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Mulan 1998 Film Poster

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Mulan (1998)

Animated Feature Film
Directors: Barry Cook & Tony Bancroft

LINKS TO THE FILM

Mulan streaming on YouTube ($3.99 rental fee).
The 1998 Mulan is also available on VHS and DVD, as well as a variety of streaming services, including the subscription-based Disney+.
"Reflection" as performed by Lea Salonga with English lyrics on the official Disney YouTube channel.
The Chinese Mandarin version of "Reflection" (真情的我) as performed by Coco Lee 李玟 with Chinese subtitles on the artist’s official YouTube channel.

INFORMATION

Title: Mulan
Year: 1998
Director: Barry Cook (1958- ) & Tony Bancroft (1967- )
Producer: Pam Coats (1957- )
Studio: Walt Disney Studios
Story: Robert D. San Souci (1946-2014)
Screenplay: Rita Hsiao, Chris Sanders (1962- ), et al.
Cast: Ming-Na Wen (1963-, speaking voice of Mulan), Lea Salonga (1971-, singing voice of Mulan), B.D. Wong (1960-, as Captain Li Shang), James Hong (1929-, as Chi Fu), Pat Morita (1932-2005, as the Emperor), George Takei (1937-, as the First Ancestor), and Eddie Murphy (1961-, as Mushu)
Music: Matthew Wilder (1953- )
Lyrics: David Zippel (1954- )
Original Score: Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004)
Language: American English
Duration: 87 minutes

INTRODUCTION

When Walt Disney Pictures released Mulan in 1998, its animation studio was enjoying nearly a decade of renewed success during what would be called the “Disney Renaissance” (1989–1999). Beginning with The Little Mermaid (1989) and followed by films like Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and Pocahontas (1995), Walt Disney Feature Animation had struck upon a winning formula of retelling classic tales and centering the story on strong-willed heroines who diversified the cast of earlier Disney princesses (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty). By bringing on Broadway musical veterans Howard Ashman and Alan Menken to write the lyrics and music to The Little Mermaid, Disney also introduced the structure of musical theater into their animated feature films. After an initial opening number that establishes the narrative setting (e.g. “Fathoms Below” in The Little Mermaid, “Arabian Nights” in Aladdin), the films’ female protagonists voice their desire to explore beyond the narrow confines of their world (e.g. Ariel’s longing to be “Part of Your World,” Jasmine’s wish to experience “A Whole New World” with Aladdin, Pocahontas’ yearning to travel “Just around the Riverbend”).

Disney’s 1998 adaptation of the legend of Mulan was the first major production to present Mulan to an English-speaking American audience. In keeping with the distribution practices of its previous films, Disney also targeted international audiences outside the U.S. through dubbed translations. At the 1999 Academy Awards, the film received a nomination in the category “Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score,” and to date, it has grossed over US$300 million. Its commercial and critical success was followed by a direct-to-video sequel Mulan II (2004) and the live action remake starring Liu Yifei 刘亦菲 (1987- ) in 2020.

In preparation for the Mulan project, the film’s creative team travelled to China and gathered visual documentation of Chinese landscape, architecture, and visual and material culture at major historical sites in Beijing, Datong, Longmen, Xi’an, Jiayuguan, Dunhuang, and Guilin. Taiwan-born artist Chen-Yi Chang was brought on board to create and supervise the character designs. The final visual design of the world of Mulan incorporated and adapted the familiar forms of Ming-Qing architecture with character and costume designs from the earlier Han and Tang dynasties. The movie’s designs for the Great Wall and the unnamed imperial capital are based on the current forms of the heavily restored Great Wall and Forbidden City of late imperial China. Mulan’s makeup and costume for meeting with the matchmaker are based on the styles of Tang court women; the spindly legs and rotund body of her horse, Khan, are derived from the Han dynasty horses seen on the relief carvings in the Wu Family Shrines and in Tang dynasty paintings and sculptures. The intentional anachronism created a “visual reality for the story that combined fantasy with authenticity” (Kurtti 73).

