The story, purportedly based on real life fifth century events, finds Mulan, a lovely misfit Chinese girl, adopting a male alter ego to fight in the Emperor's war against The Huns, in a noble attempt to keep her lame and elderly father out of the battle (one male from each family needed to report for duty). This is probably the gist of why Mulan didn't fare as well at the box office as did its Disney siblings. For better or worse, you knew going in that features like Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas were geared toward little girls, while Lion King and Hercules were aimed at boys. But how to market something with a female heroine dressed as a male, something which by its very nature precluded much blatant love interest (even Disney isn't ready for a "La Cage" moment, animated or not), at least until the final scenes? Add to this predicament some passing references to "cross dressing" and "drag shows," not to mention a scene with Mulan's army buddies dressing up as women to storm a barricaded fortress, and you had the makings for a radical right reaction akin to the Tinky-Winky "scandal" fostered by Jerry Falwell.

All of this aside, Mulan emerges as a colorful and engaging romp through the sort of mythical history ride that Disney does so well in its theme park attractions. We get a wise Chinese emperor, evil invading hoardes, a trio of goofy and lovable human sidekicks, as well as the necessary non-human ones, in this case a wisecracking dragon named Mushu (voiced by Eddie Murphy, pretty much warming up for Donkey in Shrek), and a mute cricket, sort of Jiminy by way of Marcel Marceau. Both the character design and backgrounds are beautifully rendered, obviously modeled on ancient Chinese silk drawings and etchings. The abundant use of red becomes a recurring motif throughout the film and lends its palette a beautiful throughline that is augmented by the complementary pastels and other hues surrounding it.

Voice work in this feature is also singularly excellent, with an array of Asian-American talent like George Takei, Pat Morita and Ming-Na alongside a nice variety of other voice artists like Harvey Fierstein, Miguel Ferrer and the aforementioned Murphy. Disney regular Lea Solanga provides the singing voice for Mulan (including on the beautiful "Reflection," one of the more gorgeous ballads to emerge from the Disney animated canon), while none other than Donny Osmond sings for Captain Shang, Mulan's commander and eventual love interest once her real gender is revealed. The inimitable June Foray is also on hand as Mulan's spunky Grandmother, sounding just a little like a geriatric Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

There are a few by-the-numbers qualms I have with the production, and they deal with character design. Mulan herself is virtually a carbon copy of Pocahontas, and her horse could equally be a black version of Hercules' dopey Pegasus. The ancestral spectral elders in this film also seem patently derivative of Hercules' Gods and Goddesses, down to their transparent bluish-white outlines. The fact that so much effort went into the design of the film as a whole leaves me slightly scratching my head about these failures of innovation, if not "imagineering."

As is the case with most of Disney's straight-to-video sequel knockoffs, Mulan II is an agreeable enough timefiller with little of the energy and imagination of its progenitor. This episode picks up a month after the first film ends, with Mulan and Shang (now a General) getting engaged and being enlisted to transport the Emperor's three daughters to a northern province where arranged marriages for them will hopefully engender a lasting peace. The fact that Mulan's three army buddies are in attendance should be a major fireworks laden clue that the royal siblings may end up with different suitors by the end of the film. A subplot involving dragon Mushu (this time voiced by Mark Moseley, doing a pretty bad Murphy impersonation) has the devious little imp trying to break up Mulan and Shang so that he can remain her guardian (if she marries, the groom's family guardian takes over for the couple).

While there's nothing particularly bad about any of this, it's just lethargic compared to the original feature. Though character design is strong throughout, the backgrounds are just pallid imitations of the carefully crafted originals, and seem slapdash by comparison. The song score this time is by Broadway dance arranger and sometimes composer ("Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Violet") Jeanine Tesori, and it simply lacks the melodic punch of Wilder's work from the first feature.

It does get a bit trying seeing Disney continually repackage their animated features in Gold Editions, Special Editions, Special Two Disc Editions, and any other variation they can think of. If you already have Mulan (the first edition or the re-released two disk Special Edition), you probably don't need to double or triple dip for this new packaging. If you've never seen Mulan, this relatively cheaply priced new release makes the first film in its Special Edition available with the bonus, if you can call it that, of the sequel.

The DVD

Video:
Both of these films are offered in great enhanced transfers, Mulan at 1.66:1 and Mulan II at 1.78:1 . Mulan is a wonder of traditional and CGI animation blended together seamlessly, and boasts one of the strongest visual designs of any Disney animated feature. Mulan II does just fine on the character side of things, but the backgrounds are mere shadows most of the time (as discussed above). Color, saturation and contrast are excellent in both features.

Sound:
Both features sport very robust DD 5.1 soundtracks with superb fidelity and excellent separation. Both films also offer standard stereo mixes in French and Spanish, with Mulan offered in Mandarin as well.

Extras:
The two disc Special Edition of Mulan contains (on Disc One) seven deleted scenes (including a cut song), four music videos (the best of which are Christina Aguilera's "Reflection" and Stevie Wonder's "True to Your Heart"), a purported game (though it's more of a background fact interactive feature) called "Mulan's World," "Mulan's Fun Facts" (with some funny text commentary running beneath scenes of the film being drawn), and an audio commentary. Disc Two offers an in depth three part series showing Mulan being developed, including some interesting presentation reels, a Spanish version of "Reflection," two brief featurettes highlighting the work of the artists, a more interesting set of featurettes on the brilliant design of the film, four featurettes on various steps of animating sequences, including some of the then new CGI methods utilized, a recap of the songs in the film, and a trio of short features showing Mulan in its international versions.

By comparison (and again as usual), the direct-to-video sequel comes off as the ugly stepsister, with some pretty brief and shallow extras, including a voiceover short (which finesses the non-involvement of Eddie Murphy pretty badly), "The World of Mulan," a tour of Chinese history, four deleted scenes, a simple minded guessing game with Mushu miming characters you're supposed to divine, and a music video by (in Disney's own words) "pop sensation Atomic Kitten." Stop laughing.

Final Thoughts:
Mulan comes highly recommended--it's one of Disney's most distinctive animated efforts and deserves to be more widely appreciated. The direct-to-video sequel is pretty much as lame and misguided as we've all come to expect from these things and merits a "Rent It," at most. I guess that averages out to a "Recommended" for this re-re-re-release (is that enough "re"'s?), but only if you don't already own the first Mulan.

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"G-d made stars galore" & "Hey, what kind of a crappy fortune is this?" ZMK, modern prophet