YMMV / Mulan II

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Yao, Ling, and Chien Po's suddenly becoming charming, gentle, chivalrous, sensitive, and otherwise perfect boyfriends to the princesses, especially after acting so rude earlier to other girls (and guys) during their song, begs several questions about how it came about and whether or not it was sincere. Did Mulan call them out for it offscreen?^note  Unlikely, since she just grins enthusiastically at them after encountering the aftermath of their little jaunt through town with no sign of disapproval or even awareness of their sentiments and actions, but it's possible. Did the fear, disgust, and in general "not-having-it" reactions of the townsfolk get through to them a short time later? Or, for a more cynical interpretation, are they only treating the princesses better because they're royalty? Or, for the even more cynical, are they just turning up the charm for the girls because...well...girls? Keep in mind that only the first three days of their relationship with the princesses is shown.
• Anvilicious: Arranged marriages are bad. Always. This film hammers that message home repeatedly throughout.
• Awesome Art: One of the few aspects of the film most fans like is, rubbery expressions aside, it having unusually good animation as far as Disney sequels go.
• Badass Decay: It seems that Shang has been demoted from General Badass to Butt-Monkey somewhere between films, as he is much more bumbling and exhibits a good deal less common sense than he did in the previous movie; especially ironic since he arguably retains his position as the Only Sane Man when everyone else in the group has already abandoned their commitment to the mission in hand.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The princesses’ first scene has their shadows merge and turn into different animals before they appear. Mulan even seems weirded out by it, but not enough to ask what the deal was.
• Broken Aesop: The film primarily revolves around the moral of Opposites Attract, emphasing the Yin and Yang symbolism in regards to Mulan and Shang's relationship. However, this motif is contradicted with the romances between the guards and the princesses, all of whom essentially end up with direct counterparts to themselves. Mei instantly takes a shine to Yao's brawniness, Su is a Big Eater like Chien Po, and even Ting-Ting, who initially seems to be Ling's polar opposite as an uptight worrywart, turns out to just be putting on a front and is actually just as goofy and mischevious as he is.
• Designated Hero: Mulan tries to talk three princesses out of an arranged marriage, forgetting that it's happening in the first place to prevent a Mongol invasion of China, meaning that she's endangering the lives of millions of innocent people by doing this, shaming the Emperor, his daughters, and herself, and the soldiers who run off with them. Made worse by the fact that one princess does want to stick to duty, but Mulan is still absolutely insistent on breaking that promise. While Mushu's behavior is also disliked, at least he's supposed to be in the wrong. The film also makes no attempt to explain how China could survive the invasion that this alliance was supposedly the only hope of stopping.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Even people who dislike the movie tend to call the princesses the best thing about it, some wishing that their romantic subplots with the soldiers were explored in a less stupid context. Especially Ting-Ting, for having the most unique design, being a Cool Big Sis to the others and hating her own dorky laugh.
• Epileptic Trees: Shang could have chosen Yao, Ling, and Chien Po to make up the escort simply because they were the only ones left. We see that the numbers of his troops in the first movie gradually dwindle until finally there's only six left-seven if you count Shang himself-two of these men are background characters who are never seen again, which dwindles Shang's troops down to four-Mulan, Yao, Ling, and Chien Po. Shang decided to keep this particular statistic a secret from the emperor so as not to hinder his promotion to general, explaining the emperor's confusion when Shang reveals he's only going to have three soldiers escort his daughters to their fiances.
• Esoteric Happy Ending:
  • While the princesses got to marry the ones they love, they needed to marry the Kingdom's princes to bolster their forces for the oncoming invasion. Not marrying them would cause a lot of chaos. Mushu impersonating the Unity Dragon could have nullified the issue, but it's the only topic he doesn't bring up.
