The Return of Honour to Walt Disney Studios
As the 90s were coming to a close, Disney was desperately trying to turn the tide on the continual box office decline of its animated films. After the major success of the Lion King, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, each subsequent film had failed to beat or even match the box office results of its predecessor. Meanwhile, their compatriots at Pixar had been breaking new ground with 3D computer animation, so the days of traditional animation were numbered.
But Disney wasn’t quite done yet, in fact its determination continued, to craft animated features of high artistry that would hopefully also make the same kind of money as the films of the early 90s. So for their next animated film, Disney chose a setting that the studio had never dared touch, starring an ethnicity that had been previously very poorly portrayed. Ambitious was putting it lightly. In late ’93, the studio started searching for Asian legends which could lend themselves to animated dramatisation. At that point, Disney was looking to expand the subject matter of animated films outside of the European folk and fairy tales they’d been crafting for the last seventy years. So they set their sights on finding their first Asian hero or heroine.
The studio was currently in pre - production work on a straight to video film called China Doll about an oppressed young Chinese girl who falls in love with a British man who whisks her away to live in London. Around the same time, the studio had optioned several books by children’s author Robert D. San Souci. Both project languished in development for a while, and then Feature Animation President Thomas Schumacher asked Souci if he knew of any other Asian stories that might work as animated films.
THE STORY
In the 3rd century A.D, in Imperial China, a smart, resourceful young woman named Fa Mulan lives on a farm with her parents and grandmother. She gets up a little later than she was supposed to and brings three prescribed cups of tea to her father, Fa Zhou, who is in the family temple praying to the Ancestors for luck when Mulan meets the Matchmaker. Then she rides into town and meets her mother and grandmother who prepare her for the meeting. She is bathed, dressed, made up, and looking STUNNING. Unfortunately, the meeting is an unqualified disaster and she goes home disgraced. Just after she recieves a subtle lesson in late blooming from her father, three men from the Imperial City ride into their village with news that the Huns have invaded China through the northern border. So, by command of the Emperor, one man from every family must serve in the Imperial Army. Sadly Fa Zhou is called, despite the fact that he has already seen his fair share of war and is not only getting on a bit, but also has a leg wound from the last time he went to war, as is evidenced by Mulan witnessing his sword fighting practises later that night. So, determined to save his life, and in one of the best scenes in the film, Mulan cuts her hair, dresses in her father’s armour and rides off to the army camp while the family sleeps. Too late, they wake up and discover what has happened, and they can’t go after her because they know that if she is revealed as a woman impersonating a soldier, the penalty is death. So, they merely pray to the Ancestors not to fail Mulan this time.
*****************
Disney CEO Eisner had little faith in this project, with the studio focusing more on Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules. Those two titles were seen to be more viable commercially, with the animation department at Burbank dedicated to both. However, luckily, Eisner ended up approving the pitch and instead called on the animation studio in Florida to make it. The story team were tring to to adapt Souci’s original idea into a rough screenplay, which initially and essentially ignored the roots of the Chinese poem. In the first draft of the script, the story was concieved more as a rom com, with tomboy Mulan betrothed to a man she had never met and after a fiery confrontation with her father, Mulan disguises herself as a man and flees the family home to make her own destiny echoing similarites to the Little Mermaid, exept done properly.
For the lead role, the production team were determined to cast an Asian actress, especially after the backlash they recieved for the whitewashed voice cast of Aladdin. Directors Barry Cook and Tony Bancroft auditioned dozens of Chines, Japanese, Filipino and Korean actresses, initially casting Filipino - born Lea Salonga, but soon realising she couldn’t master lowering her voice for the scenes in which Mulan had disguised herself as a man. Producer Pam Coates soon suggested Ming - Na Wen after noting her voiceover work for the opening of the Joy Luck Club. In her audition Wen was able to capture both Mulan’s feminine voice and her disguised masculine alter ego with amazing precision and was offered the part. But she wasn’t a trained singer, so once again Lea Salonga was asked to provide the singing voice, continuing a growing tradition of one character being voiced by two people.
For the role of Mushu, Schumacher encouraged the team to seek out another huge Hollywood comedian to echo the success of, and reflect the cheap, cynical lessons learned from, casting Robin Williams as the Genie. Coats approached Eddie Murphy, who was transitioning from adult comedies to more family - friendly films. Murphy was interested, but he initially balked at the idea of relocating to Florida to record his lines. So to appease him, the team allowed him to record all his dialogue from his New Jersey mansion basement.
Despite the desire to cast Asian performers in the lead role, the rest of the cast was dotted with Caucasian actors. Captain Li - Shang was voiced by Asian - American B.D. Wong, but his singing voice was provided by Donny Osmond. And while several supporting roles were played by Asian - American actors like Gedde Watanabe, Jerry Tondo, James Hong, George Takei and Pat Morita, the film’s antagonist Shan Yu was voiced by Puerto Rican actor Miguel Ferrer. To say nothing of the short, excitable Yao being voiced by America’s most famous drag queen, Harvey Fierstein.
MY VERDICT
It’s hard to truly quantify the groundbreaking stature of Mulan. She’s the first Asian lead in Disney history, so already a landmark moment in representation for a people often ignored, even today. It wasn’t exactly the beginning of a wave of change, but it was an authentic portrayal of an Asian character from a studio which, the last time they put an Asian character in a film, was borderline racist. This is still definitely an Asian fable from an American viewpoint, but the production team clearly tried to make it as authentic as they could. Whether it worked, I cannot say, but as a piece of Disney animation, it remains one of the most unique films they have ever done. For me, the songs and music are mostly terrific, the animation is gorgeous and the voice cast is, if not entirely culturally representative or accurate, at least works in the ways the character were written.
Is Mulan a Disney Classic? It didn’t break any records or win any Oscars, but it is still one of the most inspired projects in Disney history. This is an underrated Disney Classic well worth anyone’s time.
No comments:
Post a Comment