Pirates of Caribbean: At World’s End

“Playing this character and being this character and delivering this character will always bring a smile to my face,” said Johnny Depp on his last day of filming “Pirates of Caribbean: At World’s End,” released in 2007. Depp does need to smile because Captain Jack Sparrow has become one of cinema’s most memorable rascals.

Remember what happened to Captain Sparrow at the end of “Dead Man’s Chest?” Wow! The famous creature Kraken got him in its tentacles. In the beginning of “At World’s End,” we see Captain Sparrow stuck in Davy Jones’ really surrealistic jail. There is nothing to worry about because he has help coming. Captain Sparrow desperately needs to help pirates from all over the world in their fight with the East India Company and the plan to destroy piracy in the ocean forever. Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), and even Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) hope to bring the Nine Lords of the Pirate Brethren to fight against the power-hungry trading company, which now rules the Flying Dutchman along with its evil captain, Davy Jones, reprised by Bill Nighy. After getting charts and a ship from Chinese pirate Sao Feng, played by Chow Yun Fat, the rescue team frees Sparrow, and the war to make the world safe again for pirates start.

Betty Jo Tucker asked in her review, “Why do we want these outrageous scalawags to win? After all, they are an unscrupulous bunch who can’t even trust each other.” Executive producer Mike Stenson gives a good explanation. “When you’re growing up, you want to be a pirate,” he says. “You want to do something that’s about freedom, no rules, not dealing with authority.” Stenson says that as we get older, we have to always deal with authority and agreement, so it’s great to spend a couple of hours experiencing and rooting for “the darker, swashbuckling, more independent version” of ourselves.

We always do cheer. Tucker said, “Granted, it’s easy to hope the snooty, villainous Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) of the East India Company will finally get his comeuppance, even if it takes a bunch of no-so-perfect pirates to trim his sails -- especially when Capt. Jack Sparrow is aboard. Fortunately, our unkempt gold-toothed hero gets more screen time here than in Dead Man’s Chest, making At World’s End an even tastier treat for avid Depp fans like me.”

Included in this fight are the usual cast members of the franchise – plus some new characters who add to the sword fighting fun. It’s almost too much in one movie, but I’m not complaining. Tucker said, “I’m willing to suffer through a film’s numerous plotlines and out-of-control action as long as I can watch Johnny Depp weave his Jack Sparrow magic.”

Before this confusing film ends it’s almost three-hour running time, incredible special effects and amazing set pieces fill the screen. Satisfyingly, a lot of mocking humor corrects the action intensity, and the look of the movie is great to look at. Tucker ended her review by saying, “But it’s Captain Jack Sparrow who steals the show once again -- and I hope not for the last time.”

I actually saw this film in theaters and I found myself really enjoying it. Even though this may be considered a step down from the previous installments, I still liked this movie a lot. If you have seen the other “Pirates” movies and want to see this one, by all means go ahead. I don’t think it will hurt anyone who wants to see this franchise, but if you don’t like the sequels, I understand. However, I still find myself thoroughly enjoying the franchise, and I think everyone else will if they give it a chance.

This is not the last film in the franchise, as everyone might have guessed. Stay tuned next week to see the next review in “Pirates of the Caribbean Month.”

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

With his hysterical portrayal of the naughty and oddball Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp is back in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” released in 2006. This would come as no surprise for those who saw him play the same role in the first movie. By making this famous character, Depp has shown how an actor’s innate ability can make incredible special effects and funny action scenes look dull in comparison.

“None of us would be back if Johnny Depp had not wanted to play this character again,” admits producer Jerry Bruckheimer. “He loved playing him in the first movie and the audience loved him right back. Johnny is one of our greatest actors. He invented Jack Sparrow in the first movie, and he’s not one to rest on his laurels for the second and third. He takes a character to even new heights.”

