Why did mulan get critically panned at release? it is one of

>>91716942
Cross dressing.

>>91716958
It's okay when girls do it

>>91716942
She should be the new Two Face

>>91716942
Women shouldn't be in the military

>>91716942

Critics have a rough job. They have to constantly figure out on the fly what they think the audience wants to hear, sifting though a dynamic and ever-shifting zeitgeist of changing tastes and unpredictable trends. Sometimes they're able to figure out the fashionable thing to criticize and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they all say the wrong thing at once because they're all subject to the same market forces and what seems like a safe bet doesn't pan out.

It happens.

>>91716942
Asians thought it was racist, because asians are by far the hardest audience to please.

>>91717016
They love Kung Fu Panda, so Mulan must have been doing something wrong.

>>91716942
Women shouldnt have rights

>>91716942

>Why did mulan get critically panned at release?

Because she spoke english and not chinese mandarin.

Fucking whitewashing.

>>91717039
>chinese mandarin
How many kinds of mandarin are there?

>>91717059
Oh, you know they meant Mandarin Chinese.
Only recently I found out all Chinese movies are subtitled since there are way too many dialects to dub them all.

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>>91717059

>How many kinds of mandarin are there?

Educate yourself anon

>>91716942
Actual issues:
- Mulan and Shang pretty much never interact until the very end; the forced "romance" end made no sense
- the whole third act was retarded (oh no, four Huns have sneaked into the palace, China is doomed)
- China's whole army apparently consists of one professional brigade and 10 recruits
- after all the dramatic training montages, the recruits and Mulan still can't fight
- everyone except for Mulan and Mushu has little to no personality

>>91716942
The clothing, makeup, and other things where not just Chinese. in fact it heavily resembled japan rather than china. China did not have "honor" on family at that time that was japan. there is a lot of things wrong.

>>91716942

The chinese hated it because they took a story about a girl honoring her family(filial piety) and twisted chinese ideas into a western narrative. They changed the intent of the story.

>>91717265
Those are all very good points. But I have a counter argument: LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS!

>>91716942

Super weak villain and third act.

>>91717324
TO DEFEAT THE HUNS!

>>91717324
I'll Make A Man Out Of You is GOAT, but it still can't save the movie.

>>91717265
a lot of this and a bit of >>91717285

>>91716942
Mulan is the best feminist cartoon to this day.
It has a likeable lead that has to endure real hardships, male characters that aren't total idiots or assholes, and great execution.

hollywood hates asians

>>91717265
>Actual issues:
>- Mulan and Shang pretty much never interact until the very end; the forced "romance" end made no sense

As someone who hates hamfisted romance, I thought this was done well. It wasn't like they magically fell in love (I don't count the second movie), it felt like a very tiny step in the very beginning of what could be a budding romance between the two.

>- the whole third act was retarded (oh no, four Huns have sneaked into the palace, China is doomed)

It was more so about the emperor's safety at that point. The emperor was threatened, so arguably the state of China was threatened.

>- China's whole army apparently consists of one professional brigade and 10 recruits

Do we know if the main force was just one professional brigade? I agree that the recruits only being represented by a single group was stupid.

>- after all the dramatic training montages, the recruits and Mulan still can't fight

If I remember correctly the plan was to meet up with the main force after their training was finished. The main force was annihilated, and they were facing against the full force of the Hans. They were definitely still going to lose, being trained recruits changes nothing.

>- everyone except for Mulan and Mushu has little to no personality

Are you forgetting Yao, Ling and Chien Po?

>>91717265
>- the whole third act was retarded (oh no, four Huns have sneaked into the palace, China is doomed)
Maybe not China, but if they killed the Emperor, that would at the very least be a tragedy
>China's whole army apparently consists of one professional brigade and 10 recruits
Wasn't it assumed that these were just ones of the many recruits, it's that Mushu made a fake order so that this particular group would meet the Huns?
>after all the dramatic training montages, the recruits and Mulan still can't fight
I don't really remember them not being able to, it's just that it didn't play the key part
>>91717265
>Mulan and Shang pretty much never interact until the very end; the forced "romance" end made no sense
I don't remember much but I thought they did hsve at least several conversations during the course of the movie?

>>91716979
yes because we already assume they are stupid.

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>>91716942
>Chinese tale about how a girl took up responsibility for her country and became a great commander
>butchered into a western ideal of the only way a girl can do anything is by cross dressing and pretending to be a man

Much like Pocahontas they just assumed people would be super ignorant of the source material and didn't expect they be mad at the bait and switch.

