>> Crazy Nate: Alright, have a seat. We need to talk about another movie that Disney decided
to remake into a live action film. In today’s episode I’m going to be calling this one,
What the Mushu?
>> Mushu: Hello?! Hello! Hello! oh no!
(Intro music plays)
You missed! How could you Miss? He was 3 feet in front of you.
>> Crazy Nate: So Niki Caro the director decided to go with a movie that was a little bit more
to the spirit of China, but ended up with a story that more resembles more of the statue
of the broken phoenix over there.
First of all, Disney’s original Mulan took place in 1998 and the new live action Mulan
is obviously in 2020, which is probably part of the problem. and both inspired by an Ancient
Chinese Poem. and in the poem when Mulan returned from war she had a little brother. Everybody
say little brother.
>> Mulan: Little brother!
>> Crazy Nate: In the original Mulan she didn’t have a little brother but she did have a dog,
and paying tribute to the poem, if you remember the dogs name, was Little Brother.
I also find it interesting that in the poem Mulan had a sibling, but in 1998’s Mulan,
she didn’t have a sibling. And also, in 1998 ironically enough, it was illegal for
most Chinese people to have a little sibling, that's right, no more than one child for most
families. Then we fast forward to 2020’s version of Mulan and guess what. She has a
sibling. But here’s the crazy thing. In 2015 China actually changed their rules where
now you can have two children.
>> Bernard "Bernie" Kropp: Coincidence, I think not.
>> Crazy Nate: In the poem Mulan spends a decade with soldiers and they didn’t even
know that she was a girl.
>> Chi-Fu: A woman!
>> Crazy Nate: A woman! The poem actually parallels this situation referencing to two
rabbits. In the poem it says The he-hare’s feet go hop and skip, and the she-hares eyes
are muddled and fuddled. Two hares running side by side close to the ground. How can
they tell if I'm he or she. It's a gender reveal party. Yeah! *cough
So in the new Mulan that’s why in the beginning we see Mulan riding her horse next to two
little rabbits. Scurrying across the floor.
There's several times the live action Mulan where they paid respects to the original animation.
For instance the hair comb, that was obviously so important to Mulan in her Journey, and
her identity, so they brought it into this movie.
If you watched the movie you probably remember when all the army reserves are building muscle
and endurance by carrying water up a hill at one point though we all run back down the
hill to take a little bit of a water break.
>> Robert Boucher, Jr.: Now that's what I call high quality H2O.
>> Crazy Nate: And maybe that little algae spot over there is a hidden mickey. Chances
are they actually made that water trough for the movie, I highly doubt that that was just
sitting in the middle of nowhere. But don't worry, that’s not why we’re here. If you
notice, they're also playing a little game where all the soldiers are weaker than Mulan
and she’s the only soldier with wisdom. You may be asking but Crazy Nate how is this
even possible? They’re all just drinking water, right? So then how does this scene
show her superiority? Because this is straight up a copy of a story of an Ancient Military
leader named Gideon who picked his favorite soldiers based on how they drank water. If
they drank like a dog face in the water they weren’t considered very good soldiers, only
the ones that kept their heads up and alert for enemies were the ones that were strong
enough and brave enough to go off to war. But my question is this though, if this just
a random water trough in the middle of nowhere for cattle. Then where in tar nation did she
get the spoon to be drinking out of in the first place?
One thing a lot of people complained about with this new Mulan is the lack of songs and
no comedic relief with Mushu.
>> Mushu: One chance. Is that too much to ask? I mean it's not like it would kill you.
>> Crazy Nate: As far as Mushu goes, it's true and it's sad that there is no comedic
relief in this movie, unless of course you count the way they run up walls or slide along
the walls as comedic relief, then it does have comedic relief.
>> Mushu: I kill myself.
>> Crazy Nate: But in my pinion, Mushu is the greatest failure of the movie. I mean
with Aladdin we had to put up with Will Smith as Genie, and yeah he did a good job, but
no one can fill the shoes of Robin Williams but he was no longer with us so Disney didn't
have a choice.
But here, Disney has a rare opportunity to go and get the same exact voice for Mushu
to reprise the role of Mushu.
>> Mushu: I live!
>> Crazy Nate: But instead, they chose to dishonor the movie and throw some random hawk
in there and then throw a random Phoenix in there that has nothing to do with the story!
Dishonor!
Besides the money issue. Another weird thing is that this weird witch bird lad, she makes
no sense and she tells Mulan
>> Xian Lang: Then you will die pretending to be something you are not.
>> Crazy Nate: But here's the thing, the fact that she pretended to be who she isn’t literally
saved her life. Because if she wasn’t pretending to be someone else she would be dead right
now. See this guy? He died from a throwing star, because he's just a guy and not pretending
to be a guy, so he doesn't have layers of leather protecting him and his vital organs
while simultaneously making him look different.
>> Grandmother Fa: This cricket's a lucky one!