In the sequel to the “Pirates” trilogy, Jack Sparrow faces off once more with the supernatural. If he can’t win against Davy Jones, played by Bill Nighy, by finding his “dead man’s chest,” he will lose his soul to this legendary Ruler of the Ocean Depths, who also is in charge of the famous Flying Dutchman ghost ship. Very laborious, especially when Sparrow is kidnapped by natives who think he is their god but plan to eat him! Also, where are Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) when he needs them? There’s nothing to worry about. Their wedding is interrupted, and each one will join in his quest – but whether to help or delay Sparrow’s plans is to be seen. In fact, Captain Sparrow is not the only one searching for Davy Jones’ chest. The powerful East India Company believes it holds the secret to taking over the waters and will do anything to get this chest.

Now the fight is on. Jack Sparrow and his friends must fight scary looking ghouls, a sea monster with gigantic tentacles, a Voodoo priestess, and their own demons before a cliffhanger ending leaves audiences itching for the third “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, which came out the next year.

Betty Jo Tucker said in her review, “Like most Johnny Depp fans, I never get tired of watching him. But that causes a problem. When Depp isn’t on screen, I’m preoccupied with thinking about when he’ll be back, and the rest of the movie suffers. No matter how spectacular the action sequences and special effects come across in Dead Man’s Chest, I would prefer looking at Captain Jack Sparrow’s long dreadlocks, gold teeth, outrageous eyeliner and disheveled pirate garb while listening to his woozy voice as he sashays around trying to trick everyone into doing his bidding.”

Tucker ended off by saying, “Therefore, dear reader, consider the source when I say you’ll get your money’s worth of entertainment from Dead Man’s Chest, but that it would be a better movie with Captain Jack Sparrow in every scene.”

Now I know this movie may not be as good as the first one, but I still found it very enjoyable and entertaining to watch. My brother had actually downloaded this movie online and we watched the film. I didn’t mind it, although people say the sequels started to get progressively worse, but I don’t think so. If you enjoyed the first one, then you should definitely check this one out, especially if you like Depp’s portrayal of Jack Sparrow. What I didn’t know is that this film is based off of a Disneyland ride.

How is the third film you ask? You will have to wait next week in the continuation of “Pirates of Caribbean Month” to find out.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

October is here once again and it is time for “Halloween Month.” This time around, I will only be posting on Fridays, as I normally do, unless something comes up this month and I end up reviewing other movies, but I don’t know how likely that will be. For this month, I will finally be reviewing a franchise that I have wanted to review since I started “Halloween Month,” the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise. I almost reviewed this last year, but pushed it to this year. I’m so excited that we’ll just jump right into the first movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” released in 2003.

Roger Ebert started his review by stating, “There's a nice little 90-minute B movie trapped inside the 143 minutes of "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," a movie that charms the audience and then outstays its welcome. Although the ending leaves open the possibility of a sequel, the movie feels like it already includes the sequel; maybe that explains the double-barreled title. It's a good thing that Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp are on hand to jack up the acting department. Their characters, two world-class goofballs, keep us interested even during entirely pointless swordfights.”

Ebert then continued by saying, “Pointless? See if you can follow me here.” Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has a real hatred for Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who was the captain of a rebellion on Sparrow’s pirate ship, the Black Pearl, and left Sparrow stranded on a deserted island. Barbossa and his crew then spread an ancient curse that turned everything into the Undead. By day they look like normal if degenerate humans, but by night, they’re revealed as skeletal corpses. This is the most important fact: Because they’re already dead, they cannot be killed. Ebert said, “Excuse me for supplying logic where it is manifestly not wanted, but doesn't that mean there's no point in fighting them? There's a violent battle at one point between the Black Pearl crew and sailors of the Royal Navy, and unless I am mistaken the sailors would all eventually have to be dead because the skeletons could just keep on fighting forever, until they won. Yes? The only reason I bring this up is that the battle scenes actually feel as if they go on forever. It's fun at first to see a pirate swordfight, but eventually it gets to the point where the sword-clashing, yardarm-swinging and timber-shivering get repetitious. I also lost count of how many times Jack Sparrow is the helpless captive of both the British and the pirates, and escapes from the chains/brig/noose/island.”

