Mulan

Mulan will test the patience of the Disney Studio's millions of devotees. There is little I could find to recommend Mulan and I love Fantasia, The Lion King and Bambi along with the rest of the planet.

Mulan is an adaptation of an old Chinese story which tells of a Chinese teenage girl called Mulan who takes her crippled father's place in a compulsory conscripted army. She dresses as a boy and goes to war with the army to fight the marauding Huns.

The Disney's adaptation sees some curiously shaped eyes, more the better to look emotive compared to the oriental closed version I suppose, a jive talking little dragon spouting African American lingo, presumably added to the film to spice things up for the children who'd much rather go to racier flicks but are stuck with Mulan.

The heroine in this tale is also allowed to be assertive enough to win her man herself instead of having the arranged marriage that would have been in the original Chinese version.

Disney animated films have always been on the edge of controversy; a testament to the strength of the medium they have dominated. The conservation movement years ago had a huge shot in the arm when Bambi's mum got shot by the hunters, but Mulan bends over backwards to try to ameliorate any opposition from the masses, or from anyone.

The characters are a dusty sort of pink colour, at least the goodies. The Huns are supposed to be Mongolian I suppose but have been coloured very dark indeed. They almost look Negroid but then the smart talking African American dragon is bright pink if I remember rightly!

All this would be by the way if there were some decent songs in Mulan but there isn't even one! Mulan is politically correct to the extreme, has lousy music and is a bore as a result.