The visual style breaks slightly with the look of modern Disney animation to draw from Chinese and Japanese classical cartoon art in the depiction of nature, there's an echo of the master artist Hiroshige. There are a couple of scenes where she narrowly escapes detection, including one at a swimming hole, and then, when she's unmasked, Shang's snaky adviser whispers that to impersonate a man is "treason.'' The outcome manages somehow to be true simultaneously to feminist dogma and romantic convention. The action plot involves Mulan training for battle (the song promises, "I'll make a man out of you'') and using quick thinking to save Shang's troops from certain defeat. He is also offended when people doubt he is a real dragon and refer to him as a lizard. Murphy, working in the tradition of Robin Williams' genie in "Aladdin,'' is quick, glib and funny. It's a little disconcerting the first time we hear his street-smart lingo (a black dude in medieval China?), but Mushu quickly grows on us. Mulan is accompanied on her journey by a scrawny dragon named Mushu, whose voice is performed by Eddie Murphy. (In an Eastern culture, the ending might have involved an arranged match between Mulan and Shang, which she has earned by her exploits.) Disney movies since time immemorial have provided their leads with low-comedy sidekicks, usually in the form of animals, although teacups and chandeliers are not unheard of. The movie breaks with the tradition in which the male hero rescues the heroine, but is still totally sold on the Western idea of romantic love.
But "Mulan'' has it both ways, since inevitably Mulan's heart goes pitty-pat over Shang, the handsome young captain she's assigned to serve under. Opening scenes in the film show Mulan botching the interview with the matchmaker (she sets her pants on fire, a nice Freudian touch), and asking, "When will my reflection show who I am inside?" The message here is standard feminist empowerment: Defy the matchmaker, dress as a boy, and choose your own career. Mulan is defying not simply convention, but her family's desire that she abide by the plans of a matchmaker and marry whomever she selects for her.
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