Ebert continued, “And yet the movie made me grin at times, and savor the daffy plot, and enjoy the way Depp and Rush fearlessly provide performances that seem nourished by deep wells of nuttiness. Depp in particular seems to be channeling a drunken drag queen, with his eyeliner and the way he minces ashore and slurs his dialogue ever so insouciantly. Don't mistake me: This is not a criticism, but admiration for his work. It can be said that his performance is original in its every atom.” There has never been a pirate, or a human in that way, like this in any other movie. One person said that he got too much sun while he was deserted on the island, but his behavior is a lifetime of rehearsal. Ebert describes him as “a peacock in full display.”

Ebert compared, “Consider how boring it would have been if Depp had played the role straight, as an Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks (Sr. or Jr.) might have. To take this material seriously would make it unbearable. Capt. Sparrow's behavior is so rococo that other members of the cast actually comment on it. And yet because it is consistent and because you can never catch Depp making fun of the character, it rises to a kind of cockamamie sincerity.”

Geoffrey Rush is fairly quiet – but only by contrast. Ebert is funny when he said, “His Barbossa, whose teeth alone would intimidate a congregation of dentists, brings gnashing to an art form.”

Only the film’s PG-13 rating prevents him from doing inappropriate things to the heroine, Elizabeth Swann, played by Keira Knightley, whose blood, it is told, can free the captain and his crew from the Curse of the Black Pearl.

Elizabeth is the daughter of Weatherby Swann, the governor (Jonathan Pryce) of Part Royal, a British base in the Caribbean, and is arranged to marry Cmdr. Norrington (Jack Davenport), a destiny which we feel would be a lifetime of conversations about his constipation.

She actually loves the handsome young swordsmith Will Turner, played by Orlando Bloom, whom she met when they were both children, after seeing him from afar on a raft with a golden pirate medallion around his neck, which turns out to hold the key to the curse. Jack Sparrow becomes like a fatherly figure to Will, especially after he finds out who his father was…and that is enough of the story.

Ebert said, “Bloom is well cast in a severely limited role as the heroic straight-arrow. He has the classic profile of a silent-film star. Knightley you will recall as the best friend of the heroine in "Bend It Like Beckham," where she had a sparkle altogether lacking here.”

Ebert continued, “Truth be told, she doesn't generate enough fire to explain why these swashbucklers would risk their lives for her, and in closeup, seems composed when she should smolder. Parminder K. Nagra, the star of "Beckham," might have been a more spirited choice.”

Ebert admitted, “"Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" is "based on" the theme park ride at Disney World, which I have taken many times. It is also inspired (as the ride no doubt was) by the rich tradition of pirate movies, and excels in such departments as buried treasure, pirates' caves, pet parrots and walking the plank, although there is a shortage of eye patches and hooks.”

The author Dave Eggers said he had plans to open a Pirates’ Store, filled with planks measured and made to order, and “The Curse of the Black Pearl” is like his dream come true.

I saw this movie when I was a freshman in High School one day in class and again when it was On Demand. I really enjoyed this film and it’s a good popcorn flick. If you haven’t seen this movie, then you should, you will enjoy it, especially since this is a Disney movie.

No surprise, this film launched a franchise, which we will look at throughout this month. Next week, I will talk about the first sequel in “Pirates of the Caribbean Month.”

Ip Man 4: The Finale

“Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy,” which came out in 2018, was a nicely made surprise (the Michelle Yeoh cameo really helped) in a great franchise that was nevertheless working on diminishing returns. Pat Padua said in his review, “Ip Man 4: The Finale shares some of its predecessor’s impressive production values, constructing big period sets that suggest a martial arts version of Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart. Unfortunately, while the surrounding melodrama is stronger and more timely than usual, the fight scenes send out franchise star Donnie Yen on a relatively lackluster note.”

The famous Yuen Woo-Ping, who directed “Master Z,” is back as fight coordinator here but passes the job back to Wilson Yip, who worked every installment in the main series. The fourth film, released in 2019, sets up a new generation. Set in the 1960s around the time Ip Man’s actual student Bruce Lee (Kwok-Kwan Chan) was becoming famous in America, the film is mainly set in San Francisco, where Ip Man hopes to send his disturbed son Ching (Jim Liu) to school.

