Disney Movie Challenge: Mulan (1998)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Mulan (1998)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

As far as the later half of the Disney Renaissance goes the movie that gets the most talked about is Mulan.  This not a princess “Princess Movie” is actually a fun action movie.  When Disney originally started developing the film it was going to be a more traditional rom-com, but someone at Disney realized it will be better if they make it more closely follow the Chinese legend of Mulan.  

The movie starts with Mulan (Ming-Na Wen) trying to fit in as the typical Chinese girl by learning all the traditional roles in hopes the Matchmaker will match her up with a good man.  But despite all she does everything goes wrong and she is told she is a dishonor to her household.  When the Huns attack China the Emperor (Pat Morita) declares that each family will send one man to fight in the army.  Mulan’s father who was injured in a previous war is the only man in the house and agrees to go to war.  Mulan doesn’t want to see her father go off to war secretly cuts her hair, steals his armor and pretends she is a man to fight in the army.  The ancestors want to send the "Great Stone Dragon" as a protector but instead of waking the dragon Mushu (Eddie Murphy), a small dragon, destroys the Stone Dragon. Mushu decides to go himself to earn the respect of the ancestors.  With Mushu's help Mulan begins training with other soldiers and tries to keep her identity a secret.  Once on the battlefield she proves herself worthy but when the troops find out she is a girl they kick her out of the army.  But when she realizes the Hun army isn’t defeated and still getting ready to attack she heads to the  Imperial City to protect the Emperor.  

For the longest time I didn’t know this was a musical.  While it technically is a music it doesn’t feel like the musicals of the early Renaissance era.  That might be because for the first time in almost 10 years the music wasn’t done by Alan Menken.  In this one the score was done by another legend Jerry Goldsmith known for movies like Patton, The Omen, Alien, and Gremlins.  There were also 5 songs in the movie and they were written by Matthew Wilder (best known for the 80’s song “Break My Stride”) with lyrics by David Zippel.  None of the songs are as memorable as previous Renaissance films, and while the score seemed to have some odd choices overall it was pretty good.  The ending song "True to Your Heart" by 98 Degrees definitely makes the film feel very 90's.

As a fan of action films this movie hit the sweet spot for me.  Great action good story, and who doesn’t love a good underdog movie. Mulan doesn’t start out as a great fighter; she trains with the rest of the recruits and learns how to become a warrior.  She proves herself worthy and we see her struggle for he success. The love story, while thin, somehow works.  My biggest complaint (and unpopular opinion) is that Mushu drags the story down.  While Eddie Murphy's energy works really well for Donkey in Shrek I find the Mushu mostly annoying and an unnecessary distraction to the story.

Overall: A fun action and adventure movie.  I feel the movie would be better without Mushu who is just annoying.  Also confused why they consider this a Princess movie since Mulan is not a princess?

Random Facts:

To help promote the film McDonald’s released a special Szechuan sauce for its Chicken McNuggets.  This became a gag in the cartoon Rick and Morty and the demand for the sauce was so great that McDonald’s released it again.  

Stephen Schwartz was originally hired to write music and songs for the movie, but after Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney for Dreamworks he hired Schwartz to write the music for Prince of Egypt.  Disney then cut ties with him and the 4 songs he wrote for Mulan were discarded.

Mulan was the first ever Disney Film to get released on DVD. The film almost got a PG rating because it used the term cross dresser. Christina Aguilera had her first hit with the song Reflection from the film.

Shakespeare in Love

After watching Shakespeare in Love I know have seen every movie that won best picture. I had seen pieces of this movie before but it was on a red eye flight from Phoenix to Boston. So between falling asleep and it being edited for content and time I didn't see the full movie. In fact after Gwenyth Paltrow won Best Actress some one said she had nude scenes and I was surprised since I it wasn't in the version I saw.  But now I have seen the official version and have now seen every movie that won best picture but my quest isn't over yet, still 12 more movies to see to see all the movies in order. 

Shakespeare in Love is a fictional telling about William Shakespeare's (Joseph Fiennes) writing of Romeo and Juliet.  As a struggling playwright he is paid in advance to write a comedy called Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter. Having writers block he begins looking for a new muse.  When he meets Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) he falls in love and finds his muse.  Viola is a huge fan of plays and disguises herself as a man so she is able to act.  Shakespeare casts her as Romeo in his play.  The problem is that Viola was promised to marry Lord Wessex (Colin Firth).  As Shakespeare continues to write the play he uses the problems they face with their relationship as inspiration for his play.  In the end instead of writing a comedy he writes a tragedy. 

Shakespeare in Love is the last romantic comedy to win Best Picture and the third romantic movie in a row to win Best Picture (after The English Patient and Titanic).  Romantic comedies are not  my favorite type of movies so I did not have high hopes for the movie.  The movie did have it's funny parts and the romance kind of worked.  Overall the movie was not bad.  Joseph Fiennes did a good job although I think his brother Ralph Fiennes is a better actor. And Gwyneth Paltrow was good but not sure she deserved the Best Actress Award.  Also while Judi Dench had some of the funniest parts her 8 minutes of screen time should not have been enough to win Best Supporting Actress.  Actually the funniest people in the movie were Geoffrey Rush and  Ben Affleck who was dating Gwyneth Paltrow at the time. 

The biggest problem I have with Shakespeare in Love was the fact that it beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture and Best Screenplay.  This has to be one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history.  No one was expecting a little romantic comedy to beat a action packed war drama.  Saving Private Ryan did win 5 Academy Awards including Best Director for Steven Spielberg which is a little surprising because usually the winner of Best Director wins Best Picture.  The other movie that had surprise wins was Life is Beautiful which won Best Actor for Roberto Benigni beating Tom Hanks for Saving Private Ryan. Benigni also became one of the firs foreign language performers to win an acting award and the second person to direct himself to a Best Actor Award (Laurence Olivier was the first to do it for Hamlet in 1948).  Beningni was also the fourth person to be nominated for Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Screenplay Orson Welles, Woody Allen and Warren Beatty were the other three. Life is Beautiful also upset Saving Private Ryan for Best Score beating favorite John Williams. 

The biggest snub of the year in my opinion was The Big Lebowski did not get any nominations specifically for writing and Jeff Bridges for Best Actor.  Other snubs was Jim Carrey for The Truman Show and even though Edward Norton was nominated for American History X it should have been nominated for Best Picture. 

Random Fact: All the movies nominated for Best Picture this year had two subject matters. Three were about WWII (Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, and Life if Beautiful) and two were about Elizabethan England (Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth).  Also the first time that two people were nominated for playing the same person in two different films. Judi Dench played Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love and Cate Blanchett played Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth (1997 was the first year that two people were nominated for playing the same person in the same film when Kate Winslet and Gloria Stewart were nominated for playing young Rose and Old Rose).