Why Huns

The song writers couldn't come up with a word that rhymed with Mongols or Mongolians


Let's get down to business, to defeat, the Mongols
Did they send me daughters, when I asked, for...bulls

Let's get down to business, to defeat, the Mongolians


I got nothing

I think they're loosely based on the Xiong Nu, who were the nomadic people that inspired the Great Wall of China, and may have been related to the Huns that later caused the Romans so many problems. The Mongols were almost a thousand years later.

But whether they're Xiong Nu, Hun, Mongols or Manchu, they're all get lumped together when discussing invaders from the steppes of Central Asia. They probably drew them like the Mongols because we have many examples of their armor and weapons, but not many drawings of what the Huns looked like. No one even really knows what Attila looked like.

"Let's go kick some Hunny Bun!" - Mushu

Im no expert on history, especially Chinese, but I'm sure the Huns never invaded China

While on the topic of this film not representating Chinese history well, I'd also like to bring up that China's not exactly known for having little talking dragons, either. It's strictly fiction, so just relax and enjoy the movie.



"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf

http://www.answers.com/Q/Did_the_huns_attack_the_great_wall_of_china

You are right that the Huns never attacked China, however, can't answer why Disney chose them as the villain.

Several reasons:

1. As others have noted, "Huns" scans better than "Xiongnu" in the songs and rhymes with many more English words as well. In the Chinese dub of this movie (featuring Jackie Chan as Shang), they had no trouble with calling the barbarian hordes the Xiongnu.

2. The Huns don't have a lawsuit-happy anti-defamation group to take issue with the barbarians' rather bestial appearance in this movie.

3. They also didn't have much written history; the Huns didn't keep records. Therefore, Disney couldn't possibly contradict the Huns' histories no matter how it portrayed them.

4. Here in the West, most modern nations arose from Rome's collapse, and the barbarians everyone remembers for having brought about that collapse are the Huns. Not many have ever heard of the Xiongnu. Evil barbaric hordes with a familiar name equals more immediate accessibility for the target audience.

5. Who cares? Not the overwhelming majority of the kids in Disney's target audience, that's for sure. Not many of those kids' parents either. Eastern history professors might complain about all the liberties Disney took with China's history, but how many of them are buying tickets to these movies?

6. If the Chinese care so much about historical accuracy, they can make their own friggin' Mulan movie; which they did, in fact: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1308138/

It is believed that the Huns came from the same group of people (known to the Chinese as "Xiongnu") that would eventually become the Mongolian people and culture. After the Xiongnu were defeated by the Chinese, it is believed the Huns broke off from this group and migrated west over generations until they ran into the Roman Empire.

It is correct that the Chinese would never refer to the Huns as Huns. This is a Roman and Western term for Eurasian nomadic horse tribes during what is referred to in Western culture as "the Barbarian Invasions". At the time the movie is suppose to take place they were called Xiongnu translated to "howling slave" by the Chinese. Since this is an American film made for Americans, I believed they changed it to Huns so that American and Western audiences could relate to it better. They could have just called them Mongols but a lot of history buffs would be complaining that while they are the ancestors of Mongols they weren't yet Mongols. That is what I think might be playing out here.