However, Ip Man has to get past the Chinese Benevolent Association, whose boss, Wan Zong-hua, played by Wu Yue, refuses to give Ip Man the recommendation letter needed to Chinese immigrants to attend school in America. The problem: Wan and his coworkers arent’ happy that Ip Man’s former student Bruce Lee wants to teach Chinese martial arts to Americans. Padua compared, “Wan is sort of the equivalent of the Sammo Hung figure in Ip Man 2; naturally, the adversaries end up uniting forces to fight a common enemy.”

This brings us to another problem. That common enemy is, you guessed it, American racism, which hurts Wan’s daughter Yonah, played by Vanda Margraf, at school. The anti-Chinese issue is also occurring in the army. US Marines staff sergeant Hartman Wu (Vanness Wu) wants his fellow Marines to learn Wing Chun, but gunnery sergeant Chun Barton Geddes (Scott Adkins) refuses, insisting that karate (invented by the Japanese) is the superior martial arts.

Padua said, “The period detail may be completely fictional, but the art direction and sweeping camerawork makes for a romantic and convincing simulacrum of San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1960s. The conflict between ugly Americans and Chinese immigrants is played a bit cartoonishly, but Yen as always is there to ground the action in something like a recognizable human character. With his modest frame and gentle demeanor, Yen comes off like a kung fu Jimmy Stewart, fighting for the oppressed wherever he goes, and there’s a certain thrill from seeing him stand up for Yonah when she’s bullied by her school’s star cheerleader and her hockey stick wielding friends.”

Yen may be getting a little old for the amazing fights of the earlier “Ip Man” movies, which fits the character at this stage in his life: we see that at the beginning of the film, this older Ip Man is diagnosed with cancer that will kill him, so his martial arts are of a smart elder who, even more than usual, doesn’t believe in any wasted movement. However, after fighting Mike Tyson in “Ip Man 3,” the villain here isn’t as brilliant. Obviously, there’s agreement when Ip Man does end up beating the racist gunnery sergeant, but somehow the stakes don’t seem as high. Padua mentioned, “The Ip Man series has been a study in the tensions between kung fu tropes and melodrama; it’s like each film has an inner battle between the gritty underdog story of Rocky and the slick comic book jingoism of Rocky IV.” For “Ip Man 4: The Finale,” the Chinese win again, but at the cost of a fluency that is somewhat weakens the underdog narrative.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a great end to the franchise and you should see it. I think it was appropriate to end it off this way, especially since cancer is what killed off the actual Ip Man. So if you want to see one more Ip Man movie, than you should because you will love it, especially if you loved the previous movies.

This brings us to the end of “Ip Man Month,” which I hope everyone has enjoyed my reviews of this franchise. If you have seen the movies, great, and if not, then you should. Stay tuned next month when, wait a minute, next month is October. You know what that means….HALLOWEEN MONTH! Stay tuned for that because I will be finally reviewing a franchise that I have wanted to review ever since I started this marathon.

Ip Man 3

Try the stoic actor’s face looking like a mix between love and loss.

Christian Toto said in his review, “The third film in the quasi-biographical franchise doesn’t disappoint on the action front. It dazzles, plain and simple, even with a new fight choreographer (“Kill Bill’s” Yuen Woo-Ping) calling the shots.”

What starts as a classical action film gets emotionally changed so dramatic it almost makes you forget the greatest stunt work in recent years.

Donnie Yen reprises his role as Ip Man, the Wing Chun grandmaster known for his flawless fighting technique. This time, he has to defend his son’s (Yanshi Wang) school, which is being eyed at by a shady property developer (Patrick Tam).

Have you heard of any other type of real estate worker in movies today?

This will have Ip Man use all of his skills to fight against the gang of crooks attacking the school. I also should mention who is the one who is telling the developer the roar: Former boxer Iron Mike Tyson.

That’s not the entire plot of the movie. A subplot has Ip Man’s wife diagnosed with cancer through a lot of the movie. On top of that, there is jealously from a fellow Wing Chun fighter, played by Max Zhang.

