Mulan

The 2020 film is Disney remaking its own 1998 animation, and it is the clearest case in the whole remake run of a studio changing its mind about what the story is. Kept: Hua Mulan taking her father's place in the army, the disguise, the training, the avalanche, the return home. Filed LOW because the remake removes almost everything the 1998 film invented. No Mushu, no Li Shang, no songs and no Shan Yu; the villain is rewritten and a witch added, and Mulan's ability is reframed as an innate qi she was born with rather than something she works for. The argument the two films make about her is not the same argument.

Mulan's animators studied Bambi, Pinocchio and Dumbo to establish a sense of staging.

Mulan's animators studied Bambi, Pinocchio and Dumbo to establish a sense of staging.

Disney's film retells the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, known from the Ballad of Mulan, the girl who takes her father's place in the army disguised as a man.