As an animated character, Mulan was brought to life by multiple contributors: Her character design was based on concept drawings by Chen-Yi Chang, her final appearance and movements on screen were animated by Mark Henn (who also animated her father), her speaking voice was provided by Ming-Na Wen, and her singing voice by Lea Salonga. Other notable Asian American actors rounded out the voice cast, including B.D. Wong as Captain Li Shang, James Hong as the officious Chi Fu, Pat Morita as the Emperor, and George Takei as the First Ancestor. Eddie Murphy voiced Mushu, Mulan’s miniscule dragon companion and self-appointed guardian.

The presentation of a Chinese story in English voiced by Asian American actors contributed to the success of Mulan among Asian American audiences, who saw their own in-betweenness and search for self-identity reflected in the film. For Mulan’s international release in the Sinophone world, her voice also reflected that of her audience: Mulan was voiced by Coco Lee 李玟 (1975-2023) for the Taiwanese Mandarin release, Kelly Chen 陳慧琳 (1972- ) for the Cantonese Chinese release, and Xu Qing 许晴 for the Mainland Chinese release. Jackie Chan 成龍 (1954- ) voiced Captain Li Shang in all three and provided the singing voice for all Chinese versions of “I’ll Make a Man Out of You.”

PLOT SUMMARY

The film opens on the battlements of the Great Wall, where an invading Hun force led by Shan Yu has scaled the fortifications under cover of night. The defending soldiers light the signal fires, and the emperor of China commands the conscription of troops to defend the people.

Back home, Fa Mulan is preparing for her meeting with the matchmaker, who will assess her worth as a suitable bride and future mother of sons. Her earnest attempt to impress, however, is derailed by a series of comic mishaps. Disappointed by her failure, and burdened by familial expectations, Mulan returns to her family’s estate, where her father reassures her. Shortly after, a messenger arrives bearing an imperial summons calling for the military service of one man from each family. Distraught that her ailing father insists on answering the call to protect China from the invading Huns, Mulan decides to save his life by serving in his stead. She takes her father’s armor and sword and sets off for an army encampment, posing as a son. Her absence alerts her grandmother, who prays to the family’s ancestors to protect Mulan. In turn, they summon a disgraced Fa family guardian, the small dragon Mushu, to awaken a more powerful stone dragon. He inadvertently destroys the stone dragon and decides to help Mulan in his place. Note that in this adaptation, the romanization of Mulan’s surname is based on its Cantonese pronunciation “Fa,” not the Mandarin “Hua.”

Mushu joins Mulan at the army camp, where Captain Li Shang trains the ragtag recruits into an able fighting force. Although an officious scribe declares the soldiers unfit to see battle, Mushu’s machinations allow the troops to set off for the front lines. Upon arriving, they find that the defending army has been annihilated, and they are subsequently ambushed by the Huns. Mulan saves her unit by triggering an avalanche with the last cannon and burying all of Shan Yu’s men. However, she is injured; when her wounds are treated, the soldiers discover that she is in fact a woman. Angry at her subterfuge, Li Shang dismisses Mulan, who is left behind when the surviving soldiers depart in dejected victory. Mulan is once again adrift, but staying behind has its uses. She discovers that Shan Yu and his fiercest warriors have survived and are plotting to attack the imperial capital.

In the film’s climax, Mulan rushes to the emperor’s palace to warn of the impending attack. She arrives just as Shan Yu has stormed the palace; with assistance from her former comrades in arms she is able to infiltrate the complex. She saves the emperor and defeats the villain. In the last scene, Mulan, now confirmed a hero for her service, returns home after refusing an offer to serve directly with the emperor. Her father joyfully welcomes the safe return of his only daughter. The family reunion is joined by Captain Li Shang, who is invited to dinner and cheekily invited by Grandmother Fa to “stay forever,” implying that Mulan may yet pursue the romantic relationship and marry well.

