The Secret of Mulan

The Secret of Mulan is an animated feature that runs just under 50 minutes, and honestly, it's a baffling piece of work considering the time it was made. Released in 1998, right after Disney's highly successful Mulan hit theaters, this off-brand version feels not only inferior but also borderline unwatchable in comparison.

What's mind-boggling is that this came after Disney had already revolutionized modern animation with The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Aladdin (1992). The quality gap is staggering. The animation in The Secret of Mulan looks rough, unfinished, and awkward - nowhere near the standard audiences were accustomed to by that point.

The creative choices don't help either. Instead of giving us a strong, empowering warrior, this version bizarrely portrays Mulan almost like a caterpillar with a human face. It's strange, unsettling, and doesn't carry the same dignity or weight that the character deserves. While I can respect the idea of trying something different, the execution falls flat.

The music is another major issue. Not only are the songs forgettable, but they also feel painfully out of place, lacking the energy, emotion, or cultural resonance you'd expect from a story rooted in Chinese legend. Combined with weak vocals, the musical moments drag the film down even further.

At its core, this movie strips away the power and symbolism that make Mulan such an iconic character. Where Disney's adaptation elevated her into a legendary figure and even an official Disney Princess, The Secret of Mulan feels like a cheap knock-off. The story is clunky, the animation is subpar, and the overall product is just hard to sit through.

Verdict: A definite skip. The Secret of Mulan is poorly animated, poorly written, and poorly executed. It doesn't capture the spirit of the legend or the charm of Mulan as a character. If you want to relive Mulan's story, stick with Disney's version - this one isn't worth the time.

The Secret of Mulan is not the worst of UAV Corporation's animations (it is better than The Secret of the Hunchback for instance), but it is a contender for their weirdest.

Best asset? Definitely the soundtrack, which is almost as good as the one for The Secret of Anastasia and much better than The Secret of the Hunchback's. The music score is whimsical and rousing, Mala-Khan's theme gets embedded in the brain and is the most memorable thing of the entire animation and Mulan's song My Home, My Country is a truly beautiful one, movingly meaningful and hopeful. Mulan is a likable character, charming, headstrong and heroic which makes her easy to relate to, Mala-Khan does pose a reasonably good threat and doesn't come over as goofy a villain and while the outcome can be smelt a mile away even from the opening scene the climax is quite riveting, that and My Home, My Country are the most interesting scenes in the film.

Unfortunately the animation is not great really, it is a little better than that in …Anastasia and …Hunchback because some of the backgrounds are quite nice and detailed but it's also flatly and gaudily coloured, the action can be awkwardly edited and the characters look weird (even within the anthropomorphic concept) in design, rough in drawing and stiff in movement. The script has some really corny dialogue that makes lighter parts seem forced and nearly as clichéd and over-familiar as The Secret of the Hunchback's writing. While it was closer for it to contain a couple of elements of the legend, the story generally lacks tension, there were a few nice relationships with the characters but not enough is done with them, and drags as a result of not being able to sustain the running time, making it feel longer than the short length it actually was.

In terms of characters, the only ones that came close to interesting were Mulan and Mala-Khan, the rest were underdeveloped, the traitor's decision making was quite sudden and could have been better explored, or unnecessary (including a forced 'jewish' stereotype that felt very out of place), and of the voice cast those characters were the only ones for whom the voices stood out, the rest sounded bland or uninterested. To conclude, not terrible and watchable for the soundtrack but pretty weird. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I was very excited to see that the thumbnail of the video contained the image of a Yert or Ger, the traditional mobile shelters for the Mongolian nomadic peoples. My first thought was that this film would be the rare children's film steeped in history as well as entertainment. However, I was quickly proven wrong.The villain is a character named Mala Khan, a name that implies cheiften status among the invading Mongol forces, however, the real Mongol invasion of China took place under the leadership of Gengis Khan, ultimately leading to the Yuan Dynasty who ruled China after the successful Mongol conquest. These historical events were not included in the film, it completely brushed over the establishment of a Mongolian led Dynasty within Medieval China. Instead it opts for the typical Hollywood happy ending of the Mongol invasion being repelled. Also the armor and weapons of the invading Mongols, particularly those of the fictional leader Mala Khan, bear a much closer resemblance to feudal Japanese armor worn primarily by Samurai Warriors. Do the producers of this film expect us to believe that a Mongolian Khan would dress in the armor of a people that were famously never conquered by the Mongols? This playing fast and loose with history could generate lasting misconceptions of actual events in the minds of its young viewers. Also, why were they bugs?

If I could give this movie a 0/10 I would, this is a crime against humanity.This shouldn't be a movie, the idea of this movie is more fit for DeviantArt fan fiction. The movie is a fever dream that is basically about if the movie Mulan and Bug's Life made love and made this abomination of a movie. ALL the acting in the movie is forgettable, the look of the movie is mediocre to bad at some points, and it is a Mulan movie rip off with bugs replacing the humans. This movie has a bland and boring plot that is so uninteresting that I wanted to turn the movie off 4 times.To any poor soul that has to witness this movie congratulate to you for making it through. To anyone who hasn't seen the movie and is interested in watching it, don't, just run while you still can.