chinese -- while complaining that she looks either Korean or Western. Others say her character does not exhibit the same depth of filial piety as her literary predecessor.
"She's too individualistic," says a 45-year-old theater ticket-taker who gives only her surname of Liu. "Americans don't know enough about Chinese culture."
Hollywood movies are enormously popular among young Chinese. When trying to find common ground for conversation, Chinese and foreigners often resort to the language of film.
China, however, allows only about 10 foreign movies in each year, so most viewers here rely on pirated video versions that have been copied or shot in theaters outside the country with hand-held video cameras.
The results are often hilarious: Audience members cough audibly or stand up and block the screen. One pirated version of "Mulan" has its own built-in laugh-track of giggling children in what appears to be an American theater.
For film companies, though, the rampant piracy is maddening.
One day recently, Jack Valenti, chairman of the Motion Picture Association, stood along one of Beijing's busiest boulevards and haggled with vendors over pirated copies of the Adam Sandler hit "The Waterboy" and the "Jurassic Park" sequel "The Lost World."
"This makes me want to throw up," said Valenti, who was in town to lobby Chinese leaders for more market access and picked up the video compact discs for about $2.40 each to show his colleagues back home.
Despite their fondness for Hollywood films, many Chinese are wary of and a bit nationalistic toward foreigners' attempts to portray or define their country. Beneath the increasingly sophisticated veneer of cell phones and office towers in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, China remains a fairly traditional society.
And this is where Disney's "Mulan" may have run into trouble. Some Beijingers say they found her too self-aggrandizing -- a no-no under China's Confucian culture, which emphasizes values of modesty and community.
In the original tale, Mulan passes herself off as a man to join the army, protect her father from military service and bring honor to her family. In Disney's version, however, she is also trying to break the bonds of a patriarchal society in which she has no place. After she is unmasked, Mulan explains that she has come to fight not only for her family's glory, but for her own as well.
"Americans who have experienced the once-hot woman's liberation movement obviously have difficulties understanding Mulan's traditional behavior and why this story has spread so widely," a recent editorial in Shenzhen Panorama Weekly said.
Mulan isn't the only character in the film who doesn't espouse traditional Chinese values. Not surprisingly, some complain that Mushu, a jive-talking dragon whose voice is provided by Eddie Murphy in the film's English-language version, is just too American.
For instance, when Mushu accidentally smashes a sculpture that holds a much more powerful dragon who can help Mulan, he tries to cover it up. Hiding behind some bushes, Mushu dons the stone head of the dragon and pretends to be the great dragon himself.
A Chinese dragon, however, would never do such a thing, says Lisa Niu, a 28-year-old who works for a foreign-owned telecommunications company. Having lost considerable face, he would be obliged to slink off in embarrassment.
"This is not a Chinese dragon," says Niu, while acknowledging that a dragon brazenly trying to duck responsibility is much funnier than one which is merely embarrassed. "I can tell the people who designed the dragon are from America."
Ironically, the poor turnout for "Mulan" follows a lengthy effort by Disney to get the movie shown here at all. Chinese officials held "Mulan" hostage for months because they were still angry about Disney's 1997 release of "Kundun," a Martin Scorsese movie which recounted the life of the Dalai Lama and China's occupation of Tibet.
Whatever cultural differences "Mulan" has exposed, some of the film's universal messages were not lost on the most important viewers: kids.
"I learned to be fearless and just go ahead," said Tang Xiaoyang, a 10-year-old boy who went to see the movie in a theater after a pirated copy he bought turned out to be too blurry.
"I like Mulan," he added, "even though she is a woman."
Notice how the remake addresses these "negatives"? Badly but it does. Did this exact breakdown fuck up the remake? Lol. The CCP also buried the film back then despite granting a release.
Mushu would have been much more well received these days. I don't know how they went "Dragons are too fantastical" but Gong Li transforming into a hawk and bats is ok.
And they say magical dragons and people bursting into songs are unrealistic.