THEME: Reflection and Identity

Disney’s Mulan presents the title heroine as a young woman who is keenly aware of the social and familial expectations placed on her, yet try as she might to meet those expectations, finds herself falling short. The opening song “Honor to Us All” establishes the societal norms for a successful daughter—to marry well and bear sons. But despite her earnest efforts, Mulan’s meeting with the matchmaker ends in disaster. She returns home and gives voice to her uncertainty about her place in the world through her theme song, “Reflection.” The musical force of the song is visually reinforced through the images of herself reflected back to her as she moves through circumscribed spaces of the family garden and ancestral shrine. In the song, she questions her own ability to perform the expected roles of bride and daughter. The song concludes within the ancestral shrine, where she wipes off her bridal makeup; multiple reflections of her own face look back at her from the surfaces of the ancestor tablets, as if she is facing the weight of generations of the Fa family, whose reputation and lineage now pivots on her as the only daughter. Throughout the movie, the visual theme of reflection is used in moments where Mulan and her companions question their place in the world and struggle to reconcile their own inner quest for self-identity in the face of a world that has already slotted them into predetermined roles.

Click to expand/collapse Lyrics

English Lyrics	Accompanying Visuals
Look at me, I will never pass for a perfect bride or a perfect daughter	Looks into the water of the horse trough, seeing her full face of white makeup.
Can it be, I’m not meant to play this part?	Framed by the moon gate in the garden and releases Cri-Kee the lucky cricket.
Now I see, if I were ever truly to be myself, I would break my family’s heart.	Hops along the balustrade of the garden bridge.
Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me? Why is my reflection someone I don’t know?	Full body, still costumed in the robes worn for the matchmaker, reflected in the garden pond.
Somehow I cannot hide, who I am, though I’ve tried	Multiple reflections on the surfaces of the Fa family ancestor tablets.
When will my reflection show who I am inside? When will my reflection show who I am inside?	Gazing closely into her reflection in the ancestor tablet, she wipes off makeup on one half of her face, and for a split second, her reflection shows her face as two halves, before she wipes off the other half and leaves.

From Bride to Soldier: Mulan Takes her Father’s Armor

The pivotal moment when Mulan decides to save her father’s life by taking his armor and serving in his stead is animated in a sequence that the Disney animators call “Sequence Six.” The drama of the scene is accomplished entirely without dialogue or lyrics; set to a driving synthesizer score, her transformation from failed bride to soldier son is visually emphasized by reflection and framing.

The sequence opens with Mulan sitting in the embrace of the Great Stone Dragon sculpture, in despair over her father’s decision to choose honor and duty over his own life. As the rain falls into the night, she looks down into the rain puddle, and sees herself—makeup removed, long hair undone, and still in the robes from her matchmaker meeting.

She looks up to see the silhouettes of her arguing parents, backlit against the hexagonal window of house, and doubly framed by the garden’s moongate. Her father blows out the candle and as the window goes dark, Mulan makes her decision.

In the ancestor shrine, she is once again reflected in their tablets, but instead of her earlier ambivalence, her visage is resolute as she lights incense in prayer.

After taking her father’s army summons and leaving her comb in its place, Mulan’s first act of transforming in a male soldier is to draw her father’s sword and cut off her hair. As she draws the sword, a close-up of her face is reflected on the blade. The blade’s central ridge bisects the reflection, echoing the earlier halving of her face during “Reflection,” but rather than showing two seemingly incommensurable halves, the reflection here shows her determination towards this course of action. The play of light does still cast half her face in shadow, perhaps visually hinting at the delicate balancing act of how she will reveal and conceal aspects of her identity when she masquerades as her father’s little-known son, rather than as his only daughter.

