The story of Lady General Hua Mulan, heroine of the 1998 Disney film, is taken from a very old poem. It first turns up in a compilation of song lyrics and poetry that dates to the 12th century, but that same text sources the “Ballad of Mulan” to a 6th century work that has not survived. The poem begins with a description of Mulan working at her loom, sighing over the imperial decree that requires her family to provide a male recruit for the army sent to fight the encroaching raiders from the North. Her father is too old, her brother too young. She resolves to take her father’s place. The Ballad goes on to describe Mulan buying her gear, including a horse and whip, in the market. She fights for ten years while dressed as a man. When the Emperor recognizes her valor and offers her a position at court, she asks instead to be allowed to go home. The poem ends with a remarkable image of male and female hares running together, and challenges the observer to tell which was which.
MULAN JOINS THE ARMY, aka MAIDEN IN ARMOR (1939). Directed by Bu Wencang (1903-1974). Starring Chen Yunchang (aka Nancy Chan) and Mei Xi. Choreography by T. K. Hsia and L. Chow.
Mulan’s story has been told on film many times. Besides this 1939 adaptation by Bu Wancang (aka Richard Poh), there was a 1927 film made by Tianyi (the Shaw brothers’ first studio) and a 1928 version made by Hou Yao of Minxin Film Company. LADY GENERAL FA MUK-LAN (the title uses a Cantonese transliteration of Mulan’s name) is from 1951, with opera-trained Law Yim-hing in the title role. There’s a MULAN, THE GIRL WHO WENT TO WAR from 1957, starring the comic actress Tang Bik-wan, and let’s not forget the Shaw studio’s 1964 musical version, LADY GENERAL HUA MULAN, starring Ivy Ling Po. Mulan films were also made in 1956 and 1961. There are probably more. Both Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang have been rumored to be working on Mulan adaptations at times, but nothing seems to have come of it.
Left: Tang Bik-wan in MULAN, THE GIRL WHO WENT TO WAR. Right: Ivy Ling Po in LADY GENERAL HUA MULAN.
For all her cross-dressing and defiance of conventional gender roles, Mulan is an icon of civic virtue. She symbolizes both patriotism and filial devotion. Of all the versions of Mulan’s story committed to screen, none carry the political weight of Bu Wencang’s film. In 1939, Shanghai was under Japanese occupation. Film production was severely curtailed, as much by the flight of local talent as by the financial restraints induced by war. Productions had to be green-lighted by a Japanese censor, and the Shanghai filmmakers who worked during that period were sometimes accused of collaboration after the war. But MULAN JOINS THE ARMY was an exception. It was generally recognized as a subtle but powerful call to arms directed at the Chinese people. The film was produced by Zhang Shankun (and I’ll repost my entry on Zhang and the making of SONG AT MIDNIGHT very soon). The director, Bu Wencang, specialized in melodrama. His MULAN disappoints as an action film, despite the presence of two “Boxing” consultants, T. K. Hsia and L. Chow, in the credits. Bu’s focus is on his actors’ faces, not their fists. The battle sequences are brief and impressionistic, shots of running soldiers intercut with close-ups of Mulan’s face, the spear she wields barely visible in the periphery of the frame. Bu was known as a sensitive director of women and his Mulan, played by Chen Yunchang, a Hong Kong actress who went to Shanghai for the role, lets some real emotion break through the stylized acting called for by this type of film. At the end, in an image taken directly from the poem, Mulan studies her warrior’s face in a mirror before beginning her transformation back into a female.
The film was very successful, touching a need in the population for stories about armed resistance. A subplot about treachery from within added to the contemporary relevance. Mulan’s story, almost unique in early world literature, so spare and evocative in the original poem, has been remade by each generation. Details change but the essential motif of a plucky young woman making herself at home in the most masculine of worlds remains the same. In the clip from MULAN JOINS THE ARMY posted below, Mulan persuades her parents to allow her to set off to the army base by demonstrating spear and straight sword techniques. Chen Yunchang probably had some opera or dance training, but her movement is very soft and a little awkward. She doesn’t really look like a martial artist. But kung fu wasn’t the point of this MULAN. Bu Wencang even shot the sword sequence from the middle distance, again cutting off parts of the movement as Chen extends out of the frame. It wasn’t that choreographers and directors had yet to learn how to work together – Ren Pengnian had already put savvy fight scenes on screen. I suspect that Bu is more interested in the drama and the story, and the kung fu is just one element in his film, and a minor one at that.
Some of this material is taken from the Wikipedia entry on Hua Mulan, which includes a translation of the original poem.
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Hua Mulan • kung fu movie history • women in martial arts movies
- elizabethdhill
- elizabethdhill
