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One of the worst aspects of the first Mulan was the presence of Mushu, Eddie Murphy’s wisecracking dragon that was an obvious attempt at recapturing the magic of Robin Williams’ genie from Aladdin, so here comes Mulan II doubling down on his presence. While he was a supporting player in the original, a major one but still technically one of her sidekicks, here he is elevated to a major player. This isn’t even the worst aspect of Mulan II, but it is endemic to its worst impulses.
Mulan II doubles down on the modern philosophies and viewpoints invading an ancient story. In this film, it manifests in the way that Mulan seeks to dismantle the arranged marriages of the three princesses and help them find true love. Arranged marriages for political purposes is a tale as old as time and trying to dismantle it because of a concept as relatively new as “true love” is a bit of historical revisionism that stands out in stark contrast to the politics and time period of the setting.
So here we have Mulan and Shang, newly engaged, escorting the three princesses (Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, Lauren Tom) with the help of her three best buds from the military (Harvey Fierstein, Gedde Watanabe, Jerry Tondo). If that three-to-three ratio seems suspiciously symmetrical, then congratulations you know exactly where the story is going. Everything fun and interesting about the original film is slowly sapped out here as the characters are twisted into unrecognizable shapes. Mulan is all about duty and honor, but here she’s freewheeling and prone to breaking promises and sidestepping the law for her own personal amusement. Who is this person?
These direct-to-video cash-ins are the worst impulses of the Disney money-making machinery in action. Why create art when you could just create something lacking in integrity or artistry and print money? Thank god these films came to a crashing halt as they diminished not only their source films, but the entirety of the Disney brand along the way.
