Mulan: Rise of a Warrior

To keep her elderly father from being conscripted, Hua Mulan dresses as a man and goes in his place. She stays at the front for twelve years and rises to command. The film is not interested in the disguise as a game. It is interested in how war erodes a person: it does not declare Mulan a hero but shows someone hardening as she buries her friends and learning to suppress feeling. Her identity coming out brings not the expected comic beat but a heavy scene. The form is large: crowded battles, desert and steppe, cold colours. Compared with the Chinese epic fashion of the period there is less flying combat and more crowd and mud. Jingle Ma directed. What the film pushes forward is not action but the relationship between Mulan and the prince Wentai, established and never openly stated; she is finally forced into a choice. Vicki Zhao plays Mulan and Chen Kun plays Wentai. Who it is for: viewers who like Chinese war epics and want a Mulan far from the Disney version. Who it is not for: anyone expecting fast action. It is long, heavy in the middle and its battles repeat.