Notable for a number of reasons, including being the biggest-budget production to date to be directed by a woman, Niki Caro (Whale Rider / The Zookeeper’s Wife), coming in with an estimated price tag of $200m (@£144m), and also causing controversy pre-release with the comments of lead Crystal Liu Yifei (The Forbidden Kingdom / The Assassins) over the status of Hong Kong, Mulan, the latest in Disney’s live-action versions of their animated hits, suffered several delays in both production and release scheduling, being shot between August and November 2018, and tentatively set to hit cinemas in November 2019, then being changed to March 2020 due to ‘production delays’. And then along came Covid-19 and Mulan was pulled from theatrical release during the coronavirus crisis and sent to ‘premium streaming’ or PVOD, on the Disney+ channel, but it also came with a substantial price tag, an additional $29.99 / £22.50 in the US, slightly cheaper in the UK at £19.99, which with the monthly Disney+ subscription of £5.99 a month took the cost of the pic to £26 bar a couple of pee, probably acceptable for a family of three or four but not for the solo viewer.

Mostly shot in Caro’s native New Zealand, apart from a remarkably brief amount of footage, estimated at 78 seconds, actually shot in China, the film is a rather more serious retelling of the animated version from 1998, the script being aimed at a more mature audience, meaning losing the character’s small dragon guardian, Mushu, and ditching the songs, although instrumental versions of several tracks, including Reflection, I’ll Make A Man Out Of You and Honour To Us All are heard in snatches within Harry Gregson-Williams’ new score.

Running 27 minutes longer than the original, and carrying a 12A certificate rather than a PG, Caro is obviously determined to make a spectacle here, obviously not knowing at the time the medium via which most people will eventually watch this, and as The Hollywood Reporter said ‘… every last cent is visible, even on the small screen’, and for all the battles, swordplay, cavalry charges and bursts of mayhem, which very definitely distinguish it from the animation, some noted that despite its origins, Disney have essentially made another superhero origins story in another guise and period, with an ‘ordinary’ person having to adopt a secret identity in order to conquer a clearly definable evil for which they seem to be the only one capable, complete with a villain, or villainess in this case, who has deeply buried legacy reasons for being on the side of the baddies, our heroine, who also seems to have some vaguely hinted-at supernatural powers but which are never actually explained, only being accepted after extraordinary feats of bravery and courage.

Caro also has a remarkable cast, featuring a mixture of Eastern stars and character actors, including action superstar Donnie Yen, veteran Tzi Ma (Rush Hour / The Farewell), Jason Scott Lee (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story / Map Of The Human Heart), Jet Li (Fist Of Legend / The Expendables series) as the Emperor, arthouse doyen Gong Li (Red Sorghum / Raise The Red Lantern) as the witch, Xianniang, Shaw Brothers stalwart Cheng Pei-Pei (Come Drink With Me / Golden Swallow), and in a nice touch the superb Ming-Na Wen, the original voice of Mulan in the animated versions, has a generous cameo, introducing this Mulan to the Emperor.

Several critics noted that the film’s scale and scope was inevitably diminished by the circumstances of its delivery, The Chicago Sun-Times saying ‘Yes, it’s a shame that American audiences won’t be able to see Niki Caro’s spectacular live-action epic Mulan in theaters, but the good news is this is such a great-looking film, with amazing set pieces and dazzling action and colors so vibrant they would dazzle a Crayola factory, it will still play well on your home monitor’, and The Playlist finding it ti be ‘An epic coming of age journey with scale and spectacle, and rousing heart, Mulan, is a triumph and essentially boils down to a wholehearted tale of feminine resolve, proving the boys wrong and making a father proud while being true to one’s self. That sounds a little simplistic, but Caro’s movie has surprising layers, of color, contour, and shade to shape her magnificent new empowering fairy tale’. But the scribes also seemed to be divided about the necessity of the remake, The Film Stage saying ‘Interestingly, of all Disney’s recent live-action adaptations, [film] is probably the one that would have benefited most from the big screen’, and Empire believing ‘Niki Caro’s boldly reimagined, battle-laden saga belies its Disney status and spotlights the multifaceted star power of Liu Yifei. The result is a live-action remake done right’, contrasting with Movie Nation, admitting ‘I adored the animated Mulan, but the best I can say for this one is it’s pretty enough, and watchable. Whatever they market-researched and committee-scripted into this, I wanted something with more heart, better action and at least a hint of fun’ and Slashfilm, noting ‘What Mulan does suffer from is the absence of the levity that the musical elements would have brought. [Film] is serious verging on dour, so bent on presenting itself as a serious war drama that its rare moments of comedy feel almost awkwardly slotted in’. But despite praised the visuals, The Hollywood Reporter were not taken with anything else - ‘ … in theaters, the feature's epic grandeur might have provided greater distraction from its anemic characterizations, uninvolving storyline and stunted performances. […] The result is a creatively squeamish, pokily paced movie by committee that has four credited screenwriters, a slew of hackneyed Disney tropes and an enervating lack of emotional resonance. Despite all the splendor, there’s little sense of vision’.

One might be surprised that, including the Disney animated take on the tale, and their direct-to-video Mulan II (’04), this is at least the twelfth version of the story, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that such a nationalist story has been a regular subject for film versions in China and Hong Kong, beginning bizarrely with two productions both entitled Mulan Joins The Army made in 1939, one starring Liu Ming and the other Nancy Chan Wan-Seung, and being followed by such pics as The Story Of Hua Mulan (’51); yet another Mulan Joins The Army (’53); Hua Mulan, The Girl Who Went To War in ’57 and Lady General Hua Mulan (’64). through to a flurry of productions beginning with 2009’s Mulan, directed by Wei Dong and Jingle Ma, with Zhou Sun in the lead and released on DVD in the UK. Mulan - The Legend Of A Woman Warrior arrived in 2011, with Mulan Ji Qian, directed by Barbara Wong Chun-Chun, the following year. And to jump on the bandwagon, 2020 saw no less than three more - Matchless Mulan, Unparalleled Mulan, and the animated Kung Fu Mulan, and one has to consider that the entire combined budgets of all of these probably wouldn’t come to one-tenth of this Disney re-do.