Mulan

This is a wonderful film by Disney, featuring everything someone might expect by a cartoon movie. The story is very good (a good adaptation of the famous Chinese tale) and the characters used are superb. The Hun's leader is fearsome enough, Mulan and the captain are great and Mushu (voiced memorably by Eddie Murphy) is the funniest cartoon character I' even watched. The soundtracks are delightful, especially 'Reflections' and 'True to your Heart'. Mulan is an excellent production, which I can watch over and over.

Being a Chinese, I know too well about the story of Mulan and its true historical background. Frankly speaking, this movie wasn't well accepted in China due to its distortion of the true story. But, this movie brought something new to the Chinese audience, it is interesting to see an Americanized Mulan. In our story, Mulan's identity as a woman kept unknown for 12 years, she had a younger brother who was too young to join the army for their father. Most important, she left home with approval from her family. In old times, the type of leaving home as shown in the movie was condamned. Anyway, Mulan is always someone we admire, so it's nice to see her wearing Japanese costume (the costume design of the movie is kinda disastrous, they reflected Japanese style instead of Chinese ancient clothing style) talking like an American.

My favourite movie EVER. Mulan makes other Disney heroines seem so --well--girlish and such. (Belle's the only one who comes close.) Not that Mulan's not beautiful, I mean..wow. She knocks down all standards of how a woman should behave, in both ancient and modern times, and she's totally unselfish. She doesn't do anything for herself, and lives with a passion that I wish I had too. It's a beautiful story. Plus as an added bonus there's great humour and an inkling of a love story. It's the epitome of a great film!