  • Despite treating the princesses mostly decently on screen, the movie makes a strong case early on that Yao, Ling, and Chien Po were NOT ready for serious romantic relationships. Sure, they make cute couples in the total of three days they know eachother, but that doesn't erase what the movie went out of its way to show us early on (And then, for some reason, completely dropped it). The things they ask for in partners for the matchmaker are a wife who will "cook for [Chien Po] morning, noon, and night" "likes to laugh and thinks [Ling] is a God" and "a girl who will worship the ground [Yao] walks on" you would expect the movie to address these selfish, unreasonable desires somehow considering it's modern attitude towards arranged marriage, but nope! Apparently the modern attitude only applies to whether or not the marriage was an arranged one. And then during the following song they just complain about their failures with women without acknowledging that they might be the problem and cause a disturbance which results in them being thrown out of a bar.
  • Ling is probably the worst offender. Unlike the other two couples, who generally liked each other early on, Ting-Ting had zero interest in Ling. In a movie that's supposedly about having the leads choose who they want to be with, Ling doesn't respect Ting-Ting's wishes and sets about pestering her with all manner of dumb jokes to make her laugh, invading her personal space and following her around incessantly to do so. The G-Rated stalker undertones are there, but even if we're generous and say Ling just really wants to share his jokes with Ting-Ting (with the express motive of making her fall for him) we still have a guy who places his personal wishes over his partner's and has no problem with irritating her for two days straight with jokes he refuses to admit aren't that good.
• Fanon Discontinuity: For those who feel the first film is perfect as it is and needs no sequel (or at least a better one), especially since it rather undermines the original in many ways.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Some fans of the movie wished that the sequel should've kept the original plot of Shan Yu and the other Huns returning as ghosts to get revenge on Mulan and friends and have the heroes defeat the Hun ghost army and save China again.
• Heartwarming Moments: Some people consider the festival scene with Ling and Ting-Ting pretty cute. After several failed jokes, Ling is finally able to make Ting-Ting laugh with a weird firecracker incident... and he learns that she has an embarrassing snort-laugh. Rather than make fun of her, he says that her laugh is cute.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: An extraverted girl named Mei who wears pink and is associated with pandas, an uptight character played by Sandra Oh whose name ends with "ing", and a group that includes four teen girls color coded green, pink, purple and yellow? This seems all too familiar.
• Inferred Holocaust: We're told that the Mongols are going to invade and they vastly outnumber the Chinese armies, but the situation can be saved if the Chinese ally with another kingdom through Arranged Marriage. This being a Disney movie, the marriages don't go through and the princesses find love with commoners. The movie is more concerned with the marriage aspect than the invasion aspect at this point so it doesn't confirm if the alliance is still made but it's implied that it was indeed created. One is left to assume that, presumably, the Qigong Emperor was so taken by Mushu's Golden Dragon act that he finalized the alliance off-screen to make up for the marriage canceling and appeasing the Golden Dragon's will. However, with no onscreen confirmation of this, some viewers assume the worst.
• Informed Wrongness:
  • Shang is meant to be a cold-hearted jerk for opposing the princesses' affection for the soldiers, but consider that their country and the other kingdom are at stake, and the arranged marriage could save them from the invaders. Basically, Shang is in the right when telling off Mulan for being glad that the princess have fallen for Yao, Ling, and Chien Po, but no one really mentions that.
  • The movie is about following your heart, and choosing who you want to be with, right? Well, Ting-Ting does not want to be with Ling, clearly turning him down. Ling does not take her "no" for an answer and he spends a great deal of the movie annoying her with the most basic of jokes. Even though she turns around when he doesn't mock her for her laugh, his earlier obnoxiousness with all those jokes and the fact that the incident with the laugh only came about because he wouldn't stop bothering her makes it come off as less romantic and more like the movie rewarding Ling for his bad behavior. Everyone else, including Ting-Ting's sisters, and Mulan herself, also aren't sympathetic to Ting-Ting at all and just want her to get with Ling.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "spicy!" "yes" ^explanationA two-second excerpt of the scene that highlights the differences between Mulan and Shang ("Blue!" "Pink!" "Mild!" "Spicy!" "Yes!" "No!") while they're discussing their eventual marriage with the townspeople, originally posted on Tumblr, became inexplicably hilarious out of context.