>>91717020
>They love Kung Fu Panda, so Mulan must have been doing something wrong.
animals can't be racist, or have race

they're just animals - everything is safer from a production standpoint

>>91716942

It was Transphobic.

>>91716942
To be honest I've never seen it, or if I did I was too young to recall it.

>>91717285
How were the ideas twisted? What were the differences from the original? Genuinely curious here, I'm not very familiar with this.

mfw 2 live action adaptations being made, and one of them isn't Disney

>EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has set Alex Graves to direct Mulan, its live-action adaptation of the Chinese legend based on Hua Mulan, the young female warrior who takes her ailing father’s place in the Chinese Imperial Army.

>There are two live-action versions of Mulan, but this one is being designed for the international marketplace so it pace won’t necessarily be determined by progress on the Disney film — this pic is a Chinese co-production, there will be a Chinese lead, and the film will be done through Sony Pictures International Productions. The Sony film is scripted by Jason Keller and produced by Doug Belgrad, whose 2.0 Entertainment will be a co-financier and producer of the film.

>Graves has been directing some of the hottest TV series episodes from Game Of Thrones to Homeland, Bloodline and Shameless. WME reps him.

>>91719256
just a cursory glance at the wikipedia page explains everything:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Mulan

tl;dr she didn't dress as a man lol, she was just hypercompetent as a warrior and took her father's place

thats a real feminists story

>>91717703
Claiming to be enlightened you should know that there are more than one version of the story faggot.

>>91716942
>critically panned
It's another "GenZ doesn't like dad so they rewrite history to make his era bad and the new one best" thread I see.

>>91719283
Hold on, so the part about women not being allowed in the army isn't true? Or if it is, how did the original tale get around that?

>>91719304
>>91719286
apparently this anon is right, however it also seems like its the shittiest version of the story that Disney picked:

>Chu Renhuo's Romance of the Sui and Tang (c. 1675) provides additional backdrops and plot-twists.[6] Here, Mulan lives under the rule of Heshana Khan of the Western Turkic Khaganate. When the Khan agrees to wage war in alliance with the emergent Tang dynasty, which was poised to conquer all of China, Mulan's father Hua Hu (Chinese: 花弧) fears he will be conscripted into military service since he only has two daughters and an infant son. Mulan crossdresses as a man and enlists in her father's stead. She is intercepted by the forces of the Xia king Dou Jiande and is brought under questioning by the king's warrior daughter Xianniang (Chinese: 線娘), who tries to recruit Mulan as a man. Discovering Mulan to be a fellow female warrior, she is so delighted that they become sworn sisters.[7][11]

>later on Mulan commits suicide in this version "to be with her father" and because "she couldn't stand a foreign ruler"

holy happenstance batman, what was Disney doing?

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LOL

>This film, written by Katherine Lawrence and Christy Marx, is based on the poem about Hua Mulan, which had been made as a film by Walt Disney Pictures the same year as Mulan, and combined with elements from another popular 1998 animated film, A Bug's Life.

>would you /co/?

>>91717016
"Asian" here

First off, fuck you for grouping asia together but thats par for the course for your typical westerner, Every time they say "asia", they always mean japan, korea, or china, then proceed to forget about the rest of it.

Second, everybody I know liked Mulan.
Probably because we're not Chinese, which is the race you're probably thinking about earlier. Fucking chinese(govt) is so fucking anal with their rules and shit.

>>91716994
That's not their job at all. Just watch the thing and give your shitty opinion. If people tend to agree with you, they'll follow your reviews before you know it you have a following.

>>91716942
Its reviews were fine. It wasn't seen as a groundbreaking masterpiece on the level of Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin (because it's not) but it got better reviews than most Disney films of the 90's, and ALL those movies were critically beloved (except Rescuers Down Under, which isn't bad but never really attained classic status.)

>>91719331
>Disney didn't pick the edgy version
>this is somehow bad

Also why didn't Simba overdose on heroin at the end of The Lion King, it's cause Disney is SOFT, that's why.

>>91719355
"Asian" is just shorthand for "oriental" when used in such a context, because (a) that term sounds too nerdy and (b) many Americans don't know it (thanks American education).

