Mulan Live-Action Remake New Look Released

The 1998 animated Mulan is the next beloved Disney property to be getting the live-action treatment, with a new look at the film debuting below. Empire Magazine premiered the image, which is set to appear in their upcoming issue exploring a variety of movies landing in theaters this fall, which also confirmed that the new film would deviate from previous live-action remakes like The Lion King or The Jungle Book. As those adaptations honored the more family-friendly and whimsical nature of the source material, the minds behind this Mulan hopes to capture the scale of the story from a larger perspective.

“We’re thinking about how [Lawrence of Arabia director] David Lean or [Ran director Akira] Kurosawa might approach something like this,” producer Jason Reed revealed to Empire.

In the film, when the Emperor of China issues a decree that one man per family must serve in the Imperial Army to defend the country from Northern invaders, Hua Mulan, the eldest daughter of an honored warrior, steps in to take the place of her ailing father. Masquerading as a man, Hua Jun, she is tested every step of the way and must harness her inner-strength and embrace her true potential. It is an epic journey that will transform her into an honored warrior and earn her the respect of a grateful nation…and a proud father.

Mulan features a celebrated international cast that includes: Yifei Liu as Mulan; Donnie Yen as Commander Tung; Jason Scott Lee as Böri Khan; Yoson An as Cheng Honghui; with Gong Li as Xianniang and Jet Li as the Emperor. The film is directed by Niki Caro from a screenplay by Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver and Elizabeth Martin & Lauren Hynek based on the narrative poem “The Ballad of Mulan.”

Despite Disney’s strong track record, the upcoming Mulan has already earned backlash from a variety of sources. Firstly, there were reports that, with this more grounded approach to the poem, the magical dragon Mushu, originally voiced by Eddie Murphy, would be absent from the film entirely. In the months since the project was announced, these reports have yet to definitively be confirmed, as Kevin Hart was rumored to be voicing the character earlier this year.

Secondly, the emphasis on the hardships faced by the characters means the original film’s iconic songs won’t be sung by the characters, rather we’ll hear them as instrumental pieces of score. Additionally, the film has also removed the character Li Shang, whose relationship with Mulan in the original film was seen by many as romantic in nature while Mulan was impersonating a man, leading some audiences to see him as a progressive representation of the LGBTQ+ community.

Despite these potential controversies, Mulan will land in theaters on March 27, 2020.