Mulan is back and she’s hitting the big screen.
UPDATE (13/03): Although Mulan was due to hit UK cinemas on March 27, the release has now been delayed indefinitely due to the coronavirus outbreak. Stay tuned for updates.
If you remember watching the original Mulan, well, you’re probably slightly older than you’d like to be. A firm favourite of many millennials, Walt Disney’s original adaptation of the ancient tale was released in 1998. But now, the much-loved Mulan is making a triumphant return to our screens, and she has had quite the modern makeover.
Hitting Odeon cinemas in just a couple of weeks, director Niki Caro has slightly reimagined Mulan’s classic storyline and ramped up its scale to epic proportions. This live action remake of the movie had a casual budget of a few hundred million, so we think it’s fair to say that it’s about to be a whole lot more visually impressive than the original animation.
Mulan is based on a famous female figure of ancient Chinese history, who was first mentioned in a 6th century poem no less, and who inspires the film’s plot. When the emperor of China decreed that one man in every family must join the army to fight against the looming invasion, fearless Hua Mulan steps up to take her ill father’s place. Disguising herself as a man, she must go into battle, earn the respect of her fellow soldiers and endure an epic journey to truly discover herself and her potential.
The film unsurprisingly features an utterly star-studded cast. Legends Jet Li and Donnie Yen star respectively as The Emperor and Commander Tung, while the incredible Yifei Liu takes centre stage as Mulan. For good measure, there are also couple of new baddies on the scene as well: a shape shifting witch played by Gong Li and a Hun warlord in the form of Jason Scott Lee.
Action-packed, endlessly feel-good and with just the right amount of nail-biting intensity, the new Disney remake of Mulan is everything you would want a whopping blockbuster to be.