Mulan: Rise of a Warrior (2009)

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

So much for an epic about the life and achievements of the legendary woman warrior. The film cannot be duller. The script is full of tired clichés and the writers have felt compelled to turn it into a sentimental love story more than anything else.The character of Mulan is supposed to be strong, tough and courageous. The Mulan in this film (and half the male soldiers) spends most of her time in tears, wringing her hands and whispering sweet nothings. She looks, sounds and acts every bit like a girl. It is hard to believe that the whole army of soldiers who spent 12 years with her did not catch on. The two leads look like they belong in a rom-com, rather than playing generals on the battlefield. All in all, a ridiculous and disappointing film.

It is probably not all that strange that there is a Joan of Arc legend coming out of China, and when one considers it, there are probably a few stories floating around where somebody rose above their disabilities to become great. I say that because in these times women were supposed to stay at home in the villages while the men went to war, this was the case in 16th Century France as it was here in China. Okay, Joan was considered touched by God as it was a vision that made her take the fight to the English, where as Mulan did it out of a sense of honour.The period in China in which this story is set is quite vague. China has, for most of her history, pretty much dominated the region that it dominates now. China was never a collection of countries fighting against each other because once the Chin' reached dominance, despite the empire waxing and waning, it has always mostly been China. However, at the time of this movie, the Wei people were under attack from roaming bandits, but these bandits had decided that raiding wasn't as good because when winter comes they always had to return home, so they decided to invade and stay.The people of Wai thus had to go to war, and as was expected every family was to put up a male to join the army. With Mulan's family, a family with a long tradition of warriors, this was not possible as there was no males. So, instead of her elderly father going to war, Mulan disguises herself as a man and goes in his place. Though a lot of fortune, Mulan finds herself at the head of the army and she goes down in history as a great warrior.This movie isn't so much about how she hides among the men. It seems that it wasn't all that difficult. Chinese people don't grow facial hair like we do, and their hair was long, so as long as she remained clothed, she was safe. However she is caught out, but the person who catches her is on his way up anyway and decides to protect her, but as he goes up the ranks he brings Mulan with him.One of the things that made me think while watching this film is whether there is any incidence of grace or self-sacrifice outside of the Christian sphere. That is a very debatable point. Now, we see examples of this in this film, such as when the prince offers himself up to save his troops, or when Mulan takes her father's place, or even when she claims to be the thief of the prince's Jade card. However, this is a modern rendition of the story, so it is difficult to pull these ideas out of a modern mind set. In those days it was all about honour. If one's family is dishonoured, then you go an deal with it, violently or not. There is discipline, but this is something that is enforced to make a good army, not to show the graciousness of the human heart.Anyway, this film was okay. Not strictly an autobiography since Mulan seems lost in the mists of legend (unlike Joan of Arc) and her story comes down to us through a Chinese poem that has survived. However it is interesting to see a similar theme playing out through human history, and that of the person overcoming prejudices to succeed.

Thanks to Disney basically everyone already knows the story of Mulan. It's actually amazing how much better that movie is still, when compared to this one. It does a superior job at basically every department, most notably with its storytelling.This movie has absolutely got some of the worst pacing I have ever seen in any type of film. I just couldn't believe how bad it was! The pacing is totally off and there is absolutely no build up to anything! Not to its romance, not to its drama, not to any of characters, not to any of its action. Things just happen and often way too fast of each other. The one moment they are sitting in a tent, 20 seconds later they are training, 10 second later again their bathing and 15 seconds after that they are fighting an epic battle suddenly. And no, I'm not even making this up. How are you ever supposed to feel or care for anything that is happening in this movie, or for any of its characters. To be frank, I liked- and was interested far more in the movie its cartoonish villain.But you just can't simply blame only the pacing for this movie its failure. Credit for that also needs to go to Jingle Ma & Wei Dong very lifeless and unimaginative directing and the script, written by Ting Zhang. Just when you think that the movie is starting to get interesting and somewhat remotely epic, it has to make room for some soap-opera developments. This becomes especially disturbing at its end, which is just such a big anti-climax and totally not something that you would want and expect from a movie that presents itself as an epic.But it's already very distracting to begin with how flawed its main premise is. It of course builds on the fact that the main character is a woman, who tries to pass herself off as a man, in order to serve in the Chinese army, instead of her fragile, old father. Problem is that at no time Wei Zhao ever looks or even acts like a guy. She talks, walks and behaves like a woman, as if she isn't even doing an attempt to hide her gender. highly annoying, unlikely and distracting that no one in this movie seems to notice that 'he' is actually a she.The story has some soap opera type of developments to it but also has the look of it. This movie looks like it was a got made for TV production, while the movie still tries to present itself like its a grand, expensive movie of epic proportions. Granted that some of the battles are pretty good looking but the movie really doesn't put enough focus on them.Also annoying how patriotic this movie tried to be. It's a Chinse movie about a well known and inspirational Chinese figure, so it's understandable that they are proud of it and want to show this but the script is totally not suitable for a patriotic and nationalistic approach. It just isn't solid enough and has some really poor dialog, which lets the patriotic moments come across as weak, as well as misplaced.No, this never looked like a solid movie to me but I was at least expecting some entertainment and a good story to follow, since the tale of Hua Mulan in itself is of course a really great and fascinating one. This movie however just never surpasses the level of a straight to DVD or made for TV drama-production, with cardboard characters and bad dialog, disappointing acting and soap like developments with its story.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I wasn't really sure what to expect, when watching the movie. The only thing about the story of Mulan that i knew, was what i learned from the Disney version. But i'm pretty sure, people who watch this movie wouldn't actually (and rightfully) expect there to be much similarity between the two.One thing that i think is important about this movie is, do not see it expecting to see things you've seen in "similar" movies. You might be disappointed. Because if you expect this to be anything like the classic martial arts movies, that it is most certainly not. Even Warlords, which at least to me felt quite authentic, was more exaggerated in its fighting scenes. And yes, this is also a love story, but just like the fighting and everything else, to me it seems that the people who made this movie gave a lot of thought to how much romance would be possible under the circumstances. Of course there were things that bothered me, too, but i think they were pretty much neglectible. For example i don't know how the character of Wude (played by Vitas) actually fits into the story, he feels slightly out of place. There was one scene that also seemed strange because it was really out of nothing, i don't see this as a spoiler because its not really of any importance to the story, but there was a sandstorm and they called it something like poison dragon. I did some research and it seems there is a legend about the region of Sanweishan that mentions sandstorms as the breath of a dragon, that seems to be a good explanation but someone who isn't familiar with Chinese mythology as i am (and probably most westerners) wouldn't know that and it might be confusing. Also it didn't seem like miss Zhao didn't put in much effort when Mulan pretended to be a man. But personally i don't really mind, actually appreciate it in a way. I think it would have seems a little ridiculous, and this movie is by no means meant to be comedic. The viewer knows she's pretending to be a man and that nobody notices it, there would be no point in having the actress try to talk with a deep voice or even choosing a different actress who is more masculine. That's simply not what the movie is about.If you like, you might see this movie as biographical, maybe even historical as far as that's possible for a legend. All in all i think this movie is absolutely worth watching if you're not too focused on any aspect of Chinese cinema, but even then it might well be worth your time!