- Hey guys and welcome to Spoiler Party,
the show where we spoil your favorite movies
in the best way possible.
I'm Sam your host, and I'm more than a little bit
obsessed with Disney movies.
So when I watched Mulan for the first time
as an adult I wasn't surprised that I had more than
a few questions about what I just watched.
- Wait go back go back go back.
(laughing)
That one right there.
(heavy electronic music)
- So to get some answers for my burning questions
I invited over Buzzfeed's biggest Mulan fans.
- My favorite song is I believe, I'll Make A Man Out Of You.
Every time it comes on in the club it's like
I'm screaming it at the top of my lungs
- My favorite song is Reflection because
when she hits that high note and you're just like
where are you?
- My favorite song is A Girl Worth Fighting For.
It's just really fun to sing.
- My favorite song is the music that happens
when they're fighting the Huns.
Nanananananana.
- Yeah. - Oh yeah.
- My favorite song is Honor To Us All.
And my favorite character is the matchmaker.
- Okay let's start with a lightning round of fun fact
Mulan trivia.
We're gonna play for a prize.
This wonderful Mulan shirt.
That's pretty great, right? - I want that.
- We're gonna keep things civil,
I've got buzzers in front of you.
(buzzers dinging) - I like this.
(laughing)
- You're gonna slap the buzzer if you think
the statement I say is false.
Mushu originally had a song to introduce himself
in the movie but it got cut because Eddie Murphy
didn't really want to sing.
True or false?
(buzzer dinging)
- I heard a clicking noise.
In Joyce's direction.
(buzzer dinging)
Can we get an answer?
- Yes. - I knew it!
- It's like weird that like Mushu doesn't have
a single song in the entire thing.
- I know right? - Well you know what's crazy?
Is Mushu actually originally had three songs
but none of them made the final cut.
Second fact Mulan and Esmeralda from
The Hunchback of Notre Dame actually have the same
singing voice.
(buzzers dinging)
- Sean you go for it.
- Okay.
Lea (beep) Salonga.
- Yeah, come on, if you know anything about--
- Like if you're gonna know anything about anything.
She was Jasmine, she was in Les Miserables,
she was in Miss Saigon. - She was in Miss Saigon.
She's like Broadway queen so.
- Yeah yeah.
- I mean this question was a no.
- You're right, it's actually Jasmine from Aladdin
and Mulan that share the same singing voice, Lea Salonga.
Third fact, in Toy Story Two there's actually a Mulan
easter egg where a movie poster is hanging on the wall.
True or false?
- I feel like there probably is an easter egg in it
but I just don't know if it's Mulan.
(buzzers dinging)
- False. - I'm gonna say
false on this one.
- I'm gonna say true for this one.
- [Sam] Okay you guys ready for the answer?
- Please. - Yeah.
- It is false.
(yelling)
- Calm down a little.
- What the heck, it's a T-shirt.
(laughing) Calm down.
(laughing)
- A T-shirt that you're not getting.
- I'll go on Amazon.
(laughing)
- The Mulan poster is actually visible on camera
in Lilo and Stitch in Nani's bedroom.
- I'm very proud of us.
I feel not unlike Mulan who followed her heart.
We really saved China today. - Yes, yes.
- And finally, did you guys know
that there are some seriously famous
actors and performers in the cast?
- I don't know people's names,
I'm not gonna lie.
- I'm bad with names, even with non-celebs.
- Okay I got this.
Speaking voice of Mulan, Ming Na-Wen,
singing voice of Mulan, Lea Salonga,
Shang is played by B.D. Wong,
singing voice of Shang is Donny Osmond,
her three friends, Harvey Fierstein, Gedde Watanabe,
I forgot the name of the last one,
but that's okay I'll move on.
Soon-Tek Oh plays the dad. - How do you--
- George Takei is first ancestor.
The emperor is played by Pat Morita.
I think that was James Shigeta
who was a legendary actor who did
one of the first interracial kisses on screen.
June Foray who was Rocky from Rocky and Bullwinkle
was grandmother.
- How do you know all this?
- Sean does this during lunch.
- Yeah.
- Whenever we eat with him he pulls out his phone
and Googles things.
- It's important to know who is making the content
that you're watching.
Which is why you watch Buzzfeed.
When Mulan first came out I remember seeing
the ad on TV, I was like wait this is a Disney movie
but these people are Asian?
What the hell?
And so I ran upstairs to my mom and was just like
there are Asians in the Disney movie!
And my mom was like, well it's the wrong kind
of Asian, we're Japanese, we're not Chinese.
