Mulan’s Mirrors:
From the ancient ballad
to the Disney animation
Mulan looking into the mirror:
 脫我戰時袍
著我舊時裳
當窗理云鬢
對鏡貼花黃
 “ I take off my wartime gown
And put on my old-time clothes."
Facing the window she fixes the
cloudlike hair on her temples,
Facing a mirror she dabs on yellow
flower powder
Genealogy of Mulan:
 Ballad
of Mulan (Ode to Mulan)
 Maid Mulan enlists in her father’s
place [Ci Mulan tifu congjun, Ming Dynasty]
 Hua Mulan (Yu opera, 1956)
 “White Tigers”, The Woman Warrior
(1976)
 Disney Mulan (1998)
Ballad of Mulan
Gujin yuelu [Musical Record Old and New],
Chen Dynasty, 568
 Yuefu shiji [Collection of Music-Bureau
Poems], Song Dynasty, 12th century

“雄兔脚扑朔，雌兔眼迷离
两兔榜地走，安能辨我是雌雄?”
 "The male rabbit's feet kick up and down,
The female rabbit's eyes are bewildered.
Two rabbits running close to the ground,
How can they tell if I am male or female?"

Two questions un-clarified:
Time setting:
 ?The Han Dynasty (205BC-AD220)
 ?The Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534)
 Identity of Mulan:
 ?Non-Chinese (Han)
 “The Khan is calling for a great force
 On her return she sees the Son of Heaven
 The Son of Heaven sits in the ceremonial
hall.
 The Khan asks her what she desires.
 I wish to borrow a ten-thousand mile camel”

Northern military woman
Confucian model:
gentle & graceful
Confucianization of Mulan:
Tang Dynasty: model of filial piety, moral
integrity and chastity
 Three cardinal guides: Monarch guides
subject; Father guides son; Husband
guides wife
 xiao (filial piety); zhong (loyalty to the
monarch)



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
Mulan poem in Tang:
How laudable is Mulan’s virtuous integrity,
Serving as the model of the monarch’s subjects.
Her unswerving loyalty and filial devotion
Will be remembered even after thousands of years.
jie (chastity)
Maid Mulan enlists in her father’s place:
 “starting out with a vehement sense of filial
duty but ending up with a great contribution
to the emperor; blending with the male but
maintaining her chastity”
 Loyalty to the emperor vs. filial piety
 Segregation of the male and the female
 Mulan: serve the motherland by serving her
father
 “Twenty-four True Daughters”
 “General of Filial Piety”

Bound
feet
Marriage
Having heard about the distinction of your
literary talents in the emperor’s court,
 I am ashamed of myself, who back from
the battle fields,
 May not be a match for you.
 However, please be assured that I will
make a pliant wife of yours,
 And will never confront you with the
formidable temper of a solider.
Maid Mulan enlists in her father’s place

Hua Mulan (Yu opera)
 Korean
War
 Patriotic devotion
 Women as half of the sky
The Woman Warrior
Connection between Chinese and American
identities
 Two Chinas:
 the old feudal China and the new Red China
 “White Tigers”:
 Fa Mulan
 The peasant uprising: individuality →a public
cause

The new red China:
The depth and width of joy were exactly known to
me: the Chinese population. After much hardship a
few of our millions had arrived together at the
capital. We faced our emperor personally. We
beheaded him, cleaned out the palace, and
inaugurated the peasant who would begin the new
order. In his rags, he sat on the throne facing the
south, and we, a great red crowd, bowed to him
three tries. (WW42)
 The founding of PRC in 1949
 Red guards and the Cultural Revolution
 The revolution and women’s liberation

Top 20 Films in the U.S., 1998
(ranked by domestic box offices in U.S. millions of dollars)











Rank
1
2
……
6
7
8
9
……
11
12
Movie Title
Armageddon
Saving Private Ryan
U.S. Domestic
201.6
191.0
Dr. Dollittle
Deep Impact
Rush Hour
Godzilla
144.2
140.5
140.4
136.0
141.5
208.3
36.0
239.7
125.6
120.6
122.8
176.5
The Truman Show
Mulan
Foreign
306.4
242.3
Disney Mulan

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
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Disneyfication: Westernization and globalization by a
multinational studio
Formulaic production:
Good prevailing over evil; emotional, catchy songs; cute
animal sidekicks for comic relief; young romance; character
voices performed by film stars
Mushu: Mooshu pork; Eddie Murphy Cri-Kee: cricket
Why does Mulan leave home for the army?
Filial piety → Reciprocal Love
 Search for self
 Filmic cliché:
 villains being speared
 and carried away by rockets
 (True Lies 1994; Broken Arrow 1996)

Zhang Ziyi or Li Yuchun?
 Stanley
Tong 唐季礼