Live-Action Mulan remake.

Yep, in keeping with Disney's new thing of remaking their renaissance films in live-action, Mulan's next in line for the treatment. Not an early April Fools joke, apparently.

-sniiiiiiff- Ahh, I can smell the Race Lift from here.

I don't have high hopes for this at all.

edited 30th Mar '15 2:20:45 PM by PhysicalStamina

Literally my first thought was "I can't wait for them to have Mulan be an adopted girl from England".

I wouldn't worry about racelifting Mulan herself, but expect to see a lot of Afroamericans and Hispanics in an ancient Chinese army for some reason.

I almost kinda hope for Ming Na Wen playing Mulan's mom.

edited 30th Mar '15 2:30:02 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

disney.

wat r u doin.

disney.

stahp.

Man. Sure can't wait for half the cast to be white-washed.

If they actually go for an all-asian cast I might be interested.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

I doubt Mulan can be white-washed, what with the whole Chinese everything, including the title name.

Still probably going to suck though.

There was also a 2009 live-action adaption of the original story. Don't if it's good or not, though.

Hey, changing Mulan's race could work. Heck, they did it by making the main characters of Annie black just to make it new and exciting.

Oh no, wait. That movie bombed. It had so short a release it may as well have been direct to video.

Your momma's so dumb she thinks oral sex means talking dirty.

Imma just gonna post this here:

Mulan might not suck. The right cast with a good director and who knows? I'm hoping they hire a Chinese director - one well-versed in Wu-Xia films preferably. It would give the film great aesthetic that would differentiate it from the animated movie. Crouching Tiger Hidden Mulan XD

That being said, the biggest race-casing issue we'll probably have do deal with is a reverse Memoirs of a Geisha thing, where they cast Korean and Japanese actors as Chinese characters(because all Asians look the same to us white folk). Lord knows what they'll do about the Huns though.

edited 30th Mar '15 5:26:18 PM by Sisi

I really want Ming-Na Wen to make a cameo somehow in that movie, because that would be cool. But I really don't have high hopes for this movie. I don't have a lot of faith in Disney's live-action remakes in general. Though I heard Cinderella was good, so IDK.

Trust you? The only person I can trust is myself.

Michelle Yeoh for Mulan's mom maybe?

And seeing as Jamie Chung is already playing Mulan for Disney...

edited 30th Mar '15 5:36:04 PM by Sisi

Watch them.

Maleficent's title name literally means Doing Evil or Harm. That didn't stop them from making a movie where she's the heroine.

And I keep hearing rumors they want to make a movie about a woman named Cruella De Vil who wants to kill dozens of puppies to make herself a stupid coat, too, but I don't know how true those rumors are.

Man, at least make a movie about Edgar if you want that so much. Poor guy slaved himself away his whole life only to be overlooked over a bunch of stinking cats.

This movie is just going to crash and burn. Disney will flat out refuse to go with an all East Asian cast. I also feel like it won't work too well in live action.

edit: It would be cool if Ming Na Wen played Mulan's mother though.

edited 30th Mar '15 6:44:39 PM by Kostya

Should I direct you to the movie about Egyptian gods that had every main character played by a white person? Annie was actually really good, and the resons it bombed are completely unrelated to its actual quality as a film.

(Also, making Annie black actually fits the whole point of her character better than keeping her white would have)

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

Making Annie, who lives in America, black is a lot less out there than making Mulan white. The movie is set in 7th(?) century China which had no white people at all.

They only characters who could conceivably change ethnicities are the Huns, who in the movie are a bizarre mis-mash of East Asian barbarian cultures anyway.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

You guys keep bringing up Maleficent and somehow forget that Cinderella was spot fucking on.

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins

Well, considering Alice and Maleficent against Cinderella, and since the 101 Dalmatians live action movies were made too long ago to count as part of the current trend, the record of this fad, so far, is still mostly negative, and fandom tends to perceive Cinderella's achievements as more of Brannagh's merit than Disney's. Then there's the fact the Dumbo movie will be... interesting no matter what, but odds are it won't be too 'Dumbo' (and when Burton strikes out, he strikes out hard).

edited 30th Mar '15 7:07:08 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

I'm kind of relieved that I'm not the only one dreading the white-washing. My first thought on hearing the news today as a Filipino-American?

"OH GOD, THEY'RE GOING TO FIND A WAY TO CAST HAPAS IN THE LEAD ROLES AND MOST OF THE HAPAS WILL LOOK WHITE. DON'T GET ATTACHED."

Because when Hollywood isn't COMPLETELY whitewashing a movie, they seem to follow the one-drop rule.

I'm just fighting the very strong urge to curl up and hide from the media until I get casting photos of the leads.

I wonder how will China take it this time? IIRC they didn't even like the animated version, and ISTR one of the main reasons why Disney did what they did with The Mandarin was because of a fear of alienating Chinese audiences. Dunno why since they pirate all their movies anyway.

Eh. Hey maybe we'll get Jackie Chan in this thing. As Mushu perhaps, should he survive the adaptation?

Also, according to Wikipedia, Disney's been wanting to do a live action Mulan since 2010. They even had Zhang Ziyi all picked out for the lead. It was also supposed to be directed by Chuck Russell, of all people.

EDIT: Guys, I think you guys are little too concerned about white washing. This isn't Dragon Seed with Katherine Hepburn in Yellow Face. Unless they want to be crucified and blacklisted, Disney will ensure that every last cast member is of some Asian persuasion - its that variation that can, and has proven problematic in the past. See my comment on Memoirs of a Geisha. People in Japan were none to happy that most of the leads were played by Chinese (and one Malaysian) actors. Aside from the child actors, Ken Watanabe was the only Japanese actor in the main cast. This is what I'm scared will happen to this movie, since it kind happen in the animated version, if you look at voice actors.

edited 30th Mar '15 8:33:20 PM by Sisi

After looking at pictures of her online that's actually not a bad choice for Mulan. She might have trouble being believable as a man though.

I suppose Mushu's voice actor could be any ethnicity but I still don't trust them to not whitewash the cast somehow.

Again I find actual whitewashing to be a little...1940s. It's just not acceptable anymore, especially not any kind of Yellowface. Hell, there was a shitstorm when Jonathan Pryce donned slight makeup to play the Engineer in Miss Saigon in the 80's. We will probably get a lot of mixed actors and actors of varying East Asian ethnicities that may not necessarily be Chinese. That is where I foresee problems arising.

And no, I don't count Pan. Going by the trailer, the tribe is not meant to be any kind of Native American in that movie. I've seen it done before on stage(they were specifically referred to as Amazons) and it's an OK way to get past the iffy Red Man imagery of the original play, though that too has a contextual reason for existing.

edited 30th Mar '15 8:09:47 PM by Sisi

Well hey, if they can get a Kenneth Branagh-quality director to do it, it could work well. And I don't really see a reason to be concerned about the race thing. It's just not plausible or good PR.

And unlike Alice in Wonderland, this actually lends itself to a gritty action epic.

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