Disney's Live-Action Thread

I honestly support that change, because I personally think the Chinese witch with a presumed ghost army idea sounds cooler than a scary normal dude with an army and a hawk.

I'll wait and see...my main fear is still that the people involved might not quite get why Mulan is so popular in the first place.

I guess what I don't fully understand is Disney stated they wanted the film to appeal to the actual country of China, so they aren't making it a musical, but doesn't China have something against supernatural depiction?

Its Skeletons they don't like,but I'm sure their censors won't enforce if Disney get them to look the other way

They have something against portraying ghosts as evil. Because of the whole "revere your ancestors" culture. You can have evil demons aso, but not evil dead people. Hence Mulan and Coco were both released without any trouble, despite featuring ghosts. Because they respect the ancestors (well, kind of in the case of Mulan).

Even in "Chinese Ghost Story" the movies are not about evil ghosts, but about innocent ghosts being trapped by an evil demon/spirit/whatever and the hero of the movie having to ensure that the ghost girl he falls in love with finds her peace.

Edited by Swanpride on May 20th 2019 at 2:32:43 AM

It's just been brought to my attention that there's a ghost story that originated in China (an English version was adapted later) about a young child who is constantly tormenting their little sibling. It's meant to be a twist ending that the older sibling is actually a ghost who's haunting the younger sibling.

Well, I suspect it will be distracting from the real conflict of the film, which is (was?) Mulan's struggle to succeed in a male-dominated world. Particularly because now the conflict will likely be resolved by Mulan figuring out how the magic works, rather than being a damn good soldier.

Oh shit I never thought of that.

Also it gets to have a nice hollywood that typically involves killing the witch means no ghost army thus all their problems go away

Yep. Shan-Yu was never memorable because he had no stakes in Mulan's character tension and growth. He was an obstacle to be defeated to prove Mulan came into her own. Which sounds shitty when put that way but is still pretty good in action.

It makes sense in the story of the original, because the real conflict in how Mulan is forced to face the war itself, and her societal place in it. The actual leader of the attacking army could be anybody.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 20th 2019 at 7:14:29 AM

Though Shan You has some memorable lines, and the result of his actions are pretty graphic.

"How many men does it take to deliver a message?"

Shan-Yu was very much a "man's cruelty to man" kind of villain. I like it that way. It is mundane, yet horrifying. I like it way more than a crazy lady sipping evil juice.

Which I suppose is rather unfair, since I don't actually know anything about Xian Lang yet. But what I predict is that, by fleshing her out, they'll be distracting from Mulan's actual struggles. The film's themes will be either changed completely or severely weakened, and I don't like it.

I would be p... if they remove the doll from the story. It is such an effective way to portray the horrors of war without being too graphic.

Naaaah, there's no way they can remove the doll. The doll is such a gimme, and it's on the everyone's list of "scenes they're actively waiting for".

Eh, I think people will be happy as long as they got the arrow scene, the avalanche and the cross dressing. And I fear that Disney will cut the cross dressing.

Which scene was the arrow scene again? The one where Mulan climbs the pole and throw the arrow at the top in front of the captain's feet?

But yeah, they'll probably cut the crossdressing. Though, to be fair, it probably wouldn't be half as funny in life-action.

Yes, that's the one.

Oh yeah, that's definitely on the list as well.

We're talking about an adaptation project that attempted to and possibly succeeded in removing the musical numbers from it "because China Film Market".

The doll ranks as far more expendable than "Girl Worth Fighting For" and other numbers and they were already willing to drop all of those.

The Hua Mulan folklore has tons of iterations. If Disney is already getting rid of the musical aspect (do we have sources for that?), I can see them telling a different kind of story entirely - and given what's happened to the previous few remakes, I'm honestly up for it.

As a bit of obligatory geekery, the most famous Mulan text and the one that the cartoon was loosely based on, Ballad of Mulan, was set in the Northern Wei dynasty during the Northern and Southern Dynasties Period in the 5th-6th centuries. The nation wasn't entirely "Chinese", as its ruling class descended from the Xianbei nomads that traditionally lived in the northern steppes. Most tellingly, the guy she reports to in the poem is called a "khan" (可汗, kè hán) rather than an "emperor" (皇帝, huáng dì). Hua Mulan, if she did exist, was likely culturally very similar to the Rouran (aka "Hun") nomads she was fighting.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on May 21st 2019 at 3:43:31 AM

Shan Yu is definitely the one who suffers the most from the split tone of Mulan. A Villain Song would have lessened him as a threat, and in any other movie would have been a more than serviceable villain. The music of Mulan is pretty iconic although more sparse compared to others ("Reflections" may be the shortest musical number in any Disney film), although I don't think it needs to be an outright musical. "I'll Make A Man Out Of You" and "A Girl Worth Fighting For" could be reworked as soundtrack accompaniment during those parts of the story.

Shan Yu was the perfect villain for Mulan, he didn't need to be anything more. You just need to get rid of the unfortunate racial codings.

Also I would argue that Shan Yu was not the actually villain of the film. The Patriarchy was the real villain.

Edited by Nightwire on May 21st 2019 at 4:27:29 AM

The thing with Mulan is that at first glance it looks like a classic Disney Musical, but it actually don't have the structure of one. The standard Disney Musical movie has: And introduction song (to set the tone...it can be replaced by some sort intro narration), an I want song (to establish the heroine), a Villain song (to establish the threat), some sort of fun song (to allow the animators the opportunity to go wild), a love song (naturally) and some sort of outro (wich is usually a reprise).

Mulan has only four songs, and the only one which somewhat fits into the pattern is "Reflection", and even that one is kind of iffy, because it isn't really an "I want" song and more a "I don't really know what I want but I really would love to know" song. The other three songs - Honor for your house, Make a Man out of you and Girl worth fighting for are ALL about gender relations and have mostly the purpose to help with time jumps, especially the latter two. (Honor is more about setting up the environment).

Honestly, I don't think that leaving out the songs is necessarily a bad idea, as much as a loss Make a man out of you will be. If they go for a more serious tone, it could seriously break the tension. And frankly, I think it is more important that they use the amazing score by Goldman. The cutting hair sequence is legendary. (I wouldn't be opposed to them putting make a man out of you into the end credits).

Remember how much the use of the songs ruined Jungle Book? Better don't go there. You can still use the most popular themes in the score, and put the best lines into dialogue.

If we're going metaphysical I wouldn't say the patriarchy is the villain, it's just an obstacle to Mulan finding her own sense of self-worth and rising to a personal challenge. Since she hides herself as a man there is very little "You can't do this, you're a woman" behavior (Shang initially rejects her for not meeting physical requirements even as a "man") and her objective is not centered around confronting a specific person or group to prove herself or tear them down.