Movie Review: Mulan

Figure 1: Mulan

Feminist model is applied in this movie. Feminist film theory describes a distinctively female perspective on filmmaking and the ways in which female viewers found uniquely pleasurable in cinema. That’s a great element like image of woman in this movie. What makes Mulan such a great character? She is a strong, independent, stubborn, and very intelligent female. She did not ever give up, even when she has been told that she is a failure at war, when she is found out as a woman and abandoned in the mountains. She had a strong sense of justice and is devoted to her family – so much that she risked her own life, so that her elderly father does not have to go to war. The way she concerned for her family manifested in this movie is a very best part for audiences – usually, family is seen as a feminine concern, while men are off doing the bread-winning and the fighting. However, Mulan managed to combine both of these values. For example, Mulan cooked medicine for her father and she exchanged the bowl filled with wine to medicine. She is really concern for her father. In this movie, Mulan also notably lacked of sexual objectification, which most of the woman character in movie are subjected to in some way or another. It’s showed Mulan’s strong woman character. Other than that, Mulan also showed to audience that understanding the plight of women in this movie. For example, Mulan’s father was drawn to serve the country, but her father is sick in the body. In this difficult situation, she replaced her father to join the army suicide. In this century, who else will sacrifice herself just to replace her dad battling with enemies and be an army. Mulan wanted to be an ordinary girl just like the others young girl who can have a long hair and wear pretty girlish clothes badly deep down inside her heart. However, she can’t even be a normal girl but she had to hide her real identity and become a male to go to war. She had no one to speak out her real thoughts and share her feelings due to she is the only girl inside the war team.

Reference:
Gürkan, H & Ozan, R 2015, Feminist Cinema as Counter Cinema: Is Feminist Cinema Counter Cinema?, viewed 28 March 2017,
<http://www.ojcmt.net/articles/53/535.pdf>.