A young Chinese woman disguises herself as a man in order to save her father from being drafted into the imperial army.

Disney’s latest live action remake is the latest film to fall foul of the coronavirus pandemic. Originally slated to be released earlier in the year just before world cinemas were closed it had been rescheduled for cinema release before Disney decided on a bold release strategy. Instead of opening in cinemas where local government had deemed it safe for cinemas to open Disney decided to release the film on their Disney Plus streaming service with a premium price point. That price in the UK is £19.99 on top of your Disney Plus subscription. Paying that price will give you access to watch the film as many times as you like before it becomes available to normal subscribers in 3 months time at Christmas. Personally as a huge advocate for the cinema I think that is a big mistake, but is the film any good? Well, Mulan is very much a mixed bag.

Of all the live action Disney remakes so far released this one feels the most like it deserved its own film. Using the style of a Chinese wushu martial arts film and changing the plot slightly has resulted in a stunning looking film that feels like a sweeping epic. It would be a mistake to understate how stunning this film looks. From the beautiful mountainous landscapes, the expansive sets, the detailed costumes and make up, the CGI effects on a gorgeous phoenix and the sweeping camera moves over large training and battle scenes it exudes beauty. To paraphrase another film, everything is epic. The fact that Disney did not release this in cinemas is as stunning to me as the images I saw on my home television.

The biggest mistake that the film makes though is that it falls between two stools. It feels much too serious for children (my children’s reviews are below) with not enough fun or outright jokes. Whilst the martial arts on display are nowhere near impressive enough for adults watching with my main gripe being that the editing falls into the Michael Bay ‘death by a thousand cuts’ approach. I could not work out whether this was an attempt to keep the children’s certification, a limitation of actors/directors or a style choice but the number of cuts was off putting to say the least. After every strike, jump or other action it would cut to another angle resulting in no flow at all. I know that with the likes of Jet Li (Hero) and Donnie Yen (Rogue One) appearing that it is not a limitation of their martial arts prowess.

Performances are generally fine, Yifei Liu impresses as the titular hero but the lack of humour does make it feel a little soulless.

It looks stunning but adults should probably seek out the likes of Hero, House of Flying Daggers or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Whilst I suspect children will be happy continuing to watch the cartoon.

My children were fairly unimpressed and I do wonder if the cinema would have changed that.

My six year old daughter told me at the 30 minute mark that it was boring and she wanted to do something else. She promptly played in the other room occasionally watching snippets.

My nine year old son told me the following… It has no songs, no Mushu the dragon, no cricket, not enough of Mulan’s three friends who in this one are not funny and the witch was not even that good because all she did was change into a bird. When asked whether he preferred the cartoon the decision was unanimously in favour of the 1998 original.