FILM

MULAN PROBLEMS

questions of authenticity and appropriation

By Anqi Li

Mulan Makeup

The story of Mulan is one that most Chinese people know and has been popular for thousands of years. At its most basic, the story goes something like this: Mulan is born during the conflict between the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589), when China was divided ethnically and politically. The regime decreed that each family must choose a man to fight in the war, but Mulan's father is too old to join the army. So, Mulan decides to join the army in place of her father. It is quite difficult for her to disguise the fact that she is a young woman, but she does, fulfilling her mission and returning to her hometown a decade later, her secret identity still undiscovered.

The live-action film Mulan appeared in Chinese cinemas in 2020. Due to the success of the animated Mulan in 1998, Chinese audiences had great expectations for this newer, more realistic version. After all, from the perspective of Chinese audiences,this is an important piece of history and its development from animated feature to a full-on movie promised a fuller accounting of the story. But from the moment the audience sat down to watch, things didn’t go so well. People walked out of the cinema, claiming that the movie was an embarrassment and accusing the producers of cultural appropriation and worse. The question is what happened and why did Chinese audiences find the film so objectionable. The problem is that in the move to live action from animation, the issues of historical and cultural inaccuracies become much more of a problem.

The Two Mulans

At the beginning of the movie, the director Nikola Jean Caro takes a series of shots of Mulan's surrounding villages and mountains, giving the audience a sense of her world. But these images are in the style of Fujian tulou, not in the style of building in the province of Hubei where Mulan actually lived. The two styles are far apart in architectural aesthetics and geographical influence. Fujian is in the southernmost part of China and Hubei is in the north. Furthermore, Fujian tulou is a type of building that originated in the Song Dynasty (960, lasting until 1279) and did not appear in the Northern Wei Dynasty when Mulan lived. It was not until 500 years after the legend of Mulan that this style of architecture became popular in Fujian. Architecture is not something that audiences usually pay much attention to, but it is part of a lackluster approach to the material that plagues the film.

There are some shots of the palace in the middle and end of the film. The palace seems very ornate and large, but it was built in the style of the Song (960) and Qing Dynasty (1636). In Mulan's time, this style of architecture had not yet been developed. In addition, there were many people wandering around outside the palace talking and laughing. This would not have happened in the Wei and Jin dynasty. During this period, there were many wars and cities were often destroyed and rebuilt. The major cities of the time all suffered from these types of setbacks. Commoners had few privileges, high taxes and lived miserable lives. So, the idea of a peaceful village just isn’t accurate to history or the story.

Couplets say a great deal

Another interesting architectural cultural mistake is the couplet hanging on the door of the tulou building where Mulan lives. It's a custom in China to hang couplets during the Spring Festival. They are supposed to get rid of bad luck and ghosts. Ancient Chinese had many rules for writing couplets, such as: two lines of the couplet must contain the same number of Chinese characters; the word class of each character must be the same as the corresponding character; the tonal pattern of one line must be the opposite of the other; and the meaning of the two lines must be related with each pair of words having a related meaning. Unfortunately, the couplet that appears briefly in the movie does not qualify in any of these ways and just plain doesn’t make sense.

The next point is self-evident, but is often ignored because of conventions. Mulan is Chinese, and no one spoke English during the Northern Wei dynasty in ancient China. People didn't even know there was a Europe in the world or what languages they spoke. But in the movie, all the characters speak English, but when they write, they write in Chinese. Also, Chinese people at that time called themselves "Zhongyuan", not Chinese. The king wasn't called a king either, he was called a Khan. In the middle of the film, the Khan wears a black robe while his prime minister wears a yellow robe. But Khans generally wore yellow robes because they believed that yellow is the same color as the body of a dragon.

The glory of the Khan

The worst moment is when a soldier interrupts Khan's conversation with the prime minister and looks Khan in the eye. This would have never happened and every Chinese audience member is aware of that: no prime minister would have behaved in such a manner.

The most controversial feature in the film is Mulan and her sister's makeup, which appears on their faces in the film as Tang Dynasty makeup, a historical inaccuracy that undermines a great deal of the story. Tang makeup was arguably the richest and strangest makeup ever created in ancient China. Tang's eyebrows are raised and rouge covers most of the face. This bold style of makeup was born out of the high status of women during the Tang Dynasty. It later spread to Japan and Korea. So it is the most familiar look for Chinese audiences, and when it appears in movies, it is easy for audiences to spot when it shouldn’t be present.

In the movie, the biggest villain is a witch who can transform into different animals. But there is no such concept as "witch" in any ancient Chinese books or history. In the movie, when the witch turns into an eagle and flies into the air, it reminds me of the western witch, not a Chinese monster. In addition, in order to become human beings or immortals, animals need to perform many good deeds and obtain the affirmation of the Buddha in order to change their form and status. Some viewers could not understand the ending of the movie because the witch suddenly changes from evil to good. But at Disney they find it necessary to highlight Mulan's growth with an opposing force, in this case the witch. Because the movie doesn't take the time to portray the "witch" character, it feels stilted and forced.

Witches are interesting, perhaps

On Douban, a major Chinese review website, Mulan's rating is 4.9 out of 10, a dismal rating and lower than similar films. Many Chinese viewers said the film, which is meant to be a Chinese story, was "cobbled together" with Chinese elements that made no sense, historically, culturally, or aesthetically."I'm so disappointed. I feel like this movie only conforms to Hollywood's aesthetic, which somehow puts in the witch plot and so-called gas that foreigners like, thick American individualism,"one Chinese viewer criticized. A review from Chinese media Interface News stated that Mulan features, "Disney's only Oriental princess", but depicted a completely "imagined China".

For Chinese audiences, Mulan's courage and perseverance in dealing with a crazy situation as well as her loyalty to her family are pure and charming. For Disney, they present Mulan's military-driven self-assertion, feminism, as a quality that somehow transcends culture. As a result, the story is nothing more than a fantasy of a China that never existed.

©Anqi Li and the CCA Arts Review