After some mixed reactions to the “first look” back in July, Disney has released the first proper trailer for its live action remake of Mulan. There’s still no Mushu (understandably), and they still don’t seem to have taken our soundtrack tips (less understandably), but the whole thing looks… stirring.
Our main takeaways here: Gong Li looks phenomenal in this role; it really seems like the geography of this is all over the place (but it looks beautiful so…); and was that a flying phoenix at one point?
Liu Yifei, who plays the title character, reposted the trailer to her account on microblogging platform Weibo under the words “My name is Hua Mulan, I will bring honor to us all,” resulting in thousands of likes within a few hours.
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The trailer also suggests there’ll be a few nods to Disney’s animated original along the way. For one thing, there’s a line about “making men” out of the army recruits, for another there’s footage of Mulan hopping over rooftops. In addition there’s a shot of Mulan’s reflection in the blade of her father’s sword (as an orchestral version of the song “Reflections” swells) — something which is referenced in the Chen Man-photographed poster too.
Although some Chinese netizens initially bemoaned the choice of Liu as lead for Mulan, the majority of comments under Disney’s post of the trailer have been overwhelmingly positive so far. How the movie will go down internationally remains to be seen however, especially given Liu’s posting of a pro-police meme related to the Hong Kong protests.
Directed by Niki Caro and also starring Jet Li and Donnie Yen, Mulan is due out on March 27 2020.
