Mulan from the perspective of an actual Chinese woman

A short time ago, I came across a brand new YouTube video that was made by Xiran Jay Zhao, who originally had started her channel because she was outraged and angry over the live-action "Mulan" film (which we can all agree is a disaster).

But she has also done a video on the cartoon "Mulan" and it was fascinating to see the 90s film from her perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SHC7CnmErM

She gave a fair assessment of the film, but overall, you can tell she loves it, flaws and all. Apparently other Chinese people love the cartoon as well, which is pleasing to hear :)

See, based on what she observed, it's pretty obvious that the people who made this film, versus the live-action one, really did do their homework, but they did kinda screw up in some areas. The only part that really annoyed her was the way the chopsticks were stuck into the rice bowls in the film. Apparently that's a really bad faux pas in Chinese culture to have them sticking up like that, because you only do that at funerals, whereas when you're not eating, you lay them across the bowl top. Mulan cutting her hair didn't make sense either.

She explained that in the mindset of the ancient Chinese, your body was a gift from your parents, and it was an insult to them to alter it in a dramatic way, such as cutting your hair, which is why we see many pictures of ancient Chinese people with long hair. Even the men kept it long.

But Zhao says they are minor issues that can be overlooked. She did have issues with the entire scene where Mulan has to go all the way into town to get dressed up as a bride, how they go from one building to another for different stages of dressing her, and having her go see the matchmaker alone. I'm guessing that the story-writers wanted to show how Mulan was treated like a living doll, rather than a human being, there's a brief scene where she helps a little girl who'd had her dolly stolen by mean boys, and she cleverly won some game two old men were playing with just one move.

See, apparently ancient Chinese soon-to-be brides would not actually be made up until their wedding day. Zhao said that visiting a matchmaker in that era was actually vaguely similar to visiting your realtor.

I would have to agree that Mulan worrying about uprooting her family tree is dumb, because the Fa's are already doing that with only having a daughter and no son, so the family line is finished anyway. Once Mulan got married, she would have left her family to go live with her husband's family, and her relatives would eventually get old and die off with no heirs.

Zhao loves the grandma, and wished they'd just copied and pasted the grandma into the live-action film, and I totally agree. Everyone loves how feisty and blunt the grandma was.

She agrees that one thing people love about the cartoon Mulan, is that this girl worked hard to become a hero. She had to make mistakes, get in trouble, be humiliated, get injured, and solve problems by getting creative. The comedy is also great too :D. Despite it being Eddy Murphy voicing Mushu, Chinese people liked that little dragon. And I would have to agree, him breathing fire actually doesn't make sense in Chinese mythology. Dragons in Chinese myth are water-based. But it works for this film ;)

One of the more interesting jokes I didn't even realize was done in plain sight, was that the Chinese characters drawn on the scrolls in the film, are totally random words! :o It's sooo silly, like reading a grocery list or a Chinese food menu at a restaurant! Seeing as I can't read Chinese, this was very eye-opening coming from Zhao ;)

There's more, which you can see in the video.