Directed by: Darrell Rooney & Lynne Southerland
Written by: Michael Lucker, Chris Parker, Roger S. H. Schulman
Starring: Ming-Na Wen, BD Wong, Gedde Watanabe, Sandra Oh, Jerry Tondo, Lauren Tom
Rating: [1.5/5]
Plots undoubtedly play a major part of any film as they provide the framework of everything happening right before us. Having a malfunctioning one typically does not fare well for most films unless they have a sense of style that makes up for it, which we obviously did not receive in the straight-to-DVD sequel Mulan II. A film that certainly makes some decisions, and most of them fail miserably.
Following her valiantly saving China, Fa Mulan (Ming-Na Wen) is now set to plan her wedding to General Li Shang (BD Wong) where they receive an urgent message to report to the Emperor (Pat Morita). He tells them of the all-important mission of transporting his three daughters for their arranged marriages to unite China with the kingdom of Qui Gong in order to protect them against the continually looming threat of the Mongols.
Following up the smashing success of Mulan, like many other Disney films of the 90s, this feature represents the straight-to-DVD sequel that pales woefully in comparison. With the previous film wrapping a nice bow on the story of Fa Mulan where she has brought honor to her family and has found love, a need to create new conflict becomes paramount and the way this feature goes about manufacturing it raises plenty of questions.
The main fault found in this uninspired sequel mostly appears in the obviousness of this feature having nothing real to add to Mulan’s story. Therefore, she and Shang get put in the position of this all-important mission for the sake of China where the larger conflict mostly gets ignored and somehow Mushu (Mark Moseley) becomes the real villain of the story. Seriously, the dragon who everyone loved decides that it’s in his and Mulan’s best interest to break up the engaged couple and the maliciousness of his actions would gain some respect if the feature went all the way with the wickedness of this plot. At least go all the way with a heel turn for this dragon but this film wants to have its cake and eat it too in portraying Mushu as still a good guy but acting out in a way that will hurt the person he’s meant to protect and deserves redemption. A mind-boggling choice overall only made worse with Eddie Murphy not coming back to reprise his role as the dragon and it can be felt in this character having no juice to him.
Then we have the larger plot where the Emperor emphasizes on many occasions to Mulan and Shang that this mission carries so much importance to the stability of China. He even makes the insinuation that if they fail, the empire could all come crumbling down. It then proves laughable in the way this plot plays out when the three princesses will obviously fall in love with the three companions Mulan had in the previous film. Therefore, the plot must come to a resolution for this all-important issue for the Chinese empire, and the way this film just completely abandons its whole central plot displays its utter lack of seriousness that infects the rest of the project as a whole. The plot wants to have this larger discussion about what it means to live life in a dutiful way for one’s country, even sacrificing their own personal ambition or desires but even then it does not even commit to the circumstance it places its characters in. It just lazily slaps these large consequences and stakes to this narrative without having to actually reckon with what this will ask of its characters.
While having generally low expectations for any and all direct-to-DVD sequels to successful Disney films, Mulan II somehow sinks well below it. With its only saving grace is reaffirming the love Mulan and Shang for each other done well by the reprising voice actors Ming-Na Wen and BD Wong bringing the best they could muster with this horrific material. A giant shame across the board as it tried something honorable in allowing the three companions Mulan and Shang had in the previous film to find love of their own in the most unlikely circumstances but this movie could not reconcile this with having a story that works. We get left with this unfortunate mixture of undercooked material that opened up these ideas and had no intention of actually resolving them.
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