Filmmaker Niki Caro remade the animated Disney film Mulan to be more modern and live-action, which was released via Disney Plus Premier Access on Sept. 4. 

Mulan is based on an ancient Chinese folk story, and Niki Caro brought the tale of china’s legendary leader warrior to life. through live-action story telling and creating more realistic scenarios than what is in the original animated 1998 version.

According to Forbes.com, “the movie on its debut made 36.2 million dollars in the first 10 days and as of now it has made 200 million in the United States.”

Ammon resident Lorena Murillo, who hasn’t seen the movie, said, “Well because this movie took 200 million to make I expect to see that reflected on the movie and I want to see a lot of action and have it show the Chinese culture.” Because Murillo hasn’t seen the movie yet, she said “I don’t want to base my comment on other people’s opinions, but I feel like Disney not basing the animated movie on the Chinese folk story has ruined us to believe in this fantasy story that we all grew up with; yes I understand it’s the magical world of Disney, but the fact that a lot of the characters weren’t based on the actual story makes us think that this new movie could be a completely different story.”

Madi Cook,  a sophomore at Thunder Ridge, who has seen the remade version had a different reaction. “I didn’t expect it to be good… It went beyond my expectations, and I didn’t think it would be good because they took out a lot of parts from the animated Mulan, the original one.” 

Cook was thinking about the movie she’s known as a child as compared to the recently released version and said, “They didn’t put Mushu, a little dragon that was sent to protect Mulan in the original, and Li Shang, the man that Mulan fell in love with, so that was a bit upsetting.”

So some may still want the elements in the original animated version, but the new movie can still overcome those expectations. Although it’s different from the animated film, Mulan looks like it’s a movie worth watching. And with this pandemic, what else would anyone be doing?

**Image courtesy of Wikipedia.org