‘We’re Taking It Somewhere New’: Niki Caro & Mandy Walker Break Down Disney’s ‘Mulan’ Remake

Following months of delay, director Niki Caro’s live-action Mulan will not open in theaters. Instead, the updated take on the 1998 animated Disney classic — originally scheduled to hit the big screen in late March — is now set to arrive on Disney
DIS
+ this Friday (Sep. 4) for a “Premier Access” fee of $29.99. If that’s too rich for your blood, don’t worry, it’ll become totally free for platform subscribers in December.

Based on a legend from Ancient China, Mulan is about a young woman who pretends to be a man in order to take her handicapped father’s place in the Imperial Army. As she defends her country from invaders, Mulan shatters antiquated stereotypes about a woman’s place in a male-dominated society.

Just before the world was forever altered by COVID-19, I had the chance to speak with Caro (McFarland, USA) and her cinematographer Mandy Walker, ASC, ACS (Hidden Figures) about the film and what sets it apart from Disney’s other live-action revamps.

“One really basic thing was our commitment to realism and to being genuinely cinematic,” Caro told me. “While the other remakes are wonderful, wonderful films, they’re very much films that are created in the studio. This film is quite unusual for films of this scale, in that we didn’t employ a lot of green screen.”

The filmmaker compared the shoot to David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, which shot on location in the deserts of Jordan and Morocco. “Our backgrounds are largely real and we were in real environments with all of our armies and all of our horses. That is so old school,” the filmmaker explained. “We’re not like Marvel or Beauty and the Beast. It’s such old school filmmaking as to be actually quite new and thrilling, paradoxically.”

“It’s not a direct copy of the animation,” Walker said. “It’s a version of this story and we’re taking it somewhere new. So the audience that loved Mulan as a character is taken on another journey with her — a slightly different journey. That’s why I think it’s actually exciting because it’s true to the story, but it’s a different version.”

Achieving a level of realism meant Caro had to make the tough choice of axing the iconic musical numbers (like “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” or “A Girl Worth Fighting For”) and Mulan’s wisecracking dragon companion, Mushu (originally voiced by a pre-Shrek Eddie Murphy).

“I adore the animated classic, but it stands on its own,” Caro said. “I wanted to make [my movie] as real as possible, whilst honoring some of the iconic elements of the animation. As far as Mushu goes, that character is irreplaceable, so I had to be inspired by what that character brought to the animation and try to find the life and humor and fun in Mulan’s interactions with her real counterparts. With her fellow soldiers.”

“It didn’t bother me that we weren’t making a direct reference to parts of the original,” Walker said. “What we were doing was making a more original version, so hopefully that brings a wider audience … The battle sequences are quite dramatic and epic and so, maybe people who love the animation and music will also love something else about Mulan.”

If you’re one of those fans who was turned off by the absence of singing and Mushu’s “dishonor on your cow!” line, you shouldn’t fret too much. The remake still keeps several cherished elements of the first movie, including the matchmaker (“It was a joy to recreate in live-action,” Caro said) and avalanche sequences.

“It’s something that I was determined to recreate because I could,” the director said of the snowy set piece. “That sequence is an epic sequence in the middle of the movie. [It’s] really explosive and powerful, but also extremely meaningful and illuminating [by demonstrating] how smart and strategic Mulan is.”

“When the avalanche is hitting the actors, we shot that outside with smoke and a little bit of snow falling of them, trying to put the audience in the action, in the atmosphere of the scene as much as we could,” Walker added.

In terms of music, composer Harry Gregson-Williams references “Reflection” several times throughout the instrumental score. Not only that, but Christina Aguilera also covered the song (like she did for the animated film 22 years ago) and performed a brand-new one: “Loyal Brave True.” Its title refers to the three virtues etched into a sword Mulan steals from her father.

Walker voiced a hope that “young girls and boys will see [the film] and realize that this is a character who comes from a normal family and realizes how to use and harness her inner power and strength … everybody has that potential to find what they’re good at, to find their passion.”

Voiced by Ming Na-Wen (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Mandalorian) in the animated version, the titular heroine’s live-action counterpart is portrayed by Liu Yifei (The Forbidden Kingdom, Hanson and the Beast).

“I was looking for a warrior and a partner and a collaborator. I think now, looking back, what I was really looking for was Mulan. Not an actress to play Mulan, but I was looking for Mulan herself,” Caro said, going on to discuss the lengthy casting process that *ahem* cast a wide net all over the world. Even after a year of searching, the Caro still hadn’t found a viable candidate for the role, so the director “went back to the beginning, back to China, and back to the list of actors that weren’t available at the beginning of the process.”

Yifei was on that list and Caro brought her “to Los Angeles [for a] dramatic and physical audition. I put her in the ring in every way with a physical trainer and this girl, who had been on a 14-hour flight and hadn’t slept all night, who was jet lagged from here to kingdom come, did the most extraordinary dramatic audition … She never stopped, she never said she was tired, she never flamed out. I knew at the end of that day that we’d found her. That I’d found a warrior and a partner.”