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>>91719401
>Also why didn't Simba overdose on heroin at the end of The Lion King
wait what

They fucked up the formula. Disney has two movies - Adventure for boys (Aladdin, Lion King Hercules) and Princesses for girls (Mermaid, Beast, Tangled). You can't have an adventure Disney movie with a girl in charge, the boys get weirded out.

Imagine a Princess movie where the MC is a boy, it's just as odd.

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>>91719460
>Imagine a Princess movie where the MC is a boy, it's just as odd.
I suddenly have an urge to see something like this.

>>91719460
That's why Mulan is considered more kino that any of the other ones you listed, right?

>it is one of the most emotionally charged films
Really? Disney can play the "where do I fit in" angle well enough and have done it two dozen times over, but everything else in the movie from the glory/horror of war to the dynamics of honor and tradition just prove why Disney should stick to "coming of age" and "from a child's eye" films because when they try the heavy stuff they're pond fish in a big ocean. Which is to say it's been done a million times better elsewhere.

>>91719498
N... No, Aladdin is kino, Hercules is kino

>>91719511
Not compared to Mulan, sorry.

>>91717703

>Mulan
>Japanese armour

>>91719516
What is your obsession with Mulan? A fat panda voiced by Jack Black had a better animated piece about china. Twice!

>>91719355
>Every time they say "asia", they always mean japan, korea, or china, then proceed to forget about the rest of it.

Probably because none of the rest of you matter and most are fucking durkas to boot.

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>>91719529

>>91719526
That's Chinese

>>91716942
>Why did mulan get critically panned at release?

Was it though? Last I checked, it was a pretty well received movie critically.

>>91719381
That would be lovely if it were true, but the truth is more complicated.

As an example, back in 2004 a reviewer from IGN gave Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door a negative review. When readers complained he defended himself by saying he actually liked the game but thought the readers disliked humor, 2D graphics, and Nintendo games.

Years later the same guy reviewed well Sticker Star because he thought his reqders would want him to like it

>>91719588
>As an example, back in 2004
Stopped reading right there.

>>91716942
Because if there's a single truth in the universe it's that critics are all fucking hacks.

>>91717016
I remember reading an article of outrage when How I Met Your Mother did yellow face in an episode that was a parody of kung fu movies.

And it was in a Filipino newspaper.

Meanwhile, no one bats an eye at White Chicks or when Dave Chappell did white face.

>>91719409
If you say "Oriental" you have to be talking about rugs or furniture.

>>91717703
Mulan was a story to shame men into war
it was a "well if a girl can do it, you can too" story

>>91719416
Because he's African.

>>91719619
You can't be racist against whites, though, at least in the commonly-used sense of the term. It's just how it is.

>>91717655

I remember Shang awkwardly enjoying Mulan's butt when she's cross-dressing.

Nice butt, oh yeah you're male. Awkward.

>>91719647
The story is based on Hamlet you dingus.

THEY DIDNT HAVE ENOUGH SECHUZAN CHICKEN SAUCE MORTY

>>91719687
Hamlet OD'd on heroin?

>>91719460
>>91719477
One could argue Aladdin is a princess movie. Jasmine is one of the official Disney Princesses, after all.

>>91719353

>THREE vaganias

>>91719460
>he doesn't want to see a movie with a handsome knight going to save a princess, only to discover it's a prince (male)
>ends up falling in love with him anyways

>>91717462
>>91717285
Probably both of these tbqh

>>91721140
>Maybe more

>>91716942

Aside from problems within the film, this came out around the start of Disney fatigue. Disney churns out formulaic, template films. They've always done so. Consistency and familiarity is part of their strength. But you get diminishing returns over time.

We'll hit this point eventually with this generation of Disney movies too, where the quality isn't actually worse, but people begin to realize they're paying for the same movie over and over, and the decline in interest won't turn until the next "Renaissance."

>>91717016
Asian americans or actual asians? Cos every asian I've met from Asia loved it. Much like most of the things that scandalise Yanks that no-one in their native lands gives one sorry shit about.

>>91719529
overrated

>>91723036
Why are you on this board again?

>>91719604
listen here nigger, mulan came out in 1998 and that was the catalyst to this discussion

>>91723112
I've read that the Chinese did get pissy about the scene where the Emperor bows to Mulan, so they had to cut it in later releases.

>>91723244
What later releases? Do you mean in China itself?

>>91719648
This is something that limits comedy, it's the same reason a lot of female comedians aren't that funny, because they are never willing to lower themselves for the sake of comedy.

