
These kung fu mastering/gun toting/butt kicking women (think Trinity from " The Matrix") were physically imposing and more aggressive than their predecessors. To combat this trend, filmmakers started to turn damsels into badasses. They existed for male characters to fight over or rescue. In many (if not most) action films throughout the 20th century, female characters functioned as damsels. To explore "Mulan's" subversive tendencies, we must first understand what archetypes the film challenges.
("Lilo and Stitch" did feature Tia Carrere as Nani and use some Hawaiian authentic music, but largely relied on a white cast and crew.) And yet as unique as "Mulan" was for pulling such a diverse and interesting cast (in 1998, no less), it is even more remarkable for its treatment of gender and sexuality. "Mulan" sticks out even more than "Lilo and Stitch" for managing to cast a largely Asian-if not always Chinese-stable of actors. The other film that fits this mold is, of course, "Mulan." Among those were " Lilo and Stitch," a radical film for its time and, along with this year’s " Moana," one of the only mainstream examples of a non-white, non-princess to come out of the Mouse House. The song was Aguilera’s debut single, and the success of it would fund Aguilera’s self-titled debut album, which was released in 1999.Ĭheck out the original “Reflection” music video, which features Aguilera, a white-passing Latinx woman, wandering around the China Pavilion at Epcot- a choice.Millennials are especially familiar with the tail end of that wave-when smaller films popped up in the wake of giants like " The Lion King" and "Beauty and the Beast." It was around the time the studio began to pivot toward 3D computer generated animation (a trend that gained steam throughout the 2000s) that a few truly unique films made it to production. (Salonga also voiced Jasmine’s singing in Aladdin.) However, a single “pop” version of “Reflection,” performed by 17-year-old Christina Aguilera, was also released on the soundtrack for American audiences. In the film, the song is performed by Filipina singer Lea Salonga, who is responsible for Fa Mulan’s singing voice in the movie.

“Reflection” was originally written and produced by Matthew Wilder and David Zippel for the soundtrack of Disney’s 1998 animated film Mulan. Let’s take a look at the main versions of Mulan‘s “Reflection,” both in 1998 and in 2020… Mulan 1998 Soundtrack: Christina Aguilera’s “Reflection” While Disney’s recording of multiple versions of “Reflection” in many different languages may seem like a modern business model, Disney’s distribution and marketing model for the 1998 animated Mulan also included Asian audiences, as evidenced by its strategy around the release of singles and videos for “Reflection.” In addition to the English-language version of the song, Disney also recorded and released a video for a Mandarin-language version of “Reflection,” sung by Coco Lee. (The other is a Mandarin-language version of the song sung by Mulan star Liu Yifei.) The return of “Reflection” seems to be the main exception to Disney‘s efforts to distance the new, live-action film from the animated version as a way to communicate to Chinese audiences in particular that they are not using the 1998 version, which flopped in China where it was criticized for being too westernized, as a template.

Twenty-two years later, Aguilera is singing another rendition of “Reflection” for the film’s soundtrack-one of two versions of the song that appears on the 2020 soundtrack. However, the film soundtrack also features two versions of “Reflection,” a tune made famous in America by Christina Aguilera for the soundtrack of the original 1998 animated feature. The Niki Caro-directed film, which dropped on Disney+ for “premium access” this weekend, has a score composed and conducted by Harry Gregson-Williams that makes up most of the official Mulan soundtrack.

#Reflection mulan meaning movie
Disney’s new live-action adaptation of Mulanmight not be a movie musical, but that doesn’t mean it is without music.
