The character I'll be referring to is Hua Mulan from the movie Rise of a Warrior, so not the Disney one. Before reading this article, I highly advise you to watch the movie first. There are a lot of spoilers. Another spoiler, I barely edited it so there's probably a lot of mistakes. But wanted to get this out as soon as possible. I watched it and it's absolutely amazing and the main character was so inspiring that I wanted to analyze what part of her that made her so inspiring to me.
We know that Mulan’s character changes throughout the movie. In the beginning, Mulan is smart and caring for her father. Her past flashbacks show she has a just character- stopping bullies at a young age from bullying other villager kids. She knows martial arts but only uses it when necessary. Now back to the present, she is off to war as a common soldier and the movie portrayed her like a real human, even if she was highly skilled in fighting she hesitated in killing her first victim. But after her first kill and realizing the consequences of war, she realizes how easy it is to lose a life. She knows she cannot lose, so she adapts to the bloodshed on the battlefield and slowly becomes indifferent in slicing her enemies down-weather it's her 10th kill or 1000th kill. No hesitation whatsoever. But yet after every battle, she takes her time in cleaning the nametags of her dead comrades and hanging each and every one of them to dry. So even if we see her emotionless side on the battlefield, she is tired and mournful for her lost comrades when she is by herself. Sometimes I wonder where her courage comes from. To wake up every day not knowing if it's her last day or not. However, in the ending scene, she admits that it was Wentai who gave her the courage to open her eyes every day. The only thing that was not so depressing was her falling in love with Wentai and him reciprocating the same feelings. They quickly became generals of their armies and led their soldiers together. Their time together as generals made them find comfort in each other as everything around them is in chaos. But Wentai mentioned multiple times that you can't survive on the battlefield with emotion guiding you. Both Mulan and Wentai both know the consequences of developing these emotions during such a critical time. Mulan has suppressed her feelings ever since her father told her that women should be delicate people who shouldn't know how to fight. But feelings are something you can't control and Mulan learns the hard way when she goes after Wentai when she heard his group was being ambushed. But because she didn't follow his order, it led to many soldiers being killed. In order for her to stop having emotions, Wentai fakes his death. Causing Mulan to mourn for him. He was the reason she was able to wake up and fight for her country but now that he's gone she has lost her purpose. The reason why I love this scene is because up till now we only saw Mulan as a strong general that is smart and strong that cannot be taken down. But here you see her being vulnerable, you see her broken and unable to process Wentai death. She drinks to get rid of her sadness. This is the part where most viewers can relate to. Since most viewers I'm assuming never went to war nor did they need to kill multiple people every day, but most can relate to the death of a loved one or losing someone. Death of a loved one or having that loved one gone, and using alcohol to forget and escape from the painful reality. We then realize that Mulan is still a human. Even if she is indifferent to war, she still has feelings. But she knows she can't mourn forever, she knows her position as a general is important in leading her army to victory. But it's hard, even when her close friend, Tiger yells at her to get over it, she reacts out of anger and for the first time she expresses her raw emotions. Because Wentai was also her partner in being a general, her soldiers were getting wary if she could still lead especially in that state. They were losing moral which is deadly at the battlefield because once you have no will to fight, your soldiers are good as dead. But slowly she moves on and finds a new purpose. To lead her army to war with a spirit that is stronger than before and is determined to bring her soldiers back alive. While Wentai is disguise as one of the injured soldiers she leads her army to victorious battles after battles. Throughout the movie, Mulan never wanted to fight, nor did she ever wanted to see the blood of her comrades nor did she want to be general. But even when all these responsibilities were given to her, she never complained or gave up to achieve her final goal, which was to return home. And finally, after years of strain and loss, she returned home. When Mulan finally returns home, we already know that she and Wentai cannot be together as he turns out to be the prince who is married to the enemy’s daughter in order to unite the two nations. But even in the ending scene where Wentai asks her to run away with him, she refuses. The whole purpose of why she had to go to war was to stop the enemies from harming her country and she did not want that to happen again. She acted on her duties and in the ending scene she asks the same for Wentai, which resulted in them having to go down separate paths in the end. It showed that she never lost sight of her goal, even if it meant she could not be with her lover forever. Although it was heartbreaking to watch this scene, her decision was logical and necessary. Mulan went through all those years of trauma and fighting to finally come back to her peaceful hometown.The movie is only 2 hours long but she has been going to war for 12 years, meaning that almost most of her young adult life is on the battlefield. After 12 years, she can finally stop worrying about her life on the line, which was her reason for refusing his offer to get rid of the risk of starting another war.
I think the reason why I really like her character and why Mulan was so inspiration was because she never lost sight of her goal. Even when she had to go through so many obstacles, and wanted to give up everything, she kept going and never complained once. I think the difference between the Disney movie and the Rise of the Warrior is that the Disney version portrayed her as a hero who saved her country, in the Rise of the Warrior showed the consequences of being a hero. Even if she did save her country, she brought peace with a cost. A personal cost of not being with her first love and a national cost of seeing her comrades alive one day to die the next. The movie didn't even with a happy ending where the main character is with their lover despite it going against everything they were working towards so far. But I like this ending, it gives a new perspective that endings don't have to always be happy and romantic, but an ending that shows that the main character had achieved the same goal she had from the beginning. Many movies have the main character wanting to accomplish a goal and in the end, the movie only focuses on the main character finding love and shows an happy ending where the main character finds love and that everything is all well and good, whether or not they completed their original goal. Mulan, a woman who's morals are so strong that she does not waver from her path to her goal. I hope that I can learn from her and become someone who also sees the bigger picture. Thank you, Mulan.
Also! Thank you for making this far. (￣▽￣)/
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