Movies in General

I think Disney's problem is that they ended up trying to please everyone and ended up pleasing no one. As you say, Tam, it's not 2009 Mulan and it's not the fun animated Mulan.

Plus they made inexplicable story choices. One critic rightly pointed out that whilst the animated film had told women they could do great things by working hard and being clever, new Mulan is "special" and her ordinary sister is happy with an arranged marriage. Is that really the message for 2020?

I happened to come across this review by a Chinese YouTuber that largely ran with the above point.


Animated Mulan told a human story about a brave girl going off to fight for her ailing father, despite the fact that she'd never trained as a warrior, learnt how to do it on the way and used her cunning rather than brute force to defeat the villain. She saved the emperor because he needed help rather than out of duty, rejected a place in the imperial court but showed she wasn't beneath him, returned to her father, who cast aside the "honour" she'd won for the family and said having her as his daughter was all the honour he'd ever wanted.

2020 Mulan is a Mary Sue (unrealistically overpowered character) who out-mans the men because she's blessed, saves the emperor because it's her "duty" and supplicates herself before him, has a really crappy reunion with her father and then is implied to accept a place in the patriarchal imperial court.

*Slow handclap*

I heard the movie is flopping in China. Nothing political, mainland Chinese think its a bad movie.


Mainland Chinese movie audiences are very sophisticated. They can smell a mile away if some Western movie is trying to patronize them for their ticket money and the one thing mainland Chinese movie audience don't like and is very sensitive about is to be patronized.

Mulan got totally trashed by this movie, which is now 2020's leading grossing blockbuster.

I thought this war movie was going to be banned in mainland China due to its KMT references. The particular unit referenced in the movie was a KMT unit.

The Eight Hundred has the biggest box office of the year so far. It's made more money than Tenet's international total.

AssassinsMace said:

The Eight Hundred has the biggest box office of the year so far. It's made more money than Tenet's international total.

Click to expand...

Already just released, this is going to be the top movie soon, and I feel might even surpass the Eight Hundred. The cinematography on the trailers are blowing me away.

Good (free) movie about Chinese women soldier better than the Disney Mulan. The Red Womens' Army (1961), about a womens' battalion during the Chinese civil war on Hainan island. An opera based on this was one of the eight classic operas of the 1960's era in China. Richard Nixon watched when it visited China in 1972. He was so impressed he wanted to know who the writers were. Jiang Qing replied, it was "made by the masses" (lol)

Apparently Zhang Yimou's next film is called "The Coldest Gun", a war film based on story of the legendary Korean War sniper Zhang Taofang. We already have a film on the Jincheng Campaign (Battle of Kumsong) coming up later this month to mark the 70th anniversary of China's entrance to the Korean War. There's another film about the Battle of Changjin (Jangjin) Lake is set for release next year.

From what I've heard there was a Korean War film set for release in 2000 on the 50th anniversary of China's entrance to the Korean War but the release was scrapped due to intense pressure from the Foreign Ministry. Glad to know that the government is finally allowing Korean War films.

Vanguard or 急先鋒 in Chinese. Not sure if the full movie is already out.

Teaser trailer for 金刚川, the upcoming (Oct 25) film to mark the 70th anniversary of China's entrance to the Korean War:


The film was announced on July 26, and had only a bit over two month to finish filming+post-production.