Mulan is getting the live-action treatment at Disney, which is awesome — but some confusing changes to the animated classic have been revealed.
If you’ve seen Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast, you know that the remake machine is chugging along pretty smoothly. After Cinderella and the particularly stunning Jungle Book, it’s pretty safe to say that any live-action version of an animated classic will be a hit.
But when it comes to Disney’s upcoming adaptation of Mulan, we have a few concerns.
For one, director Niki Caro has told Moviefone that, unlike Beauty and the Beast and The Jungle Book, they currently have no plans to include songs in this movie. “No songs right now, much to the horror of my children,” Caro says.
Related: Mulan live-action casting: 7 Chinese actresses who could play Mulan
Clearly, the story of Mulan doesn’t need catchy tunes to be affecting, but considering how iconic this movie’s score is (particularly the “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” anthem), this is still something of a disappointment.
After all, without the songs, what will separate Disney’s live-action Mulan from the one in the works at Sony — or, for that matter, the wonderful Chinese version that already exists?
In that same interview, Caro called the movie, “A big, girly martial arts epic … it will be extremely muscular and thrilling and entertaining and moving.” That certainly sounds wonderful, even if the word ‘girly’ might spark a bit of concern.
Another potential issue is that, based on this casting call released by Daily Mirror journalist Jo-Anne Rowney, the male lead (and Mulan’s love interest) appears to no longer be General Li Shang, but rather a fellow cadet named Chen Honghui, who enters a rivalry with Mulan before realizing she is a woman:
Wait a hot second, why is Captain Li Shang being replaced by this dude in the new #Mulan. First no music, now this. Grrr pic.twitter.com/tE17hM1G7p
— Jo-Anne Rowney (@JoAnne_Rowney) March 19, 2017
Take that with a grain of salt until we get official confirmation, but if the live-action Mulan replaces Li Shang, we’ll definitely be disappointed!
Mulan does not yet have a release date.
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