Hua Mulan

excerpt, full review at my location - Not to be confused with Disney's 1998 animated blockbuster Mulan, director Jingle Ma's 2009 epic offers a more sophisticated and nuanced retelling of the story based on a sixth century Chinese poem. Mulan: Legendary Warrior charts the early life and rise to power of Hua Mulan, a fearless heroine who disguises herself as a man and goes to war in place of her ailing father.

Mulan: Legendary Warrior isn't exactly innovative, and it doesn't really add anything new to a story that has been told many times, but it's an expertly crafted film that fuses war and romance genres in a highly absorbing way.

I never knew the Mulan story before Disney's released it's version and it is one of my favorite Disney movies. While I understood this was not going to be the feel good movie that you find with Disney, I did expect it to be just as entertaining. It wasn't epic but I did enjoy the film.

This doesn't focus of the training of a young woman's military skills. It was my perspective that this was much more about how she had to overcome her emotions to break through and become a great general. I felt that they did a good job at portraying her struggle while not allowing her to lose all feeling.

It was well acted even if I didn't particularly care for the choice of Mulan. There was just something off there. The script was decent but the camera work could've been a bit better.

Overall it is not a back live action version of this tale of folklore. I won't have a problem recommending it.

First, let us dispel some misunderstandings. 'Mulan' is folklore--like Robin Hood, King Arthur--initially popularized as literary fiction, perhaps with some 'historical grounding', but so heavily mythologized that what is 'fact' and what is 'fiction' is virtually indistinguishable (this in turn produces multiple versions of the story, including of course, Disney's campy animated 'revision'). I specifically mention this because as silly as the 'plot twist' near the end of the film may seem to those familiar with the premise of the story, it is not nearly as silly as the rest of the film—-and just as a footnote, this version is campier than Disney's.

Zhao Wei plays Hua Mulan, a young woman who pretends to be a man in order to substitute her ailing father as a conscript in an army raised by the Northern Wei dynasty to fend off incursions by the Rouran Confederacy. Since women are not allowed in the military, she conceals her sex from her comrades while simultaneously demonstrating how much better she is as a warrior than her male colleagues.

Yes, Zhao Wei is a bad choice for this role. Her 'speech scenes' are particularly painful to watch. She seems incapable of shaking her soft-spoken and demure mannerism and it is hard to believe how anything she says can actually mobilize the morale of an entire army before a battle. There was virtually no transformation between her 'rural girl' persona and her 'soldier' persona other than what she was wearing (which made the gap in her acting even more apparent). Her appearance in this film as 'a woman dressed as a man' is no more convincing than her cameo appearance as 'a woman dressed as a man' in John Woo's "Red Cliff II." The difference is that in this film, that is actually central to the plot.

The battles were uninspiring and poorly paced. Fast-motion fight scenes intended to conceal the fact that most of the actors were physically inadequate for their roles, coupled with too many slow-motion sequences of people getting impaled or killed, made for lousy, lousy battles. "300", while not a good film, has at least proved that this could be better done (first by asking the actors to get into shape...). The army field formations were sort of epic but brief, as much of the cameras' attention were focused on individual fighting (meaning that you don't see "big battles", only CG generated/enhanced armies standing around or moving, then small battles with that annoying fast-motion sword swings/spear lounges and slow-motion death scenes...). Lastly, the whole 'band of brotherhood' rhetoric was just entirely over-the-top, more so than even the silly (but at least expected) love story.

Poor choice of actors, poorly written script, mind-numbing dialogue, bad filming techniques, and too big a budget for its own good. If you liked this film, you're letting something get the better of you....like your h***-on for Zhao Wei or a misguided sense of Chinese nationalism....

Hopefully the new Disney film sparks some interest in this one. This isn't the "kids" take on the tale. Theres a pretty cool atmosphere where it feels light and childlike (since the people in war can be quite young in real life, during the time) while still being graphic and brutal.

Its not perfect. You'll be lost a lot in terms of "how much time has passed?" For example. But it is a good watch. Good acting, action and lots of interesting story.

Having Just watched this film, and whilst it is still fresh in my mind I found the movie to be a refreshing change to traditional epics offered by Asian Cinema. House of flying daggers it is not, but as an interpretation of Chinese folklore that was based on a poem, it is a piece of cinematic creativity in it's own right. The casting of Wei Zhao was a smart move. Vicki is a potentially under rated actress who displays a versatility that is often never matched by over paid Western A - listers. For the tone and content of a film that has no provable substance in fact, Vicki does an outstanding job of expressing the bland emotion and lack of compassion that would be synonymous with the era and situation with which the film is set.

At it's heart is a love story that is put aside by the burdens of war. This is so effectively displayed by the acting skill of the lead that it could be mistaken for lacking any substance at all, but with such interpretive subject matter the leads pull you in and make you share in the joy and the hurt that their lives are taking.

This is essentially an amazing piece of cinema, with a talented cast and a talented director. There are many ways to while away an afternoon. Getting lost in the majesty this provides is well worth the time