Mulan is finally available today! After pre-buying my tickets for the March premiere . . . and then, pandemic . . . I’ve been waiting for months for it. And it’s now available on Disney+ (for a premium, but I was ready to pay in blood for some of this new content).
We just finished watching (it’s Cara & Lin’s last night visiting, so excuse another short post as I need to get back to friendship), and here are my general non-spoilery initial reactions.
- I could watch the sequence with Mulan at the training camp over and over. The stakes of hiding your gender while sharing a tent with a bunch of boys are so much higher than in the animated film.
- It seems like it was shot as a PG movie and then they realized a lot of people keep dying so had to make in PG-13 . . . it’s a weird line.
- There is no watching any version of Mulan without seeing the gay narratives. No matter how cishet they try to make it, the queer comes through. They really should have made it come through stronger.
- Yes, it’s visually cool to see Mulan strip part of her armor and let her hair down to fight but girl, you should definitely keep your armor on and your hair up when you’re going into battle.
- The original is better, obviously, but I am glad they didn’t shot for shot recreate it and tried to tell a new story with this one. I was entertained and would watch again. I also need to go watch the original again now.
With Love,
Natalie