Mulan (1998)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Mulan |
| Original title | Mulan |
 | |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1998 |
| length | 88 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK o. A. |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Tony Bancroft Barry Cook |
| script |
Robert D. San Souci Raymond Singer |
| production | Pam Coats |
| music | Jerry Goldsmith |
| cut | Michael Kelly |
| chronology | |
|
Successor → |
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Mulan is the 36th full-length cartoon from Walt Disney Studios and was released in 1998. It is based freely on motifs from the Chinese ballad by Hua Mulan .
In 2020, a new adaptation will be released with the real film Mulan .
action
Fa Mulan is a brave, intelligent girl who suffers from role models in medieval China. Out of love for her parents, whose only child she is, she submits and, as requested, introduces herself to a matchmaker with many other daughters . All sorts of mishaps turn the visit into a disaster and embarrassed in front of everyone she has to return home. Despite his disappointment, her father reacts kindly and comforts Mulan.
Shortly afterwards, the emperor's envoys come to the village. The Huns, led by Shan Yu, have stormed the Great Wall of China and, on the orders of the emperor , a man from each family is to be drafted to strengthen the Chinese army. Since he has no son, this role inevitably falls to Mulan's father, who stoically takes the order, even though he depends on a cane due to an injury from a previous war. Mulan is appalled and asks the envoy in vain to be released from military service, but is sharply rebuked by her father.
During the night, out of desperation, she decides to report to the training camp instead of her father. She cuts her hair, steals her father's uniform and draft notice and rides away in disguise. Her absence is quickly noticed, but her parents realize that there is no way they can get Mulan back without betraying her - and dressing up as a man carries the death penalty. Her grandmother then prays to the family ancestors to protect Mulan.
And indeed something is happening in the shrine of the family ancestors: All ancestors appear as ghosts and advise on how Mulan can be stopped without being exposed and soiling the family's honor. You decide to send a family guard after her. The little dragon Mushu, who was also a guard before an assignment went wrong and is now only allowed to strike the gong as a punishment, is supposed to wake up the strongest guard, but accidentally destroys the statue. He can deceive the ancestors and rushes after Mulan with a plan to make her a war hero instead of bringing her back to re-establish herself as a guardian.
Mushu catches up with Mulan in front of the camp and offers his dubious help, which the now frightened Mulan accepts. When she arrives at the camp, she stands out for her strange, emphatically masculine behavior, but nobody doubts her gender. She is teased by her fellow recruits and her instructor and captain Shang considers her unsuitable. When he tries to send her home because she is not as strong as the others, she proves to him that her intelligence can more than make up for her physical inferiority by solving a task that all others have failed to do. As a result, she wins the respect of her fellow recruits and friends, but repeatedly has problems keeping her gender a secret. She also feels very drawn to Shang.
The main Chinese army under the leadership of Shanghai's father is slaughtered by the Huns in an ambush, so that Mulan's small unit in the mountains suddenly faces the entire Hunnish armed forces. Mulan can trigger an avalanche with a missile and supposedly destroy the entire armed force in one fell swoop. She also saves Shang afterwards, but is injured in the process. When her wounds are tended, her true identity is revealed and Shang is asked to carry out the death sentence, but he spares her because she previously saved his life. Mulan is left behind in the mountains.
As Shang's troop march in Beijing for the Victory Parade , Mulan discovers that Shan Yu and five of his closest followers have survived. She rushes to Beijing and tries to make Shang and her friends aware of the danger. Shan Yu can kidnap the emperor, but Mulan and the others manage to defeat his followers and ultimately him. Instead of reprimanding her for disguising herself as a man, the emperor honors her achievements and all of Beijing bows before the brave girl.
Back home, Mulan gives her father the emperor's medal and Shan Yu's sword. Fa Zhou hugs his daughter and tells her that it is his greatest honor to have such a daughter. Shang has also followed her on the advice of the emperor and is greeted happily by Mulan. In the end, the ancestors hired Mushu as the family guard again.
Production history
Mulan was originally planned as a short film called China Doll . This short film is about a Chinese girl who meets a British prince, with whom she ends up traveling to his British homeland. Then the animation department at Disney commissioned the children's author Robert D. San Souci to help turn the Chinese poem Das Lied by Fa Mu Lan into a full-length cartoon - and he then wrote the screenplay for the film.