And I was like it doesn't matter!
And then my grandma took me to the Torrance Galleria
to see it but we were late.
So we went in-- - His memory is so vivid.
- We stepped into the theater and she was
just waking up in her tent about to like eat the food
and head off to the camp.
I remember being like real disappointed
and then my grandma was just like,
you know what, let's just stay.
So we stayed in the theater and watched that movie
one and a half times.
- I just imagine little Sean just being so excited.
- Yeah and now I'm not excited about anything.
(laughing)
- There are some fascinating fan theories
about Mulan, and one of the biggest fan theories
is that Mulan herself is the great stone dragon.
You know how Mushu's whole purpose is to ring the gong
to wake up the guardians and ancestors,
but he can't wake up the dragon.
If the stone dragon is really MIA then why does
the dragon's likeness show up in so many shots
leading up to her running away from home?
- Well maybe-- - This is a story of how
she became the stone dragon.
- Maybe it was that the stone dragon was always there
we just never knew because it never manifested.
Or the call wasn't out there at all,
it was inside of her.
- Do we think Fa Mulan is actually the great stone dragon?
- Stone dragon is meant to protect the family.
- She protected her family.
- She protected China.
- Yeah.
- Which is her family.
- Oh that's deep. - Oh dang.
I heard according to Chinese mythology
that dragons can control the weather.
Mulan actually causes an avalanche while they're fighting
and when she's getting super emotional about her dad leaving
she's sitting under the stone dragon and it's raining
while she's crying.
- That would make that movie so much cooler.
Even though it's already like my top fave.
- Sean has a thought.
- What if to flip it, the dragon represents
the traditional order of the family.
- Mm, yeah.
- And like by Mulan leaving the house
it's her upending that tradition and then with that,
the crumbling of the statue is a symbolic representation.
- I like that. - the crumbling.
- Of that tradition getting torn down.
But then her ultimately using it in a new way.
Take the dragon cannon for example, she is told to use it
in one way, but instead she uses it in a different way
and that makes all the difference and saves China.
- This is like Sparknotes symbolism hacks.
- USC communications class of 2010.
- You know.
- Fan theory number two.
Is Li Shang the first queer Disney prince?
- 100%.
- I think so.
- Oh yeah.
- You guys I haven't even done the intro and you--
- Or is he the first?
- I mean some of them could have been in the closet
we just didn't know.
- There's a lot of fan theories that Li Shang is bisexual.
Let's look at the evidence.
(laughing)
Just look at these tender moments
between Li Shang and Mulan.
Those eyes.
- Wait go back, go back, go back.
- That one right there. (laughing)
- He was like hey. - Oh damn.
- Damn okay, I see you Ping. - I'm ready for my Ping Ping.
- I'm speechless.
- Just that look. - Ping can climb that pole.
- Wait that needs to be a meme on Twitter right now.
- It will be.
(saxophone music)
- [Samn] And it would explain Li Shang's
absolute look of betrayal
when he finds out Mulan was a woman.
- My theory, when Mulan's hair was up as Ping,
whatever that's life, doing whatever she got to do.
And as soon as we find out she's a woman
her hair's automatically down.
- His hair is down, he's a woman.
Like she didn't really make that many changes, guys.
- Yeah it's like a Clark Kent thing.
Who is the Superman, no one knows, I'm wearing glasses.
- To be fair, back in the day, well in Chinese era dynasty
fighting times, all the men's hair was actually long.
So they had to put it up.
- Oh. - Oh.
Stacy with the facts.
- Stacy with the good facts.
- Quality control.
- I feel like if everyone hadn't been around,
his reaction would have been so much more different.
I feel like he had to put on a show.
- You know it's all about that toxic masculinity, you know.
- Don't get me started.
- If I was there, I'd be like mm, Shang, you just came out.
(laughing)
- Okay. - And it's okay.
- It's okay, we all gay here.
- [Sam] When Mulan sings the song Reflection,
the lyrics seem to speak specifically to the experience
of being unable to come out to one's family
and feeling tired at having pretended for so long.
♪ If I were truly to be myself ♪
- I would break my family's hear.
(snapping)
- Did you guys see that or recognize that
the first time that you saw the movie
or even times afterward?
- That's kind of like a Disney thing on the whole,
so there's actually a type of song they have
in every movie called the I Want Song,
so with like Little Mermaid it's--
♪ I want to be where the people are ♪
Elsa it's I want to be an ice queen.
It connects with the audience because we all have
something inside of us that we want to express
or we want to explore more and sometimes it's being gay.
- This became kind of like a gay anthem almost.
