Mulan, Xian Lang, and Why Representation Behind the Camera Matters

The Mulan remake’s most interesting addition squanders a powerful opportunity

Mulan, which saw its unprecedented streaming release on September 4th in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, rises above the recent spate of facile live-action Disney remakes by trying something a little different, but the bar is so low that it barely feels like a victory. And while there’s something undoubtedly stirring about seeing an all-Asian cast in such a high-profile tentpole film, Mulan’s representation only extends to the actors in front of the camera, resulting in an end product that is woefully dispirited and underwritten. In the end, by glossing over rich historical detail and ignoring an era of atypically empowered women, the film’s all-white producers and writers are never more apparent, especially when tackling what could have been the story’s most fascinating addition: Gong Li’s sorceress villain, Xian Lang. Minor spoilers ahead…

There is no question that Hollywood has made strides when it comes to Asian representation in mainstream cinema. Just a few short years ago in 2016, The Great Wall - itself a Sino-American production directed by Zhang Yimou - saw it necessary to insert the likes of Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe into its epic Wuxia narrative, afraid of how a film without “marketable” white faces would perform. But even within the small timespan between then and now, there’s been great progress made with films such as John M. Chu’s extravagant rom-com Crazy Rich Asians (which also ignited a discussion about screenwriter pay gaps), Aneesh Chaganty’s “screenlife” thriller Searching, and Lulu Wang’s meditative comedy-drama The Farewell. While all of these films share the important distinction of being American films with a predominantly Asian cast, they are also connected by a behind-the-scenes diversity that includes Asian writers and producers.

The Mulan remake, in the year 2020, feels uncharacteristically regressive. Undoubtedly, there are swells of pride seeing an all-Asian cast grace the screen of a tentpole blockbuster, but the film’s lack of diversity behind the camera is all too felt. With a white director and an all-white roster of writers and producers (even 1998’s animated Mulan had Rita Hsiao as a producer), Mulan explores Chinese culture on a surface level through the lenses of tropes, clichés, and “good enough” representation. With the film’s mangled understanding of “chi” and its appropriated obsession with “honor,” Mulan feels more like a patronizing lecture than a faithful examination of an ancient culture. As critic Walter Chaw points out in his review for Film Freak Central: “If you are taking notes, take down the part about how condescending it is to have someone not of your culture lecture you about the failures of your culture without perhaps fully understanding the completeness of the multifoliate failures of your culture.”

“With the film’s mangled understanding of “chi” and its appropriated obsession with “honor,” Mulan feels more like a patronizing lecture than a faithful examination of an ancient culture.”

While Mulan flounders with broad misconceptions and platitudes, perhaps the biggest missed opportunity of the film comes in the form of its most interesting character, the sorceress villain Xian Lang, played by Chinese screen legend Gong Li. To give credit where it’s due, Xian Lang’s characterization intentionally evokes a layered history of patriarchal forces suppressing powerful women, but it’s also something that the narrative is in no way prepared to tackle with any kind of deftness. The magic-wielding, shapeshifting heavy to Jason Scott Lee’s Bori Khan, Xian Lang is meant to embody a direct parallel to Liu Yifei’s Hua Mulan; throughout their handful of encounters over the course of the film, she consistently reminds our heroine that women like themselves will never be understood or accepted by the likes of men. There’s a fascinating dichotomy here that goes largely unexplored: Mulan asserts her mobility and agency in a largely male-dominated society disguised as a man, upholding the traditional values of “honor” and “piety,” while Xian Lang’s disdain for the system and acknowledgment of her own power only results in a swift comeuppance. There’s just enough of a thread here to begin a deeper conversation, but there’s absolutely nothing within the narrative economy for this to develop past its glossy surface.

To further expound my frustration with the film, here’s a little history: The Ballad of Mulan, the folk song which originated the legend, approximately places Mulan as a figure of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–535 AD), a time period characterized by Turkic and Mongolic tribes of nomads. Later incarnations of the character shift her into the more widely recognized Han Chinese iteration, a Sinification that first entered the mythological canon during the Tang Dynasty (618–705 AD). Likely for expediency and mainstream appeal, both Disney versions transpose Mulan and her Rouran foes into this later period - and with this setting, the film could have mined a significantly deeper dynamic between Mulan and her sorceress adversary, taking advantage of the Tang Dynasty’s reputation as a demi-renaissance for women, but Mulan simply doesn’t bother.

“…for an adaptation of a Chinese legend steeped in rich history to have no Chinese writers or producers feels extremely backwards in the year 2020.”

The Tang Dynasty was one era in Chinese history where the vice grip of the patriarchy was loosened. Sculptures of women on horses, murals of dancing female poets, and transcriptions of Yang Guifei - notorious concubine of Emperor Xuanzong - were characteristic of the period, along with the reign of China’s only female empress: Wu Zetian. But even without the oppressive Neo-Confucianism that would eventually introduce a stricter rigidity of obedience, chastity, and the practice of foot-binding, Tang society was still a largely patriarchal system. This was more than evident in the era’s chuanqi (传奇), or “strange stories,” some of which were written by men to enforce Confucian nanzun nübei (男尊女卑), or the idea that “men are respected, women are denigrated.” Painting women who stepped outside their ordained stations as witches, demons, and children-devouring succubi, the monsters of Tang chuanqi were largely female; bogey-women like the Auntie Snatcher (gu huo 姑获) or Demon Mother (gui mu 鬼母) manifested as androcentric forms of control, literary ghouls designed to stifle burgeoning female independence. It’s metaphor and historical context perfect for giving a character like Xian Lang real-world depth and pathos, but the fact of the matter remains that her role is egregiously underdeveloped and exceedingly underwritten. Like everything else in Niki Caro’s Mulan, Xian Lang’s arc is rushed, perfunctory, and clipped.

Without the context of history, the feminism of Mulan feels largely performative. Add in the fact that Gong Li herself had to step into the writers’ room to beef up her own scenes, and it becomes distressing to imagine how bare the character must have been without any kind of Chinese input. In a production like Mulan, there can be the utmost fidelity to costumes, hair, and sets, but for an adaptation of a Chinese legend steeped in rich history to have no Chinese writers or producers feels extremely backwards in the year 2020. Mulan is at times gorgeous and lush, and watching an all-Asian cast in a huge Hollywood production - which includes the likes of legends such as Gong Li, Donnie Yen, and Jet Li - should be a dream come true for a Chinese-American like me, but without behind-the-scenes representation to back it up, it just feels like another cog in the Disney machine and a bleak reminder of my outsider status.