The “Mulan” debut in Chinese theaters, which began reopening late in July, fits with Disney’s broader effort to court Chinese consumers, drawing them to its stores and theme parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
The 1998 animated version of “Mulan” was a box-office dud in China. Not wanting to fall short again, Disney made many efforts to ensure its newest adaptation of the centuries-old folk tale would resonate with Chinese moviegoers. The company postponed releasing the film more than a year to wait for the actress executives wanted for the lead role and worked closely with China’s government, all the while striving to present a main character and story line faithful to Chinese values.
But assessing the movie’s commercial success will be more difficult since the pandemic disrupted moviegoing. While Chinese moviegoers have begun returning to theaters, audiences in the U.S. will be able to watch “Mulan” only online. Box office grosses alone are unlikely to shed light on whether the years of work Disney poured into “Mulan” paid off.
Initially, Disney’s biggest challenge was finding the right star to play the title character, who disguises herself as a man and marches off to war in place of her aging father. Producers began casting in late 2016, reviewing more than 1,000 women from six continents. They settled on 33-year-old Chinese-American star Liu Yifei, a cherished household name in Communist China. The appearance of the animated “Mulan” released in 1998 received a mixed reception in China. But with Ms. Liu, Disney stacked the odds in its favor.
Waiting for a break in Ms. Liu’s busy schedule meant scrapping plans to release the remake by late 2018. After the pandemic shut theaters around the world, Disney canceled plans to release “Mulan” world-wide in March. The company has rescheduled the film’s debut three times in recent months. In August, Disney said it would forgo a theatrical release in many markets like the U.S., where “Mulan” will be available only to Disney+ subscribers, starting Sept. 4, for about $30, on top of the $6.99 monthly subscription fee.
Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek told analysts during an earnings call in August that the company’s research shows that offering “Mulan” online will act “as a fairly large stimulus to sign up for Disney+.” The streaming service isn’t available in China.
Disney initially intended to hire a female Chinese director for “Mulan,” according to a person familiar with the matter, but another leading contender emerged: New Zealander Niki Caro. The director understood the gravity of the undertaking. “Chinese children are all taught the ‘Ballad of Mulan,’” Ms. Caro said in an interview on YouTube. “It’s such an honor and a thrill, and a tremendous responsibility, to bring her to life in a new way, in a new time.”
As it has with recent films like “Moana” and “Coco,” Disney wanted to deliver a movie that was culturally authentic. Unlike the 1998 film, where the cast included Western stars like Eddie Murphy, the new “Mulan” boasts an all-Chinese cast that includes stars such as Jet Li, Donnie Yen and Gong Li.
Much of the work of remaking “Mulan” began long before cameras rolled. Months of research into Chinese history guided how the film would look, said people who worked on the production. To avoid controversy and guarantee a China release, Disney shared the script with Chinese authorities while consulting with local advisers. Input from China’s film board included cautioning against focusing on a particular Chinese dynasty, according to people familiar with the matter.
In 1998, China’s government initially barred Disney from releasing the animated “Mulan”—retribution for “Kundun,” a film about the Chinese occupation of Tibet that Disney had released the previous year. After several months China allowed the animated “Mulan” to play in theaters, but it performed poorly, even by the standards of China’s then-small theatrical market. Pirated copies of the film flooded the streets and the inauspicious release date offered by the government likely also kept down ticket sales.
More important, some Chinese moviegoers rejected Disney’s animated tale because it espoused Western values like personal transformation above Chinese priorities such as commitment to family. Barry Cook, co-director of the 1998 “Mulan,” says his team wanted to tell “a story about an individual, regardless of gender.” That approach seemed fundamentally at odds with the folktale’s ethos, according to academics and other experts. “The ballad itself really emphasized Mulan’s filial piety. That’s a Confucian idea,” says Lan Dong, an English professor at the University of Illinois, Springfield, who wrote a book about the character’s legacy in China and the U.S. “The central message shifted in the [original] Disney version because it really emphasized the main character’s struggle to find herself.”
The new “Mulan” film hammers home the value of family and community. At the same time, it also nods to contemporary sensibilities about gender. Rather than Mulan’s fellow soldiers discovering she’s a woman by accident—the way Disney handled the issue in 1998—in this version, the main character demonstrates agency by deciding when and how to make the revelation.
A Chinese test audience also influenced the film, objecting to a climactic kiss between Mulan and her love interest, according to a person familiar with the matter, who said Disney removed the scene.
Many of those who spent years bringing “Mulan” to the big screen are ecstatic the film will finally see the light of day, and yet it is unclear whether its straight-to-streaming debut in the U.S. will lead to a happy ending.
“The topic of conversation around the movie is: ‘Well, what are the economics of it? What’s it say about the state of the pandemic?’” worries one person closely involved in developing the movie. “None of us made that movie.”
Source: Wall Street Journal by R.T. Watson