MovieChat Forums > Mulan (1998) Discussion > Facts about the real Mulan

Facts about the real Mulan

posted 10 years ago by nurhaci
5 replies | jump to latest

There are a few interesting facts about the real Mulan that was not shown in the Disney film:

* Mulan was already skilled in martial arts by the time she joined the army.

* Mulan served in the army for 12 years, not the mere weeks to repel one invasion as depicted in the film.

* Mulan's parents were dead by the time she returned from the army.

* Mulan kept up her fascade for years after military service, including taking a wife who gave birth to children (and who presumably knew about her real sex and was impregnated by someone else). Some historians believe Mulan was actually transgendered, but it is difficult to apply modern social conventions to ancient cultures.

[–] ScreenwriterVA 10 years ago

Where did you find the info for the last bullet? Everything I've read says this was a legend, not necessarily history, and that in the legend, she revealed that she was a woman as soon as she returned home.

[–] james5-3 10 years ago

I don't know where to put this but I know the first half of her name is pronounced moo, but how is the second part pronounced? Is it lan as in ban or lan as in autobahn? I always say it like ban and it's been said in both pronunciations in the movie, has it? But how should it be pronounced?

[–] JaCrispyGinx 7 years ago

I pronounce it moo-larn. I am English so I do not know if accents have anything to do with it.

Wubba Lubba Dub Dub!

[–] J_Howlett1886 10 years ago

There is no real Mulan it's a legend.

[–] Leesha92 9 years ago

Actually, as with all legends, there is a grain of truth to the Mulan legend.

Historians have found some evidence of woman who managed to sneak into the Chinese army roughly 1000 years ago, and was a successful soldier for a few years witout being caught. When her fellow male soldiers went to her house a few years after their time in the army to catch up with their fellow soldier buddy, they were shocked to their "brother"-in-arms was actually a "sister"-in-arms.

While this woman may not have been the stella combatsman, emperor saving, Hero-of China woman the poem and this movie says, (indeed her name may not even be Fa Mulan), she most likely did exist.