Work on the cartoon Mulan began in 1994. Before that, a group of animation artists selected by the production team traveled to China for three weeks to create photographs and drawings of the Chinese landscapes and cities. Among other things, the group also made drawings and sketches of the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City . These materials served the production team as a great inspiration for the cartoon and its production - so many drawings and sketches from this trip to China were completely incorporated into the film, apart from small changes. This group also made notes about Chinese society and its culture. The producers also decided during this time that Mulan should get an attractive and selfless character. A cartoon style was then used for the film that was very similar to Chinese painting . For the most part, watercolors and a rather rounded drawing style with a simple design and less elaborate details were used for the drawings - in contrast to the films The Lion King and The Hunchback of Notre Dame , where most of the scenes were drawn in great detail.
For a fight sequence in the film, the production team developed simulation software called Attila . This software enabled an easier animation of complex crowd scenes. With this program around 2000 Hunn soldiers were animated for this battle scene. Pixar's RenderMan software was also used. In addition, the software Faux Plane was developed for Mulan , which was used to create more depth in the drawings so that these drawings appear more realistic afterwards. In total, Faux Plane was used for 5 individual drawings, including the dramatic scene in which the Great Wall of China can be seen and in the final battle scene in which Mulan returns to the Forbidden City. During the scene where the Chinese bow to Mulan, the crowd is a panoramic film of real people. The drawings were edited in the lively foreground of the scene.
synchronization
The synchronization was commissioned by Berliner Synchron . Andreas Fröhlich wrote the dialogue book and directed the dialogue. The lyrics were translated into German by Helmut Frey and Leslie Mandoki , and Mandoki also took over the musical direction of the recordings.
| role | Original speaker | Voice actor |
| Mulan | Ming-na Wen | Cosma Shiva Hagen |
| Mulan (vocals) | Lea Salonga | Caroline Vasicek |
| Mushu | Eddie Murphy | Otto Waalkes |
| Li Shang | BD Wong | Hannes Jaenicke |
| Li Shang (vocals) | Donny Osmond | Stefan ore |
| Yao | Harvey Fierstein | Tommi Piper |
| Ling | Gedde Watanabe | Wilfried Herbst |
| Ling (vocals) | Matthew Wilder | Uwe Adams |
| Chien Po | Jerry Tondo | Markus Majowski |
| Chien-Po (vocals) | Sebastian Krumbiegel | |
| Shan-yu | Miguel Ferrer | Oliver Stritzel |
| Grandmother Fa | June Foray | Tilly Lauenstein |
| Grandmother Fa (vocals) | Marni Nixon | Alice Franz |
| Matchmaker | Miriam Margolyes | Evelyn Meyka |
| First ancestor | George Takei | Wolfgang Dehler |
| Fa Zhou | Soon-Tek Oh | Horst Buchholz |
| Chi Fu | James Hong | Ernst Wilhelm Lenik |
| Fa Li | Freda Foh Shen | Inken summer |
| Emperor | Pat Morita | Friedrich Schoenfelder |
| General Li | James Shigeta | Jürgen Kluckert |
Songs
- Honor for the house (ger .: Honor to Us All ) - Sung on Mulan's way to matchmaking
- Spiegelbild (English: Reflection) - sung by Mulan after the failed mediation
- Be a Man ( I'll Make a Man Out of You) - Sung by Shang in the camp during the training of the recruits
- A woman for a fight worth (Engl .: A Girl Worth Fighting For ) - Sung by the soldiers on the way to support the imperial army
- True to Your Heart by Stevie Wonder and 98 Degrees
- Reflection sung by Christina Aguilera (Aguilera's first single)
criticism
“An adventurous cartoon film inspired by Chinese art with exceptional visual coherence and entertainment that is as exciting as it is amusing. Incidentally, he develops a discourse on gender roles and images of masculinity, which is also quite exciting for adults. "
Awards (selection)
The music of the film was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Film Music in 1999. The production received the Annie Award in several categories . The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) awarded the rating particularly valuable .
Sequels
- In July 2005, Mulan 2 was released directly on VHS and DVD.
- A third sequel was also planned, but its plans were ultimately dropped.
Individual evidence
- ^ Corie Brown, Laura Shapiro: Woman Warrior. in: Newsweek . June 8, 1998. Vol 131: pp. 64-66.
- ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | Mulan. Retrieved February 23, 2018 .
- ↑ Mulan. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 3, 2016 .
- ↑ Mulan - IMDb. Retrieved April 3, 2019 .
- ↑ http://www.fbw-filmbeval.com/film/mulan
Web links
- Mulan in the Internet Movie Database (English)
