Movie Musings: Disney and More

Mulan’s 22nd

On June 19th, 1998, Disney released the animated version of Mulan. And on March 27th, 2020, they will release their live-action take on Mulan. In honor of the original film’s 22nd anniversary, I thought that in today’s blog we could explore some fun facts about the original classic film, along with some other interesting facts about the new film. Please feel free to comment on your favorite.

• Mulan received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Score. It was nominated against Disney/Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, Dreamworks’s The Prince of Egypt, and Universal’s Patch Adams, though each of these films lost the award to Mirimax’s Shakespeare in Love.
• When this movie was produced, there were many special thing about it that were “firsts” for Disney. It was the first movie ever released by Disney on DVD in November of 1999, and it was the first Disney movie to openly acknowledge warfare. It also was the first full-length movie animated only at Disney’s Florida Animation Studio.
• Ming-Na Wen who provided the speaking voice of Mulan is also known at Disney for portraying the role of Agent Melinda May on ABC/Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013-present), and she has also lent her voice to the Disney Channel Series Phineas and Ferb (2007-2015), Sofia the First (2012), and the Disney+ Series, The Mandalorian (2019-present).
• Lea Salonga, who provided the singing voice of Mulan, was also the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in Aladdin (1992).
• Mulan’s grandmother, Grandmother Fa, also had two separate voices. The speaking voice was provided by June Foray, who ironically is best known for voicing Granny on Looney Tunes. The singing voice was done by Marni Nixon, who is a Hollywood legend for providing the singing voices of many leading ladies of Hollywood in movie musicals: including Deborah Kerr in The King and I (1956), Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961), and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964).
• BD Wong was the speaking voice of Captain Shang and is also known at Disney for lending his voice to Kim Possible (2002-2007) and the DuckTales reboot (2017-present). He also portrayed Howard Weinstein in Touchstones’ remakes of Father of the Bride (1991) and Father of the Bride part 2 (1995). Donny Osmond, who sang the role of Shang, later portrayed the role of Gaston in the Broadway version of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast for the last few months of 2006 and for the show’s closing performance on July 29th, 2007.
• Harvey Fierstein provided the voice of Yao in the film is also known at Disney for collaborating with Alan Menken on the stage version of Newsies which opened on Broadway in 2012 and played for 1,004 performances. The collaboration earned both Menken and Fierstein a well-deserved Tony Award Nomination for Best Book of a Musical.
• Frank Welker voiced Cri-Kee in the film and the voice of Khan the Horse as well as Shan-Yu’s pet falcon. Welker is also known at Disney for voicing many of the Studio’s classic non-speaking characters, from Max the Dog in The Little Mermaid (1989), The Footstool in Beauty and the Beast (1991), Abu the Monkey and Rajah the Tiger, in Aladdin (1992). Welker also voiced the Cave of Wonder’s in Disney’s 2019 remake of Aladdin.
• David Zippel wrote the lyrics for Mulan with composer Matthew Wilder, but had already collaborated with Alan Menken on the lyrics for Hercules (1997). Menken and Zippel also received an Oscar Nomination in the category of Best Original Song for the Hercules song “Go the Distance.”
• Mark Henn is known at Disney for being a supervising animator on many of the studios most beloved leading ladies: Belle in Beauty and the Beast (1991), Princess Jasmine in Aladdin (1992), and Tiana in The Princess and the Frog (2009). He was also a supervising animator for the character of Mulan and Mulan’s father, Fa Zhou.
• In Chinese, the name Mulan means “wood orchid” or “magnolia.” This can be referred to a blossoming tree by Mulan’s house in the movie. The name “Chi Fu” (The Emperor’s assistant) means “to bully.” 
• Mulan touches her hair a great deal throughout the movie. This is because the animator’s noticed that Ming-Na Wen did a lot in real life.
• This movie almost received a PG rating for using the term “cross-dresser.”
• This movie was Eddie Murphy’s debut as a voice actor. Mushu (the dragon, not lizard) is the only other cartoon character that Murphy has voiced besides Donkey in the Shrek franchise (2001-2010). Murphy agreed to voice the character on the condition that he could record all of his dialogue in his basement at his Bubble Hill Mansion in Englewood, New Jersey instead, and Disney obliged. Murphy recorded all of his lines when he had time off from filming Holy Man (1998).
• James Hong voiced the character of Chi Fu later went on to voice the character of Mr. Ping the Goose in Dreamworks’s Kung Fu Panda franchise (2008-2016) which also takes place in China. Hong also voiced the Asian Salt Shaker Doll in MGM’s Sherlock Gnomes (2018).
• In addition to voicing the wise Emperor of China in the film, Pat Morita played a great deal of wise characters throughout his career: Arnold Takahashi in Happy Days (1974-1984) and Mr. Myagi in the Karate Kid series (1984-1994). Morita also appeared in an episode of Disney’s Boy Meets World (1993-2000) and he portrayed a parody character of Mr. Myagi called Master Udon in the “Karate Island” episode of Spongebob SquarePants (1999-present).
• Disney produced a direct-to-video sequel to Mulan, Mulan II in 2004, which again featured the voices of Ming-Na Wen, BD Wong, Lea Salonga, Harvey Fierstein, Pat Morita, Frank Welker, and June Foray in each of the roles they had originated from the first film. The film also featured a special guest voice appearance by Gold Olympic Medalist, Michelle Kwan. Eddie Murphy was unavailable to reprise Mushu due to a contract clause for voicing Donkey in Shrek 2 (2004) at the time, and he was replaced by Mark Moseley.
• Tzi Ma and Rosalind Chao will each portray Mulan’s parents in the new live-action film. They also worked with Ming-Na Wen in the “Girl in the Flower Dress,” Episode of Marvel/ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013-present).
• Niki Caro, who is the director of the new live-action Mulan, in 2015 directed Disney’s McFarland, USA, which starred Kevin Costner.
• Disney originally considered Tia Carrere to voice Mulan and originally wanted Bruce Willis as Li Shang, but they were later replaced by Ming-Na Wen and BD Wong. But both Carrere and Willis later made films for Disney: Willis played Russ Duritz in Disney’s The Kid (2000) and Carrere voiced Nani, Lilo’s older sister in Lilo & Stitch (2002).
• Robert D. San Souci is credited for having written the original story of Mulan, entitled Fa Mulan: The Story of a Woman Warrior. Souci also served as a consultant on the making of the original film, which was published in 1998.
• Although Mulan is about a woman who masquerades as a man, many of the male voice cast members of the original film disguised themselves as woman at different points in their careers: BD Wong in M. Butterfly (1993) and Mr. Robot (2015-2019), Eddie Murphy in several different films, Soon-Tek Oh and Gedde Watanabe in the 1976 Broadway Musical Pacific Overtures, and in 2002, Harvey Fierstein won a Tony Award for originating the role of Edna Turnblad in the Broadway Musical Hairspray.