Live-Action Mulan remake.

You people are paranoid.

I don't think culture-shifting a Chinese historical legend into being about the Romans to justify having white actors would result in any less backlash than having white actors without doing so would.

edited 16th Apr '15 11:43:45 PM by KnownUnknown

Long as the core, secondary and incidental characters are Asian what's it matter if some of the the moving scenery isn't.

On the subject of core characters, who would you like to see as Mulan? Shan Yu? Generic Love Interest Whose Name I Forget?

edited 16th Apr '15 11:57:33 PM by Eagal

Whoever they pick, I hope they keep Shan-Yu as a hulking and intelligent, rather than adapt him as even more of The Brute than before. That happens a lot with characters like him.

I kinda want Mulan to just be played by Ming-Na Wen again. I mean, she's over thirty years too old, but they could probably makeup that away if they try.

She could probably play her mom. That's what was done with the voice of Disney's Pocahontas in The New World, she played the new Pocahontas's mom.

I highly doubt any amount of makeup would make her look like a teenager, much less a teenage girl pretending to be a guy.

edited 17th Apr '15 12:23:19 AM by Tuckerscreator

So Bane but Asian? I second this notion.

edited 17th Apr '15 12:24:15 AM by TheAirman

Okay, yeah, Shan Yu (or whatever his equivalent will be) better be hulking and intelligent because that was one of the things that make the story so intense.

Intelligent? Dude had a mountain dropped on his whole army and his bright idea was "Hey, let's continue fighting despite my whole army being killed"

He still almost won.

So? It may be because I haven't seen the movie in ages (or all the way through for that matter), but I don't really remember any great intelligence at work on Shan Yu's part. Luck and intimidation were all I remember as his thing.

First, under $300 million seems to be below the threshold of success for the tent-pole movies of Disney. In fact, the Lone Ranger made around the same amount as the Departed did and that needed to be written down as a Box Office Bomb. Granted, that's mostly due to budget, but a war story like Mulan likely won't be cheap.

Second, the most likely reason why Disney would create a live action remake of Mulan this early is to target the rapidly growing Chinese Box office. Much as I love Mulan, it's B Class in terms of popularity of Disney Brands, having little to no presence in the Disney parks... except in Hong Kong Disneyland where things like a Mulan martial arts skit is included in The Golden Mickeys show and Mulan songs are included in the fireworks displays.

Third, Disney has been actively courting Mainland China in ways that would make the Chinese government warm up to them and cultivate Disney's presence in the minds of China's growing middle class. How do you think would the Chinese government react when one of China's more popular legends is treated in a way that they would consider as insulting? More importantly, how much do you think would it cost Disney in terms of their current and future business in China?

edited 17th Apr '15 7:23:47 AM by Servbot

Oh he was definitely one of the smarter villains. He did a Sherlock Scan on a mere doll to figure out where the Emperor's army was lying in wait for them, and then led his army to ambush it themselves. And rather than trying to attack the palace by force with just six guys, he snuck in where nobody expected them to be and took the emperor hostage so the army would be reluctant to go in and risk killing their ruler.

Intelligent? Dude had a mountain dropped on his whole army and his bright idea was "Hey, let's continue fighting despite my whole army being killed"

I think he knew well all the stakes against him, but it probably was a combination of Honor Before Reason (which has always been big both in Asia and in traditional armies) and the fact he wouldn't be able to pick his life back up if he just returned empty handed; no one would take him seriously as a leader anymore, and his life would have been pretty much (if not literally) over. The best thing he could do from there was keeping moving on ahead in a last desperate gamble, where even if he failed, he at least would go out in a last blaze of glory.

Which he kinda did, after all. A shame the glory was Mulan's and he only got the blaze.

Worth noting is that the heroes were also like: "Let's get fighting this giant army even though we're only about twenty guys." As Shang put it: "If we die, we die with honor."

I'm hoping that one change they do make from the animated movies is calling the Mongols the Mongols rather than the Huns.

(Thread Hop)

Dammit, this is completely unnecessary.

Unlike Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, Mulan hasn't had the time to age poorly like the two former films. Mulan still has a lot of relevance left in it, and unless it's taken in a very, very different direction than a remake-expansion like Cinderella, it won't work. At all.

The anachronisms of Mulan are so all over the place that saying the villains should be Mongols doesn't mean much. Depending on which version you're reading of the legend, Mulan herself is half-Mongolian. The enemy she has to fight can be anything from unnamed barbarians, a bandit army, or the Huns. Disney decided to go with the latter.

I once read that in some old chinese texts, they used "Hun" to refer to any foreign barbarian army, so in that sense it makes sense. Shan-Yu or his cronies never call themselves huns as far as I'm aware, we only see the Chinese using that term.

We all know Huns come from Germany.

(Is that joke in bad taste? I've been replaying Call of Duty 2 recently.)

edited 17th Apr '15 5:44:03 PM by Canid117

deleted; off topic.

edited 17th Apr '15 6:04:00 PM by Galadriel

I thought WW 1 was the Hun one. WW 2 was mostly Nazis. Because, you know, that's who we were fighting.

Yeah, that's what I thought as well.

I would be so pissed if they removed Mulan from a China setting. That would be complete and utter bullshit and nothing less. I don't care how prettied up you could make a Mulan adaptation in Greece or American Civil War or ANY other setting; you can polish a turd as much as you want but its still a turd, just super shiny turd.

Actually, I'd pay a good chunk of money to see Mulan transported to the American Civil War.