Revelation, Rejection, and Reflection

Mulan’s immediate transformation is accomplished through cutting her hair and donning her father’s armor. Unlike previous adaptations where she has already learned martial skills from her father and receives his coaching on how to speak and move as a man, here, Mulan must find her own way (with the questionable guidance of Mushu, her self-appointed dragon spirit guardian who is on his own journey of redemption). Attempts at performing male bravado are played for comedic effect, and those are also the only moments when Mulan speaks in a lower register; otherwise, her speaking voice remains the same. When she joins the soldiers’ training camp, her initial failure to fit in is matched by the complete lack of military skills and discipline of the other raw recruits. Through perseverance, resourcefulness, and lots of training set to Captain Li Shang’s song “I’ll Make a Man out of You,” Mulan earns the respect of her comrades-in-arms and her commanding officer.

In a departure from earlier versions of the Mulan tale, the Disney version reveals her identity immediately after demonstrating her success at being a brave and resourceful foot soldier. Mulan’s ability to see beyond what is immediately in front of her and find an unconventional solution is demonstrated in her first battle against the Hun army. Looking away from the enemy’s charge, she sees the snow-laden mountain reflected in the blade of her sword. She singlehandedly buries the Huns in an avalanche and saves the lives of her comrades, but not before sustaining a serious wound. When her armor is removed to treat the wound, she is revealed as a woman and left behind.

Despondent, she once again looks into her reflection in her helmet and questions her own motivations for joining the army: “Maybe I didn’t go for my father. Maybe what I really wanted was to prove I could do things right. So when I look in the mirror, I’d see someone worthwhile. But I was wrong. I see nothing.”

As she casts the helmet aside, it is picked up by Mushu, who also gazes at his own reflection while finally admitting that he wasn’t actually sent by her ancestors but came to prove his own worth: “The truth is, we’re both frauds. Your ancestors never sent me. They don’t even like me. At least you risked your life to help those you love. I risked your life to help myself.”

Even Cri-Kee looks at his reflection and tearfully chirps that he is not actually a lucky cricket. In this moment, Mulan and her companions all question the person that they see reflected back at them and ponder the gulf between who they aspire to be and how others perceive them.

In the final confrontation against the Hun leader Shan Yu in the imperial capital, the film presents a series of visual callbacks and inversions. Mulan rallies her comrades and they briefly masquerade as women to gain entrance into the palace and surprise the Hun intruders. Mulan herself appears in an outfit that inverts the color scheme of her initial costume for the matchmaker. That earlier costume was predominantly pink with a blue waistband; her final costume is predominantly blue with a narrower pink sash, as well as having narrowed sleeves for greater freedom of movement and a sleeveless surcoat that hearkens towards the projecting shoulder armor of her soldierly attire. When she defeats Shan Yu, she pulls out a yellow folding fan that is the counterpart to the one from her disastrous meeting with the matchmaker, and she uses it to seize his sword. In her final victory, Mulan triumphs neither as demure bride nor as male soldier but entirely as herself.

Turning down an official position, she returns home to her family, where her father casts aside the imperial gifts and affirms to her that “The greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter.” Their embrace is the final visual reflection in the film, where their bodies are literally reflected in the waters of the garden pond; Mulan also finally sees that her newly discovered sense of self-worth is reflected in her father’s esteem of her, an esteem that he had already expressed earlier in the film under that very same garden seat.

Throughout Disney’s Mulan, the theme of “reflection” is given voice in song, is visually emphasized in the literal reflections of the main characters’ faces and bodies into mirrored surfaces, and is further reinforced in visual callbacks to earlier costumes and settings. The visual language of reflections reinforces the action of reflection—reflection as verb—where the central conflict of the characters is not only the war against the Huns, but their own journey towards self-discovery.

WORKS CONSULTED CLICK TO EXPAND/COLLAPSE

Dong, Lan. Mulan’s Legend and Legacy in China and the United States. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011.

Kurtti, Jeff. The Art of Mulan. New York: Hyperion, 1998.

Kwa, Shiamin. “"The Female Mulan Joins the Army in Place of Her Father." In How To Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, edited by Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas, 151-167. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022.

AUTHOR

Patricia J. Yu