Coordinates | 33°55′31″N18°25′26″N |
---|---|
Name | Mulan |
Caption | Promotional poster by John Alvin |
Director | Tony BancroftBarry Cook |
Writer | Robert D. San SouciRita HsiaoPhilip LaZebnikChris SandersEugenia Bostwick-SingerRaymond Singer |
Starring | Ming-NaEddie MurphyB. D. WongMiguel FerrerHarvey FiersteinBeth FowlerGeorge Takei |
Producer | Pam Coats |
Music | Score:Jerry GoldsmithSongs:Matthew Wilder (music)David Zippel (lyrics) |
Studio | Walt Disney Feature Animation |
Distributor | Walt Disney PicturesBuena Vista Distribution |
Released | |
Runtime | 90 minutes |
Country | |
Language | English |
Budget | $70 million |
Gross | $304,320,254 |
Followed by | Mulan II |
Fa Mulan (Ming-Na) is the only daughter of aged warrior Fa Zhou (Soon-Tek Oh). She impersonates a man and takes her father's place during a general conscription to counter a fictitious Hun invasion led by Shan Yu (Miguel Ferrer). Along with her guardian dragon Mushu (Eddie Murphy), her captain, Li Shang (B. D. Wong), a lucky cricket, "Cri-kee," and her companions, Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po, she battles the invading Hun army.
Mulan is initially misguided by Mushu in how to behave like a man, and starts a ruckus at the training camp. However, under command of Li Shang (B. D. Wong), she and her new friends at the camp, Yao (Harvey Fierstein), Ling (Gedde Watanabe), and Chien-Po (Jerry Tondo), become skilled warriors. Mushu, desiring to see Mulan succeed, creates a fake order from Li Shang's father, General Li (James Shigeta), ordering Li Shang to follow them into the mountains. They arrive at a burnt-out village and discover that General Li and his forces have been wiped out by the Huns. As they solemnly leave the mountains, they are ambushed by the Huns, but quick-thinking by Mulan buries most of the force in an avalanche. Mulan is hurt during the battle, and she is forced to reveal her deception. Li Shang abandons Mulan on the mountain while they make their way to the Imperial City to report the news of the Huns demise. However, the avalanche failed to eliminate all the enemies, as Mulan catches sight of a small remnant of Huns, to include Shan Yu, making their way to the City intent on capturing the Emperor.
In the Imperial City, Mulan attempts to warn Li Shang about Shan Yu, but he refuses to listen. The Huns appear and capture the Emperor, locking themselves inside the palace. With Mulan's help, Li Shang, Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po pose as concubines and are able to enter the palace and defeat Shan Yu's men. As Shang prevents Shan Yu from assassinating the Emperor, Mulan lures the Hun onto the roof where she engages him in single combat. Meanwhile, acting on Mulan's instructions, Mushu fires a bundle of fireworks rockets at Shan Yu on her signal and kills him. Mulan is praised by the Emperor and the people of China, who all bow to her as an unprecedented honor. While she accepts the Emperor's crest and Shan Yu's sword as gifts, she politely declines his offer to be his advisor and asks to return to her family. She returns home and presents these gifts to her father, but he is more overjoyed to have his daughter back safely. Li Shang, who has become enamored with Mulan, soon arrives under the guise of returning her helmet, but accepts the family's invitation for dinner. Earlier in the film, Mulan was declared unfit for marriage, but this is not the case with her budding romance with Li Shang. Mushu is granted a position as a Fa family guardian by the ancestors amid a returning celebration.
Development for Mulan began in 1994, after the production team sent a select group of artistic supervisors to China for three weeks to take photographs and drawings of local landmarks for inspiration; and to soak up local culture. The filmmakers decided to change Mulan's character to make her more appealing and selfless and turn the art style closer to Chinese painting, with watercolor and simpler design - opposed to the details of The Lion King and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
To create 2,000 Hun soldiers during the Huns' attack sequence, the production team developed a crowd simulation software called Attila. This software allows thousands of unique characters to move autonomously. A variant of the program called Dynasty was used in the final battle sequence to create a crowd of 3,000 in the Forbidden City. Pixar's photorealistic RenderMan was used to render the crowd. Another software developed for this movie was Faux Plane which was used to add depth to flat two-dimensional painting. Although developed late in production progress, Faux Plane was used in five shots, including the dramatic sequence which features the Great Wall of China, and the final battle sequence when Mulan runs to the Forbidden City. During the scene in which the Chinese are bowing to Mulan, the crowd is a panoramic film of real people bowing. It was edited into the animated foreground of the scene.
Jackie Chan provided the voice of Li Shang in Chinese dubs of the film and appeared in the promotional video singing the Chinese version of the song.
