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Instead of pandering to audiences by casting the most beautiful women in the role, have better fight scenes and sacrifice the lofty principles of war is bad. I get that we want our heroes to be beautiful, but I think that studios need to consider casting a butch woman actor. If it was not, then those same troops needed a homoerotic storyline because how could Wentai and Mulan be so openly in love and work together with so much emotion with no one at least talking about it, especially since there is a storyline when everyone is drunk. At some point in the movie, I just pretended that her gender was an open secret among her troops which contributed to her subordinates’ loyalty as a model of courage and fearsome strategy skills and a reminder of home and explained her superiors’ saltiness at her success. If I had one major problem with Mulan: Rise of a Warrior, I could not find it credible that anyone would think that Hua Mulan would fool anyone into thinking that she is a guy. These storylines play equally if not more important roles in the denouement so that tension was not developed enough and too understated. While I do not begrudge the idea of romance playing a role in any depiction of Mulan, I do not think that it should be at the expense of other storylines which felt severely and comparatively abbreviated and short-changed such as the power struggle among the Rouran tribes or the resentment of Mulan and Wentai’s superiors. In terms of sexual situations, this film is clearly rated G and pulls a few Xena: Warrior Princess moves by making Mulan and Wentai’s physical exchanges such as hand to hand combat or tending to wounds the equivalent of sex in their reactions.
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I actually thought they were a good pair with a lot in common though I was not amused by Wentai’s drama queen antics (he loves a good plot twist and if there was not a war, he would become a soap opera writer). Mulan: Rise of a Warrior really emphasizes a potential work romance with Wentai, the next best fighter after her. I wish that she had more fight scenes, but it would have ruined the lesson of the film that war is bad, and later on when I found out that Michelle Yeoh, my fave, was considered and passed over for Zhao, I began to wonder if I really wanted that lesson if it meant not getting Yeoh (no disrespect intended to Zhao, who was great). When she broadens the application of her ability as a commander, her fighting style has not changed, just expanded to meet the challenge of higher stakes. Mulan is all about strategy, cunning and swiftness, and when Zhao threw her hands, I believed that she could kick any opponent’s butt. I did prefer the fight choreography in this film over the Disney live action film because Mulan’s personality is reflected in her fight scenes. The violence is rarely the kind that you can cheer on like John Wick or a Marvel movie. The fighting is realistic and eventually monotonous, especially the epic battle scenes, to emphasize the point that war is anything but glorious. There are no magical or fantasy elements. The movie’s palette is very monochromatic as it unfolds. Because Mulan: Rise of a Warrior is supposed to be a grim movie, there are times when it feels as if it is a black and white film.