For all its groundbreaking aspects, there are some pretty problematic things in Mulan,
not that you would notice any of them as a kid.
Here are some things only adults would notice when watching Mulan.
When it comes to movies, Disney has typically been more focused on telling an entertaining
story than being factually accurate, so historical inaccuracies should be expected.
While it's easy to let a lot of these errors slide, the bad guys in Mulan are pretty hard
to ignore.
"Nice work, gentlemen.
You've found the Hun army."
Historians agree that the Hunnic empire reached its height under the most famous Hun, Attila,
whose life would have overlapped with Mulan's.
There's just one problem, though: even at its largest, Attilla's territory stopped 3,000
miles away from where Mulan takes place, and his efforts to conquer land were focused mostly
toward Europe, not China.
Disney is infamous for altering the source material that their films are based on.
Often, it's to make the stories more appropriate for younger audiences.
In the case of Mulan, her legend becomes a lot less epic.
In both the original story and its various retellings, Mulan did volunteer herself in
order to save her father.
In the legend, however, Mulan was never raised to be a docile wife.
Instead, her father trained her in martial arts from childhood, and she became an expert
in military strategy.
"My little baby, off to destroy people."
Unlike in the film, Mulan's parents knew what she planned to do and eventually supported
her.
She ended up staying in the army for 12 years and was highly honored at the end of the war.
It's still an interesting story, but not quite as dramatic as Disney made it look.
It seems pretty strange that the Fa family only has one child.
Judging from their home and the vast expanse of their property, the Fa family is probably
fairly well off and could afford to have another one.
The absence of more children is especially strange, given the long-held preference for
male children in Chinese culture.
"Little brother!
Little brother!"
Even if we were to assume that Mulan's mother couldn't have any more children, it would
have been common at the time for a man to have relationships with concubines, not that
Disney wants its audience thinking about that.
Had the Fa family had a son, there would have been someone to take the place of Mulan's
father.
Fireworks may have been developed in China, but at the time that Mulan would have lived,
military rockets hadn't yet been invented.
That wouldn't happen for some time.
While 10th century Chinese fighters did have access to crude bombs, and sometimes attached
firecrackers to arrows on the battlefield, they wouldn't learn how to fire full-on explosive
projectiles until two centuries later, meaning that Mulan and the Chinese army would most
likely have fought the enemy with arrows, swords, or hand-to-hand combat.
For a movie that's meant to show how a woman can do anything a man can do, it seems pretty
strange that Mulan doesn't question traditional gender roles at any point.
When she is sent to the matchmaker, she genuinely tries to conform to the feminine ideal and
feels like she has failed her family when she doesn't.
"You may look like a bride, but you will never bring your family honor."
Even when she joins the army, it's because she wants to save her father, not because
she believes that she is equal to a man.
Women in ancient China were generally treated as inferior and were typically expected to
be subservient to men.
While Mulan does eventually rebel against these gender roles, she never actually questions
them, which takes a little bit of the radical edge off of what otherwise feels like a pretty
progressive film.
Mulan thankfully doesn't end with Mulan and Shang falling in love and living happily ever
after, but their eventual romance is heavily hinted at by the time the credits roll.
If Mulan had truly evolved into a strong, independent woman, she would have sent Shang
packing instead of asking him to stay for dinner.
At the very least, Mulan should have demanded an apology for Shang's despicable behavior.
When you look at it too closely, the fact that she lets him off the hook so easily is
a disappointing way to end the film.
But it's not anywhere near as disappointing as Mulan II.
"Shang, the problem isn't as bad as it seems."
"The problem, Mulan, is you!"
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