  • The expression Shang makes during his argument with Mulan◊, like Belle's fish-eyed expression, has become infamous due to how Narmy it looks for a Disney film.
• Narm:
  • Mulan and Shang arguing in the campground is hard to be taken seriously due to Shang's over the top facial expressions.
  • Everything of the song "Like Other Girls", which shows how much the tone between films has changed and it sounds more like the average run of the mill pop song.
• One-Scene Wonder: The shopkeeper played by figure skater Michelle Kwan during the festival scene.
• Sequelitis: Mulan II is often considered to be one of the strongest contenders for one of the worst, if not the absolute worst, Disney sequels next to Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Magical World, The Hunchback of Notre Dame II and Cinderella II: Dreams Come True. While the movie is decently animated, it is ultimately overlooked and criticized for things such as the even greater liberties taken in its portrayal of Chinese culture, Mushu taking a level in jerkass, and for leaving the plot in which Mulan must save China unresolved. The sequel earned a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes^note but no consensus listed, as the website hasn't accumulated enough reviews to form one, and it didn't take long after that for John Lasseter to cancel the upcoming sequels, although, that was partially due to the rise of 3D animation. The trailer for the 2013 Blu-ray debut of both Mulan movies contains no clips from Mulan II. A 2015 Disney Movie Club-exclusive Mulan Blu-ray/Digital HD combo pack removed Mulan II and its bonus features; this disc would receive a general retail release when bundled with the original movie's 2020 UHD.
• Strawman Has a Point: The Ancestors are treated like unreasonable, spiteful jerks for cheering and rejoicing when Mulan and Shang's engagement means Mushu's role as Guardian will be ended, and taking joy in picking on and abusing Mushu—somewhat justifying his desperation to not losing his job—when if anything, they're perfectly reasonable for having to dread every moment of him gloating and pushing them around to the point that he's getting what he deserves—and on top of that, him having seemingly learned nothing by the end of the film when he gets to remain in his role only further aggravates the point.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many fans of the first film were extremely disappointed when Eddie Murphy didn't reprise the role of Mushu, sticking out because everyone else did come back. Furthermore, they were even more annoyed with him taking a level in jerkass.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Mulan and Shang come across Yao, Ling, and Chien Po just as they have been tossed out of a bar for creating a massive public disturbance and have been spurned by the townsfolk for their obnoxious behavior beforehand. The two couldn't have missed the racket that was going on inside the building beforehand, and they must have talked to some people in order to find them (thus getting a chance to hear about their escapades). Do either of them call them out on their actions so they can get character development in preparation for getting girlfriends? Nope! They don't even seem a bit bothered by it.^note Which creates a bit of a plot hole when the three suddenly become perfect gentlemen to the princesses and their previous selfishness is forgotten
  • Mulan teaching the young girls what she has learned after saving China ultimately goes nowhere and just serves as a stand-alone scenario to reintroduce Mulan to the audience.
  • The Mongols becoming the new threat to China could have made for a decent action story, but instead, the plot is about Mulan and Shang escorting three of the Emperor's daughters to Qigong for their arranged marriage.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Ting-Ting, Mei and Su are meant to be seen as relatable for being unhappy about the prospect of getting married to princes they haven't even met before. The problem is, while their feelings are somewhat understandable, given that they can't know what to expect in the men they were arranged to be married to until they've actually met them, their arranged marriages are ultimately the only things that can stop the impending invasion, and as they fall for Ling, Yao and Chien-Po, they seem to either completely forget that or continue to know it and not care anymore. It doesn't help that the film ends with them getting together with the aforementioned soldiers instead of their arranged betrotheds, leaving the entire population of China to almost certain doom. As a result of this, many viewers saw them as far more selfish and immature than the film wanted them to look.

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