This movie was also the subject of comment from feminist critics. Mimi Nguyen says the film "pokes fun at the ultimately repressive gender roles that seek to make Mulan a domesticated creature." Nadya Labi agrees, saying "there is a lyric in the film that gives the lie to the bravado of the entire girl-power movement." She pointed out that she needed to become a boy to do it. Kathleen Karlyn, an assistant professor of English at the University of Oregon, criticizes it suggesting "In order to even imagine female heroism, we're placing it in the realm of fantasy". Pam Coats, producer of Mulan, aimed to produce a character that exhibits both masculine and feminine influences, being both physically and mentally strong.
The American Film Institute nominated Mulan for its Top 10 Animated Films list.
The Chinese legend of Hua Mulan centers on a young woman who disguises herself as a man to take the place of her elderly father in the army. The story can be traced back to The Ballad of Mulan. The earliest accounts of the legend state that she lived during the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534). However another version reports that Mulan was requested as a concubine by Emperor Yang of Sui China (reigned 604–617). The film may take place even later, as it prominently features landmarks such as the Forbidden City which was not constructed until the 15th century during the Ming dynasty. On the other hand, at the time of Northern Wei, the Xiongnu (Huns) had been already absorbed into Chinese culture. However, according to the style of dress (traditional Han clothing, also known as Hanfu), the film takes place sometime in the 15th century or before. The fireworks featured in the movie indicate that the movie is set during the Sui dynasty. Though Mulan is set in north China, where the dominant language is Mandarin, the Disney film uses the Cantonese pronunciation, "Fa", of her family name. Disney's Mulan casts the title character in much the same way as the original legend, a tomboy daughter of a respected veteran, somewhat troubled by not being the "sophisticated lady" her society expects her to be. In the original Mulan legend, Mulan uses her father's name Li and she was never discovered as a girl, unlike the film.
Mulan features a score by Jerry Goldsmith and five songs by Matthew Wilder (music) and David Zippel (lyrics), with a sixth originally planned for Mushu, but dropped following Eddie Murphy's involvement with the character. The movie's soundtrack is credited for starting the career of pop singer Christina Aguilera, whose first song to be released in the U.S. was her rendition of "Reflection", the first single from the Mulan soundtrack. The song, and Aguilera's vocals, were so well received that it landed her a recording contract with RCA records. In 1999, she would go on to release her self-titled debut album, on which Reflection was also included. As well as her own, the pop version of Reflection has 2 Spanish translations, because the movie has separate Spanish translations for Spain (performed by Malú) and Latin America (performed by Lucero). Other international versions include a Brazilian Portuguese version by Sandy & Junior ("Imagem"), a Korean version performed by Lena Park and a Mandarin version by Coco Lee.
Lea Salonga, the singing voice of Mulan in the movie, is also the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in Aladdin. The music featured during the haircut scene, often referred as the Mulan Decision score, is different in the soundtrack album. The soundtrack album uses an orchestrated score while the movie uses heavy synthesizer music. The synthesizer version is available on the limited edition CD. Salonga, who enjoys singing movie music in her concerts, has done a Disney medley which climaxes with an expanded version of 'Reflection' (not the same as those in Aguilera's version). Salonga also provided the singing voice for Mulan in the movie's sequel, Mulan II.
The song "I'll Make a Man Out of You" was performed by Donny Osmond, who commented that his sons decided that he had finally "made it" in show business when he was in a Disney film.
Although she is technically not the daughter of a king or other form of royalty, nor married to a prince or the equivalent, Mulan is often regarded as one of the Disney Princesses. In the film Lilo & Stitch, Nani has a poster of Mulan in her room. Mulan is also present in the Disney and Square Enix video game series Kingdom Hearts. In the first Kingdom Hearts and in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Mushu is a summonable character, and in Kingdom Hearts II, the movie is featured as a playable world named "The Land of Dragons", with the plot being changed to accommodate the game's protagonists (Sora, Donald and Goofy) and Mulan (both as herself and in her Ping identity) able to join the player's party as a skilled sword fighter.
Category:1998 films Category:American animated films Category:Annie Award winners Category:Asians in film and theatre Category:Chinese mythology in popular culture Category:Cross-dressing in film and television Category:Disney animated features canon Category:English-language films Category:Fantasy adventure films Category:Feminist films Category:Films featuring anthropomorphic characters
ar:مولان bg:Мулан (филм) cs:Mulan cbk-zam:Mulan cy:Mulan da:Mulan de:Mulan (Film) et:Mulan es:Mulan fr:Mulan gl:Mulan ko:뮬란 id:Mulan is:Múlan it:Mulan (film) he:מולאן ka:მულანი (ანიმაციური ფილმი) hu:Mulan mk:Мулан ms:Mulan nl:Mulan ja:ムーラン (映画) no:Mulan (film) pl:Mulan pt:Mulan ro:Mulan qu:Mulan (kuyuchisqa siq'isqa) ru:Мулан (мультфильм) simple:Mulan fi:Mulan (elokuva) sv:Mulan (film) th:มู่หลาน tr:Mulan vi:Hoa Mộc Lan (phim) zh:花木兰 (1998年电影)This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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