I got quite excited when I heard of this re-adaption of the Chinese folk tale Mulan, having always loved Disney's version for unexplainable reasons. (Not being a Disney fan in any sense).
I'm very much left at a crossroads after watching the piece. Well worth giving it a go to draw your own opinions because the film is brilliant yet at the same time flawed throughout.
Having the feel of many recent Romance of the Three Kingdoms historical epics that have been popping up regularly from the fantastic new generation of Chinese cinema, Hua Mulan is fast paced, uplifting and in a narrative sense very well strung together. Unlike many of its' counterparts we don't have the long and often drawn out political segments we found throughout the Red Cliff films (Absolute wonders in their own right).
The evident flaws popping up in the casting of Hua Mulan herself and the balance between the story of a solider and that of romance wasn't really able to find a true sense of equilibrium, I felt slightly discontented by the conclusion but Hua Mulan is not a film to disregard from the above remarks. A film well worth watching, putting a blunt and more practical spin on the story of Mulan; placing the tale within an Era of Chinese antiquity that easily rivals that of King Arthur or Julius Ceaser.