>>91717393
DID THEY SEND ME DAUGHTERS

>>91719207
That's not a point. Racism isn't even a concept in Asian cultures.

>>91723112
My cousins in Oakland (we're Chinese American) love the movie
Play it all the damn time
Also, who the fuck doesn't love "Make a man out of you"
Even the most feminist people I know love that song

>>91723938
WHEN I ASKED

FOR SONS

>>91724141
Anybody can man up. Even wo-men are still men.

>>91724234
YOU'RE A SPINELESS, PALE, PATHETIC LOT

>>91719355
chinaman here, I like mulan just fine.

>>91724361
BUT YOU CAN BET BEFORE WE'RE THROUGH

>>91724273
Dumbest thing I've read on /co/mblr so far.

>>91724914
PREGONADAS SON LAS GUERRAS, DE FRANCIA CON ARAGÓN

>>91725184
Never been to Tumblr, but whatever makes ya feel better, /pol/.

>>91717703
Why do Mulan and the horse look so bored?

>>91719271
That's exactly what Disney deserves for rehashing their own animated movies into live-action horseshit. Everyone else will either try to steal their cash or dilute the ''brand'''

Place your bets, I'm going to guess the Sony version will do better financially.

>>91719498
>>91719511
>any 90s Disney
>kino
kek right sure

>>91716942
not a lot really happens? she goes to join the fight, training montage of non events, she causes an avalanche, gets send home, returns at the last minute.
The overwhelming majority of Disney films thrive on a compelling villain (who gets a dope song). The invaders were empty plot devices, without clear motivation, have no personal relationship with the heroine, or really much connection to the narrative thrust or character beats.

Internal and personal conflicts are great and meaningful material, but the Disney Animated Film is a specific genre, which broadly speaking Mulan doesn't really match. It doesn't even mean it's a bad film, just that it's being judged by a rubric it doesn't compare to.

It also has some weird tonal stuff. Mushu as comic relief doesn't work very well. I know they were trying to bottle Robin Williams Genie lightning, but what they missed was that Genie was a central player in the story, and interacted back and forth with a witty protagonist. Mulan is kind of self-serious, and Mushu is a greek chorus, not an actor, so there's no space for him to actually do anything. As a result, all of his energy, while great, ends up sucking energy from the stuff that's actually moving the story forward, which is not a great decision.

Ultimately, it doesn't really do everything the makers set out to do, which itself produces something still very interesting. It's technically fantastic from an animation standpoint, has some truly great songs, and handles serious themes in a thoughtful way, which is in some ways much more interesting than if they gave us "Beauty and The Beast 3, this time we're Chinese" but we're still left with actual flaws to talk about, which means a review of it sounds worse than it actually is.
tldr: "a solid movie with a couple flaws that's worth seeing" sounds like condemnation when we start talking about it's contemporaries from the same studio being the best animated films ever made.

>>91726044
Never been to /pol/, but whatever makes ya feel better, /co/mblr.

Because it showed the traditional, misogynistic side of East Asian culture that they don't want the west to know about

>>91727505
There's nothing wrong with their traditional culture you xenophobe.

>>91719535
Fucking kek

>>91717265
>Mulan and Shang pretty much never interact until the very end; the forced "romance" end made no sense
It's not like they got married in the end. He just stayed for dinner.
Your other points are valid though.

>>91719355
>STOP GROUPING ASIA TOGETHER
>proceeds to group the entirety of the west together

>>91717082
Thanks anon, you've reminded me of the orange juice I've been keeping in the fridge. I'll have a drink in your name.

Name a better fruit than mandarins or oranges
>Protip, you can't

>>91719958
He had more shit in him than John Belushi, River Phoenix, and Rasputin. People died just from being in the same room as him.

>>91726236

They've run out of enemies to kill.

>>91717267
>>The clothing, makeup, and other things where not just Chinese
Yes they were. The armor itself is a mishmash of different era's armor.

>>China did not have "honor" on family at that time that was japan.

Confucianism and filial piety in East Asia started in China and are still a key part of their culture.

>>91719687
Hamlet was black?

>>91719355
Fucking Mongorians.

>>91716942
Probably because FOR A LONG TIME WE'VE BEEN MARCHING OFF TO BATTLE

>>91716994
And that's why critics are fucking worthless. They either try to pander to the lowest common denominator or just accept bribes instead of actually reviewing shit, also most of them have terrible knowledge about the technical aspect but still use it to write their shit.