Jo Oy

Stunning locations, beautiful cast, excellent cinematography, wonderful costumes and very visually appealing - musical or not. I'm Chinese AND grew up in Asia AND female AND grew up watching the animated Mulan. Should appeal most to me, huh? NO. Even politics aside, this is like the overpriced sweet&sour chicken in white-washed fusion western-chinese restaurants thinking they are 'Asian' and 'cultural' because every dish there has soy sauce or oyster sauce and the owner visited Thailand once and is now 'woke'. Here's why this was bad: 1. No character development. She already has 'qi'. great. She's already Superwoman. 2. 'Qi' is NOT a superpower. (Please watch KungFu Panda - it would be more accurate and have better character development than this) 3. Women do NOT need a superpower to be on par or better than men. 4. The ballad of Mulan is so empowering to women. Animated Mulan showed her working hard and being determined despite living in a man's world. She was clumsy, she was struggling, she was scared but she didn't give up. The stone-faced expression and superpower in this movie washed everything away. 5. If there is not going to be a love interest, don't even flirt with the idea - not even a sexual tension. Why does it even need to be there? The story there didn't even develop into anything. It was irrelevant. Not even to show they became friends in the end. 6. The cast were stiff even though these were legendary actors/actresses. Could it be the general style of the movie or lines itself? I mean DONNIE YEN, GONG LI, JET LI - how dare you reduce them to this???? They are the absolute best but a person with no expression is the lead??? 7. The “YEAH women empowerment” and “so proud of my daughter eagerly loving fatherly support” feels so unnaturally forced into the narrative. Firstly, how is the evil witch so quickly turned good? Secondly, do you know how HARD it is to find Asian parents who actually support a “daughter” especially in China in that century? AND HONESTLY: 8. Dear white people(Disney), if you’re gonna do a film on Asian heroes, just get that Crazy Rich Asians director and an all Asian team. It will be TONS better.