Live Action Remake Of ‘Mulan’ Released On Disney+, Fans Gripe At $30 Price Tag

After a significant delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Walt Disney Company’s live action remake of the 1998 animated film Mulan was released on September 4 through its streaming service Disney+. The remake was directed by Niki Caro and written by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Lauren Hynek and Elizabeth Martin. It stars Liu Yifei as the title character.

Critics were positive on the remake who praised the action sequences, performances and visuals. The movie currently sits at 77 percent on the popular film critic website Rotten Tomatoes. However, while critics were positive on the film, audiences were a lot less warm with their reactions toward 2020’s Mulan.

Many fans were critical of the script, with not much of it working for the story and not even making sense at certain points. The writing for the characters was also criticized, particularly toward Gong Li’s character Xian Lang, a witch and henchwoman for the film’s antagonist Bori Khan played by Jason Scott Lee. Li’s character suffers through a lot of inconsistent writing throughout the film, more so than any of the other characters, including Mulan who gets much of the sloppy writing. Criticism was also directed towards the performances, especially Yifei as Mulan. Several people called the performance bland, uninspired and just all around emotionless.

Along with the inconsistent writing, poorly paced story and underwhelming performances, many fans were annoyed that they were forced to pay $30 in order to watch the movie on Disney+ since most movie theaters would have audiences pay them $11 or only slightly more to watch the film.

The audience’s score for Mulan currently sits at 55 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

While it is unfortunate that man fans could not get into the live action remake of Mulan, it is still a hopeful sign that critics enjoyed it, as not many live action remakes from Disney have been as positively received as this one. In April 2020, it was announced that a sequel for Mulan is currently in development.