Metrics
Genre:
Family, Coming-of-age
Rating:
6.6 /10
Audience:
Disney fans, young girls.
Rewatch Time:
Maybe once or twice ever.
Winner:
Mulan (Liu Yifei)
Review
So this movie was really hard to classify, especially given that I have a lot of exposure to the original. Still, it wasn't really an action movie, but it wasn't comedy either. It felt most like a war movie in the middle, and there was definitely an element of hollywood magic when it came to the relationship between Mulan and Xianniang (Gong Li, who does a great job here). The ensemble cast for this movie was really impressive: Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Tzi Ma. Overall, it wasn't bad by any means, it just wasn't as consistently engaging as one would have expected from a disney movie plot. That said, it's important to recognize that they emphasized the reality of the movie's themes, at the expense of iconic characters and songs, which may leave a bad taste in some of our mouths. Still, the movie had heart, and even if it wasn't the most watchable, it didn't underperform drastically at any point. Yifei is also incredibly cute whenever she smiles, so take that as you will.
Spoiler Territory
Not really spoiler-sensitive.