It was v fitting that the first trailer for Disney's live-action Mulan dropped during the women's FIFA World Cup. That's a lot of strong feminine energy and I'm here for it. But there are a couple things I'm not crazy about.
What I Like
OMG THIS CAST. It's truly international. Chinese actress Yifei Liu leads as Mulan. You might recognize Jason Scott Lee, who's from Chinese and Hawaiian descent, plays Böri Khan. You might recognize him as Mowgli from the 1994 live-action Jungle Book!
The rewritten story is less sugar coated for kids and more based on the narrative poem "The Ballad of Mulan". You can already tell the tone is different and definitely more dramatic, focusing on a realistic look at Chinese family structure and traditions.
I LOVE that it looks like we're going to get a lot of action from our warrior queen. She flips, she sword fights, we stan.
What I Miss
This is just me nitpicking but I'm gonna miss the music sooooo much. The soundtrack will supposedly be instrumental only. You can hear whispers of "Reflection" from the original Mulan in the trailer and it already sounds like it was composed differently for the film.
WE'RE NOT GETTING MUSHU. Mulan's spirit guide is rumored to be a phoenix, not the sassy pocket-sized dragon. Sigh.
Even without Mushu gassing her up, I'm excited for this! The original Mulan was already so celebrated and I'm interested to see how this one honors Chinese culture, storytelling and general feminine badass-ery.
Mulan hits theaters sometime in Spring 2020. Watch the trailer below.