Disney’s production line of live-action remakes are about as safe, sterile, and risk-free as blockbuster cinema can possibly be, so it was incredible to see 2020’s Mulan come perilously close to causing widespread controversy at almost every turn.
If it wasn’t the criticism being aimed in the direction of the Mouse House for hiring a writer and director of non-Chinese or Asian descent, it was fans of the animated original voicing their fury at iconic dragon sidekick Mushu being excised from the story entirely so as not to offend a nation it was believed would turn out in their droves to see the sweeping war epic.
There was even more backlash when producer Jason T. Reed admitted love interest Li Shang was removed from the new version as a direct result of the #MeToo movement, and we haven’t even mentioned star Yifei Liu causing calls for a nationwide boycott in China after she criticized the government on social media, or the credits thanking the Xinjiang province for their help in the production right when the region was making headlines for widespread reports of human rights violations.
In the end, Mulan bombed at the box office both at home and abroad, and only part the blame could be laid at the feet of the pandemic. Not even Disney Plus Premier Access revenue could stop the $200 million failure from running up a loss estimated to be as high as $150 million, while critics and crowds on Rotten Tomatoes disagreed on its quality to the tune of respective 73 and 47 percent scores.
The film’s opinion-splitting nature has yet to soften, either, with a Reddit thread blasting Mulan as the original poster’s “least favorite movie of all-time” igniting the furor all over again. There was sequel talk shortly after its release, but we’d be very surprised if it happened based on the overwhelming negativity.