Mulan (1998)

Mulan earns her happy ending, and the film does too, mostly. What strikes me every time I come back to this one is how quietly confident it is in what it's doing. This isn't a Disney film about finding your prince. It's about finding yourself, proving yourself, and doing it on your own terms. That distinction matters, and the film knows it.

There's real ambition here. Duty, identity, a young woman who refuses to let tradition define the limits of what she can be. These aren't lightweight ideas, and for a studio-animated family film from the late nineties, it's genuinely striking how seriously Mulan takes them. She doesn't wait to be rescued. She does the rescuing. And when respect finally comes her way, she's earned every bit of it. That's a better message than a good chunk of the Disney back catalogue manages, and the film delivers it without ever feeling preachy.

The animation is where it really distinguishes itself from its contemporaries. The battle sequences are thrillingly staged, and the sweeping Chinese landscapes give the whole thing a visual identity that feels considered and distinct. There's a care in the use of colour and traditional motifs that sets it apart. It's not trying to be another European fairy tale dressed up in different clothes. It has its own look, its own feel. I've written before about how Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998) impressed me by building a genuinely distinctive visual world rooted in its source culture, and Mulan deserves similar credit on that front.

The music won't go down as the most stacked Disney soundtrack, but it doesn't need to be. "I'll Make a Man Out of You" is both properly funny and genuinely rousing, the kind of song that works on multiple levels at once. And "Reflection" is better than people sometimes give it credit for. Sung with real quiet strength, it does the emotional heavy lifting that the story needs early on, grounding everything that follows.

Now, here's where I have to be honest. There are things that hold it back from being truly great, and I think I feel them more than my girlfriend does. She loves this film unreservedly, and I completely understand why. But I can't quite get there all the way myself.

Mushu is the main culprit. Some of his comedy lands, but a fair amount of it has aged awkwardly, and the broader, more frantic moments have a habit of puncturing scenes that genuinely deserve more weight. It's a tonal problem, and it's one the film never fully resolves. The other issue is Mulan herself. She's a compelling character, no question, but the script doesn't always give her internal life the room it deserves. The themes are right there, identity, expectation, the gap between who you are and who the world thinks you should be, but the film occasionally skims across the surface when it could be going deeper. You feel the potential of what it might have been.

None of that makes it a bad film. Far from it. It moves well, it balances humour and action and emotion with more skill than it sometimes gets credit for, and its heart is absolutely in the right place. For a lot of people, this one means a great deal, and that's not nothing. Stories that give young viewers a protagonist who fights for herself, wins on merit, and doesn't need saving tend to stick around in the memory for good reason.

Three and a half stars. Spirited, visually distinctive, and meaningful in the ways that count. Just not quite the masterpiece it occasionally threatens to become. Good, genuinely good. But not great.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 1998  | Watched: 2025-07-29

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More family: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Wonder (2017) · Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anastasia (1997)