Mulan

Release Date: June 19, 1998

Watch Date: March 21 – March 25, 2023

 

    Somehow, Bob had never seen Mulan.

    Don’t ask me how. I’ll never understand the weird gaps in his Disney knowledge. How has one never seen Mulan? I mean he’s heard the song, everyone’s heard the song, but he’d never seen the movie, so how do you even have context for how good the song is? This man was deprived in childhood, honestly.

    So Mulan, had to be watched, had to be done, and soon, because I could no longer be married to a man who hadn’t seen the film.

    Now for all that I just said, Mulan isn’t my favorite Disney film. Not for any particular reason, it’s a very good film, but I’m more of a romantic and Mulan is definitely anything but. Also I’m not really a huge fan of Mushu, and I couldn’t give you a particular reason for that he just gets annoying about half way through the film for me and that has never ever changed.

    Mulan, however, is one of the first “Disney Princesses”, though I’m going to use that term loosely in this case, to not need a man. She’s the first one to go out and really control her destiny, and for reasons other than “I’m trapped her as a servant, or because my Dad is mean, or because I just want more”. She does it unselfishly, she wants to protect her injured father from serving in another war that he probably won’t survive. That’s bold. That’s a role model for little girls. That’s a risk worth taking, if you like your parents.

    Shan Yu has probably one of the best designs of any Disney villain, in that he is legitimately scary. You know from the moment he appears on screen that he is a bad guy. And not just a bad guy, he’s big, he’s strong, he could probably rip you in half if he wanted to. The man wipes out an entire village, an entire army, and definitely leads to more deaths than anyone other than Hades – who to be fair is the god of the underworld so he’s kind of hard to top. Shan Yu, strangely for this period is Disney history, does not have, or need, a villain song. He doesn’t need to be funny. He is intimidating. He is a real, serious threat. He appears un-killable. The guy is a badass, is what I’m saying, and I know he’s now in Bob’s top five Disney villains of all time list.

    If you are strange, like my husband, and somehow lived a life without this film in it, it’s an error I would correct as soon as possible, because it is good. It’s a Disney classic, and it’s a Disney classic from the time period where they weren’t really churning out a lot of classics, so you’ve got to appreciate it just that little bit more. Maybe you’ll fall in love like he did. Or maybe you’ll be like me, and love bits and pieces and moments of it, but not be the biggest fan of it as a whole. You’ll fall somewhere in the middle, at the very least, and your life will be richer for it.