New ‘Mulan’ movie in the works from China

After the lukewarm response to Disney’s Mulan this year, China has announced that there will be a new movie featuring the female warrior Mulan. Directed by female director Xia Wen, Yang Ning will play the titular warrior Mulan.

Mulan began filming on August 31 and it is set to be released on October 5 2021. In 2009, China had previously released an action film on Mulan featuring popular Chinese actress Zhao Wei.

This year’s Disney’s live-action version did not do well in China after its premiere in September, with filmgoers giving low ratings and criticising it for its nonsensical plot, cultural inaccuracies, and bad acting.

According to Fight Mulan’s Baidu page, filming for the movie had started on 31 August 2020, and as with the legend of Mulan, will tell the story of Mulan who cross-dressed as a man to replace her father in the Chinese army. Due to an injury, her secret was revealed, though her story doesn’t end there.

Here is a translation of the film’s synopsis on Baidu,

“During the reign of Emperor Taiwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Rouran Khan (played by Du Yuming) leads 60,000 Rouran cavalries to invade the Northern Wei Dynasty to slaughter and loot the people there. Hua Mulan (played by Yang Ning) joins the army in place of her father to participate in the battle of against the Rouran in the Northern Wei Dynasty.

Mulan, who wins many battles in the army, is named General Dingyuan and fights alongside King of Pingyang, Chang Sunhan (played by Zong Muyi). Because of a strategic error, Hua Mulan ends up injured, exposing her identity as a woman and resulting in her having to leave the barracks. When she returns home, she finds that Rouran had sent people to hunt down Mulan and used the villagers as hostage. At this time, Mulan steps forward to protect the villagers.

While being escorted by the Rouran, Hua Mulan looks for an opportunity to escape, only to fall into the Devil City, where she meets the leader of the tribe, Ai Na (played by Gu Li Mi Re), who had been oppressed for a long time. With a common enemy and a mood of revenge, Mulan rekindles her fighting spirit and returns to the base camp and joins Changsun Han and others to together defeat the Rouran army.”