When the song came out a lot of people were like
oh my gosh like, that's exactly how I feel.
- But this movie is really about recognizing the limits
of gender, whether it's the matchmaker,
and like that sequence and the way that
that's holding her back from her full potential,
or Shang's like toxic masculinity holding him back
from his like accepting gender fluidity
in his ancient Chinese army.
These gender constructions are all (beep)
and we need to move beyond them.
- Also isn't it a little bit ironic that in order
to save China the rest of Li Shang's army
has to dress in drag?
So that brings us to the big question for this topic.
Is Mulan the queerest Disney movie ever?
- I think it's the gayest.
- I think it's pretty gay yeah.
- It's a gay for me.
- Sure.
- Yeah, it's pretty gay.
- So that's gays, gays, gays, across the board.
We're running out of time but I still have a lot
of unanswered questions.
I need to know how Mulan got her makeup off
in one perfect swipe.
- That's actually a really great question.
When I take my makeup off it's usually like
one swollen looking,
you know I end up looking like the matchmaker.
- Honestly I still think the makeup maneuver
is more impressive than her saving all of China.
- She's ready for the club.
(laughing)
- How does grandmother Fa not have her own spin-off movie?
- I want to see her (buzzer dinging)
as an ancestor just like wreaking havoc in the afterlife.
(laughing)
- Just chilling, living her best life, buying bikinis.
- Oh my gosh, finding a man.
- Or many men.
- She found Li Shang, she's got her man.
- That's true. - She's got her man.
- During all the training scenes it seems like there are
dozens of troops working under Li Shang, but as they move
their way to the capital city they get less and less
until there's under 10 at one point.
- They lose all the extras.
- Well what happened to all of them?
- I think they died. - They died.
- It's war, people die honey, I'm sorry.
- But this is a Disney movie.
- I didn't want to tell you.
- Well that's why they didn't die on screen.
- You know how there was like explosions in the snow
and people got buried, that was then too.
- But those are less men for Grandmother Fa to thirst after.
- Well they'll be in the afterlife for her, so.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- They be in the afterlife, don't worry.
- I got another question.
Is Mulan the most badass Disney princess?
- Um yes. - Hell yes.
- But is she technically a princess.
- No. - She's not a princess.
- She is not.
(buzzer dinging)
- For marketing purposes, she is.
- We got to sell the toys,
so she's a princess dang it.
- Pretty much.
- Okay guys, I saved the best one for last.
- Ooh? - oh.
- Are there enough scenes with Li Shang shirtless?
I'm gonna give you guys bonus points if you can guess
how many scenes he is shirtless in the movie.
The training sequence can count as multiple scenes.
- Wow. - Oh.
- Six to nine. (buzzer dinging)
- Oh we got a six nine right here.
- Why six to nine?
- I just remember that as a young girl.
- I want to say 12. (buzzer dinging)
- I want to go nine?
- I'm gonna say eight. (buzzer dinging)
- I'm gonna go 10. (buzzer dinging)
because no one has said it yet.
- Okay guys. (drumroll)
It's 14 scenes of Li Shang without his shirt on.
And you know what I'm gonna buzz in,
I still don't think that's enough.
- Can you imagine if Li Shang was an Instagram model?
You know every pic would be a thirst trap.
- Oh my gosh.
- I'd follow him on Instagram, Snapchat,
Periscope, Facebook.
- Pinterest, Myspace, LinkedIn.
He's got one Twitter account for each of his pecs, so.
- Oh man. - Stacy was closest
with 12 scenes, because Li Shang had his shirt off,
you get to put the Mulan shirt on.
- Oh my god.
- You know shout out to Sean and Selorm,
for saying how they're winners and how we're all losers.
- Calm down a little.
- What the heck, it's a T-shirt.
- A T-shirt that you're not getting.
- He knew the entire freaking IMDB list.
- Selorm, Selorm, Selorm. - I'm gonna
let you finish but.
- Stacy won the award.
- Selorm, listen they're not worth it okay.
- Okay. - They're not worth it.
- We'll go on Amazon.
- We'll take the rug.
- You know what, that's why I'm eating my damn snack
because I'm sick of this.
- You're not getting your money back on that rug.
- We're taking the rug.
- You know right now you're not getting this back.
- Because of this injustice.
(laughing)
- I'm going to Disneyland. - Yes!
- Okay guys, thank you so much for joining us,
this has been Spoiler Party Mulan Edition.
Make sure to tell us in the comments below
which movie you want us to spoil next
and subscribe to our channel.
(gentle electronic music)