Mulan

Mulan

Synopsis

The epic story based on the Chinese folk heroine, of the Chinese girl-warrior, Hua Mulan who fights to defend her father by sneaking and dressing up as a man to join the all-male army, when invaders threatens her country.

Official Site: NA

Singapore Release Date: 26th November 2009, Thursday

Running Time: 106 minutes

Ratings: G

Genre: Adventure | Drama | Romance

Cast: Wei Zhao, Jaycee Chan, Jun Hu, Rongguang Yu, Jiao Xu, Kun Chen, Vitas, Jiuzhe Li

Crew: Director (Jingle Ma), Producer (Guangcheng Song), Screenplay (Ting Zhang), Cinematography (Tony Cheung) and Editing (Chi-Leung Kwong)

The Trailer

The Review

I was brought up watching Chinese period war dramas and I love them.

Of course when I watched this movie, I truly had to keep an open mind, as there were already many film adaptations of the story of Mulan.

The movie runs the risk of becoming a cliche, and to my surprise it didn’t.

The plot is about the legend of Mulan, where in a nation that’s drafting soldier to defend Wei country from nomadic invading forces who seeks to plunder their iron, Mulan took the place of her ailing father.

As her family has no male heir, which means that her aging father would have been conscripted, Mulan (Vicky Zhao) instead enlisted herself disguised as a man.

For the film, the director rather than focus on the battlefields, Director Ma explored instead to my delight the female persona in a male dominant environment, and also the forbidden relationship between Mulan, and General Wentai (Chen Kun).

This different adaptation of Mulan is refreshing and for me it gave a new perspective of the legendary Mulan.

I was glad the producers didn’t ended the movie with a fairy tale ending, although the battle scenes are sparse and not worth of classic period war movies such as Red Cliff, it has subtly driven the message that war is truly absurd. Indeed i agreed …

The Good

• Great ensemble casting
• The forbidden love angle will excite you
• Excellent chemistry between Vicki Zhao and Chen Kun

The Bad

• I wish there was slightly more battle scenes
• There were some odd scenes that puzzled me
• You might mistaken Mulan for Red Cliff. Vicki Zhao starred in both recent films

Editor’s Ratings