“When Liu would be doing her riding and her battle sequences, I would put my longest lenses on her face,” Walker said, adding that most horse-related stunts are often performed by stunt doubles, who need to be filmed at a distance, so as not to break the illusion that it’s a different person. “Because she was doing it, I could make the most of it and get super long lenses on really dramatic slow motion images of her face in battle and the horse-riding, which I thought was amazing.”

Donnie Yen (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), who plays Commander Tung, was also capable of incredible physical feats on-set. Caro mentioned a scene where Tung shows off his swordsmanship skills to new recruits at the Army training camp. “Literally, my jaw hit the ground,” the director added. “I could not believe anybody could do that and that sword was moving so fast, I couldn’t see it. My eye couldn’t see it, so I had to shoot it in slow motion just so I could see what the man was doing.”

“Dealing with a lot of cameras at once, we had at least two cameras on set all the time,” Walker said. “And then sometimes, we had between three and five. The other thing was just trying to keep it as real as we could. Being able to use sets in a way so that stuff was in-camera as much as [possible].”

One of the biggest changes to the source material is the movie’s antagonist, Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee), a warrior with a grudge against China’s emperor. He’s determined to see the country fall and is able to defeat his enemies with the help of a witch named Xian Lang (Gong Li). While Lang is a totally new character, her ability to transform into a bird recalls Shan Yu’s pet falcon in the ‘98 film. In addition, her presence offers a nice thematic parallel to Mulan’s own journey.

“[Xian] does something very important in this movie and in this time, which is to show the price that is often paid by being a powerful woman,” Caro said. “Her story, her character arc, is very emotional and ultimately, very beautiful and tragic. But she is a counterpoint to Mulan that’s really new, but also very exciting.”

“The intrinsic common factor of the story is that it’s about a young woman discovering her inner power and strength and becoming confident and using that,” echoed Walker.

Since Mulan draws on a Chinese legend that is several centuries old, the production worked hard to be as culturally and historically respectful as possible. “Every aspect of the filmmaking was meticulously researched across all departments,” Caro explained.

Together, she and Walker studied Chinese cinema/films shot in China (e.g. the work of Zhang Yimou and Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor); Chinese artwork; historical accounts of war; and the military tactics used by the Tang Dynasty (618 – 906 A.D.).

“We spent a lot of time on the ground in China,” the director said. “We spent a lot of time studying ancient Chinese paintings and what Mandy has achieved photographically in this movie, is quite unique.” She went on to say that Walker “found a way to light and lens the film [in a way that] is absolutely real and visceral and emotional and cinematic. But it’s also beautiful and beautiful in a way that action movies, and movies of this scale and genre, really are.”

“Looking at Chinese art, a lot of the paintings would run in a widescreen format and not be square,” Walker recalled. “They would run very close to our frame size and format. There’s a lot of symmetry in their art and one of the things that we looked at, is when we went to the Imperial City, which is in our movie, [the buildings] are all designed very symmetrically.”

The DP and Caro made a point to forego storyboards and attend all the rehearsals, especially for the big battle scenes. “Standing there, seeing the horses lined up, or seeing what the soldiers are doing, you can walk around it in three dimensions and find the right angles to be able to cover it,” Walker added. “We were super-organized by the time we got to those sequences.”

As a result, they never went over schedule, even if the weather turned inclement. That, paired with pre-planned choreography, ensured that principal photography ran smoothly and always kept Mulan in the center of the action.

“Even though we’re in the battle sequences, it was all about her,” Walker explained. “We wanted the battle sequences to not be generic fighting where there’s just guys bashing each other and falling on the ground and swords clashing. They were more choreographed and elegant and controlled, especially when Mulan was fighting.”

“Mandy is very story-focused,” Caro concluded. “She understands the power of story and emotion and for all my intense focus on story and emotion and performance, [I’m] very visual. So, we make a good team.”

At the end of the day, however, Caro was still making a Disney movie, so while Mulan is very much about war, the violence could never become too bloody. For a big battle between the Imperial Army and Bori Khan’s tribal forces, the director made the clever move to stage the sequence in a geothermal valley.

“They’re fighting in the midst of drifting veils of steam, which means it can obscure violence; it can suggest it, but it’s not graphic; it’s never gratuitous, it’s never Game of Thrones,” she said. “But it’s also very real and very visceral and, ironically, very beautiful.”

“The thing is being on an exterior location, because also we wanted these places to look real,” Walker added. “Of course, outside, you’re beholden to the weather and the wind. It was tricky, but we had a really great special effects team who were making the smoke and they had machines everywhere from every direction. It worked really well.”

Caro continued: “We took as much of the action sequences as we could into the main unit, into my unit. When you see the film, the most exuberant camera moves around action sequences were Mandy and I just having a sh**load of fun with all the tools at our disposal to shoot action differently. I loved every second of that.”