>> Crazy Nate: If I was the shot caller, I would rather see them bring back Cricket than
just some random bird that does nothing to push the story along. But to give a shout
out to Cricket they did name this guy over here Cri-kee.
>> Cri-kee: I'm Cri-Kee. My mother says I was born under an auspicious moon, that is
why my mother says I'm a good luck charm.
>> Crazy Nate: We also got a cameo from the original Disney Princess from Mulan 1998.
This lady right here is Ming-Na Wen and she was the original voice in Mulan.
>> Esteemed Guest: You're Imperial Highness Fa Mulan.
>> Crazy Nate: A famous actor worth mentioning is who played the Emperor, he was non other
than the famous Jet Li. And apparently just to mud up the story a little bit more they
made him have magic powers as well. Just like Mulan, everyone get’s magic powers here.
No one is just a normal person that just worked hard to become exceptionally talented, like
we got in the original Mulan.
Even though this film didn’t have a lot of singing. Or any singing for that matter.
Because we're going for realism here... realism… they did play a few musical pieces that were
basically some of the classics from the original just more realized, realizim ized. And Commander
Tung even said one of the lyrics to one of the originals.
>> Commander Tung: We're going to make men out of every single one of you.
>> Li Shang: Mr. I'll make a man out of you.
>> Crazy Nate: They also have that conversation about a girl worth fighting for they just
didn't sing it.
>> Ping: How bout a girl who's got a brain, who always speaks her mind.
>> Group: Nah.
>> Crazy Nate: But I’m sure everyone loved the song more than the boring conversation
that we had to watch.
>> Hua Jun: My ideal woman is courageous.
>> Ling: A courageous woman?
>> Hau Jun: Yes
>> Ling: Now comes the part where we throw our heads back and laugh, ready?
>> Group: Ready!
(Everyone laughs)
>> Crazy Nate: and the scene with the soldiers in training carrying up a bunch of pales of
water to the top of the hill. If you go to Netflix you can find a really old movie called
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. In that interesting movie you're going to find a very familiar
scene where the warriors were carrying buckets of water to the top of the hill. The only
difference is that they had knifes strapped to their side so if they lowered their arms
a little bit they would be poking themselves and bleeding out Kool-Aid.
Anyways, we see young Mulan in the beginning of the movie running around trying to corral
a chicken back into its pin. Obviously this is similar to how we first saw the first Mulan
in Disney's original. However this also foreshadows how Mulan will hunt down the bad guy at the
very end. But none the less he’s a chicken on a roof, and Mulan’s chasing the chicken
on the roof.
>> Mushu: Chicken boy?!
>> Crazy Nate: Even though this is a movie about China, and it was made with 200 million
dollars most of it was actually filmed in New Zealand, why couldn't they film it in
China, China?
I think there's a lesson that we can all learn from this film. Disney has made many remakes
now of originals and most people think most of them are trash.
>> Forky: Trash?
>> Crazy Nate: That’s because cartoon films allow our imagination to escape into a whole
new world.
(sings: A whole new world)
>> Timon: very nice.
>> Crazy Nate: and when they make that into a live action remake we all have our own views
of what that should look like, and none of them are the same ideas of what actually is
made, so it’s destined to fail before it even gets off the ground. Some people want
our favorite characters like Mushu, while some people want it to be completely real
and nothing fake, and then some people are just watching comparing scene vs scene, cartoon
vs real, cartoon vs real.
There's a famous old saying that sums this up, if you try to please everyone, you'll
end up pleasing no one.
My personal hope is that Disney stops recycling old ideas, that were great ideas and still
are but not to be devalued by making a remake to destroy that view that we have in the original.
But I would hope that in Disney’s near future they take a chance with new stories, and if
we want more new stories we have to watch those new stories that they do create and
encourage them when they do try to make new stories. If you enjoyed the movie I’m glad
that you enjoyed it, I hope someone enjoyed it. That's not what I'm trying to do here.
I just have to be honest with you about how I feel about the movie, and the next time
I plan on watching Mulan I will be watching the real one, the 1998 one. And on a side
note it was made with less than half the budget of this one.
>> Mushu: Oh, nice.
>> Crazy Nate: That’s the end of my story today, thank you to all the members for your
support, and to everyone that watched this far I appreciate it, click that like button.
Also, I hid codes in this video so you can get your own brand new Disney Blu-Ray or DVD's
for Christmas as a gift from me for free for being one of the early viewers and being dedicated
to the show all the way to the end
>> The Emperor of China: You have saved us all.
>> Crazy Nate: So hopefully you find one of the codes, just screenshot the code type in
the code at CrazyNate.com, when you buy one of the DVD's and it will make it free. If
you're late to the party and all the codes have been used already maybe you should consider
clicking that bell so that way you're early to the videos and you can get your hands on
the next future give aways. Let me know what your favorite movie is and maybe next time
we'll be talking about it, and you'll get a shout out in the process, and until our
next adventure, remember Gents and Gentlets, share a smile, they are contagious.
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