Thread by @originalspin

OK so I got it off my chest in the podcast to come this week, but here’s my take for how I’d have made #Mulan the remake we deserved.

First: Cast a big woman. 6‘, cut like jade, looks like she was born to fight. Liu Yifei handles herself fine, but this ain’t a princess movie.

Disney clearly didn’t want to make a straight comedy—this is a war movie, action/drama—so lean into it. Give us a Mulan who’s “different” not because she’s a pixie tomboy scamp, but because she’s bigger than the boys in the village, and can kick all their asses in an even fight.

Her dad approves of his heroic daughter and teaches her to fight. Her mom does not. We’ll make Mulan’s younger sister a mama’s girl and her petite, girlish rival—Sansa to her Arya. The two fight and mock each other, but when the chips are down, they have each other’s backs.

When her dad aggravates his old war wound and Mulan decides to take his place, it’s her sister who helps her get away, telling her to find where she’s fated to be.

Mulan fits right into the army—despite discomfort in hiding her gender. Her size and strength make her a champion.

But she finds feelings stirring for a fellow soldier, who sees her only as a rival, and grows uncomfortable at her attention—leading her to blurt out to him that she’s a woman. That makes things worse; she’s bullied out of the military and sent home to her skirts and embroidery.

It’s then that she encounters the witch—think Asia the Invincible. Female androgynous, seductive, she explains to Mulan that there is no place for women like them who are not women in men’s eyes, nor equal to men in their society; that the world must burn for the Phoenix to rise.

When the witch says she intends to destroy this patriarchal empire, Mulan fights her, and almost dies. She manages to crawl off to the forest and teach herself a new way of fighting, inspired by the the Phoenix and how it rises from death. (Training montage!)

It is then that we learn that the witch has raised an army behind the Khagan, whom she is manipulating as her puppet, knowing the clans would not follow a woman. She seeks to overthrow the weak Wei emperor, who is guided and protected by the Dowager Empress, his grandmother.

Mulan saves her fellow soldiers from ambush using her new technique, and trains them in it before leading them to foil the witch’s plans.

The witch takes the imperial palace and is about to kill the emperor when the Dowager, essentially an older version of herself, thwarts her.

Mulan’s rival takes on the Khagan and her unit battles the banner men, as she manages to penetrate to the inner court and confronts the two older women. Both offer her power and wealth if she takes their side.

But then the emperor springs a trap he has set for all three of them.

He wishes to rid his kingdom of meddling women for good—his grandma included. Still she sacrifices herself to save him, and is wounded as the witch fights back. The emperor attempts to kill the witch but dies in his own trap. The witch prepares to flee—and asks Mulan to join her.

Torn, Mulan decides she must stay. The witch flies off as a hawk. When her rival and unit burst in, Mulan and the Dowager explain what happened. Though she had no intent to do so, the Dowager agrees to take the throne until the emperor’s only offspring—a baby girl—comes of age.

Mulan becomes a general, and the great protector of the realm—the first kingdom to have power pass from a woman to a woman. And while at the end there’s intimation she and her rival have become a couple, we also see her welcome a hawk to her windowsill as the night grows dark....

I think this’d be a Mulan that lives up to the original legend and reinvents the animated classic for a contemporary era. I didn’t dislike the one they made as much as some have, but the wasted opportunities hurt.

And I think my take would’ve done well in the US AND in China.

Also hell, we deserve at least one Mulan that centers women and shoves all the guys off to the side.