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Disney's 'Mulan' Disappoints at China Box Office - The New York Times

Disney's 'Mulan' Disappoints at China Box Office - The New York Times

Disney's 'Mulan' Disappoints at China Box Office - The New York Times
Sep 14, 2020 2 mins, 5 secs

“The movie is a waste of Mulan’s innocent name; it really is heartbreaking,” Qiu Tian, 30, a psychology teacher at a Beijing university who recently saw the movie, said in an interview.

The mixed reception for “Mulan” in China underscores the enduring challenge that Hollywood faces in trying to make films about Chinese stories that have both broad appeal and the ability to captivate moviegoers in China, its most important overseas market.

Hitting that sweet spot has become even more difficult in recent years, as Chinese moviegoers show an increasing appetite for more overtly patriotic fare like “Wolf Warrior 2” (2017) and “The Wandering Earth” (2019), two of the top three highest-grossing films in China.

Piracy and the recent resumption of the school year did not help ticket sales, Chinese industry analysts said.

But the weekend’s takings in China could carry a particular sting for Disney, considering how far it went to try to make the film a hit with Chinese audiences.

Unlike the DreamWorks Animation series “Kung Fu Panda,” an original story about the adventures of a spunky panda named Po that has been a runaway success in China, Mulan is a well-known figure to many Chinese.

Even as the original 1,500-year-old poem, the “Ballad of Mulan,” has been reinterpreted over the centuries, Mulan has remained a central figure in the Chinese cultural imagination, as a feminist hero to China’s early nationalists, as the human embodiment of filial piety, and, in more recent times, as loyalty to the state.

Lu Hang, a Chinese film critic and producer, said the familiarity with the character was partly why Disney’s live-action “Mulan” had not struck as much of a chord with Chinese audiences, even though the company’s other movies — in particular its Marvel superhero spectacles — have historically performed well in the country.

“The film portrays an imaginary version of China, and many Chinese audiences cannot accept this.”.

“There were a lot of perspectives in the film that were quite different than if it had been made from a normal Chinese perspective,” Silvia Zhang, 35, an actuary in Beijing, said in a telephone interview after attending a screening of the film.

Outside China, historians and commentators have criticized the film as pandering to the ruling Communist Party’s policies promoting nationalism and ethnic Han Chinese chauvinism.

Zhao Wen, 26, a film blogger, said that she loved its strong feminist scenes and “magnificent” scenery

It was unfair for viewers to hold the film to the standards of a Chinese historical documentary, she said

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