“Ip Man 3,” released in 2015, awkwardly brings everything together, often staying true to the genre this film belongs in. So much fighting and waiting until the boring exposition is done.

Toto mentioned, “It doesn’t help that Tyson is best served in micro-cameos like his “Hangover” franchise chores. He’s given a few lines here, both in English and Cantonese, and gets KO’d by each. He’s still a hulking presence, so the inevitable battle between his character and Ip Man is almost worth the stunt casting.”

The real Ip Man taught Bruce Lee, and Danny Chan plays the martial artist as a dance instructor, which is weird.

This brings everyone to a moment where it shows Donnie Yen being more than an action actor. Toto said, “The sequence is tender and true, a summation of love that’s more beautiful than most rom-com finales.”

However, I should also mention the kinetic fight scenes where Ip Man takes on a criminal in a congested elevator early in the movie. The fighting does eventually go into the building, but the fast pace only increases with more room to fight.

Of course, there’s a great fight in a warehouse, where Tyson’s pawns attack Ip Man in classic, one-on-one fighting. Of course, no genre is perfect.

Director Wilson Yip doesn’t use shaky cams or really fast edits. Toto noted, “He trusts the chaos enveloping his stars. He employs sly camera angles and wide shots to make sure we see every fist and foot.”

Toto continued, “Tyson’s battle sequence is a hoot, if only for the physical contrast between the combatants. It’s like watching Freddy vs. Jason, a grudge match that works because the two weren’t meant to share the same stage together.”

Toto went on, “Yen’s Ip Man is a throwback in more ways than one. The story is set in the late 1959s, which lends the film an old-fashioned sheen. It’s the character’s selfless spirit that permeates the production. He’s violently humble and kind, a reluctant warrior happiest when he can praise anyone but himself.”

This will make people want more real-life Ip Mans both in pop culture and reality.

I guess this film isn’t as good as the first two, but I still think it’s a good one to check out, for those who are fans of the franchise. You will absolutely love this, especially with the emotional moments in this film. Check it out and enjoy the film with more at stake.

Look out next week when I wrap up “Ip Man month” with the last film in the franchise.

Ip Man 2

Compared to the first movie, which was a biographical movie on the Wing Chun martial artist who tutored Bruce Lee, Wilson Yip’s more generously made sequel, “Ip Man 2,” released in 2011, is a lot of hits and misses.

Maggie Lee said in her review, “As martial arts choreography goes, one-on-one combat couldn’t get much better than the sheer moxie and prowess displayed by Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung (who co-stars and directs action).”

Lee continued, “However, those used to Yip’s black humor and his genre-bending quirks maybe slightly disappointed with the conventional screenplay, which milks people’s nostalgia for ‘70s kung-fu craze without taking the dramatic arc into newer directions. The nationalistic tone, tangled up with a dated underdog sentiment, is even more strident than the previous edition.”

In “Ip Man 2,” it changes from the Japanese-dominated Foshan in China to British-ruled Hong Kong. The first movie made Ip Man as a lenient, modest martial-arts teacher who always does resisting insults to fight, so the sequel is about him becoming a martial arts master.

After winning against the Japanese commander Miura in a public match, Ip Man and his family are really poor living in Hong Kong. He creates a school for Wing Chun on a rooftop, and takes on a group of working class young boys led by cocky but talented Wong Leung, played by Wang Xiaoming. However, Ip Man finds out that martial arts in Hong Kong is caught up in politics and corruption.

In order for him to be given permission to teach, he goes up against a more famous teacher Hong Chun-nam (Sammo Hung) and also has to fight in the boxing ring against Twister (Darren Shahlavi), a British champion who is supported by police supervisor Wallace (Charlie Mayer) to defend the dominance of white men.

Lee mentioned, “The dinner table has always appeared in Yip’s films as the locus of dramatic tension or character-revelation, as seen in Ip Man, Bullets over Summer and Juliet in Love. Here, he takes this auteurist touch to new heights by staging a duel between Ip and Hong in a restaurant, on top of a wobbly round table. Technically, every move is devised and shot with consummate skill. Its entertainment value easily trumps the climactic boxing match, where brute force and hard punches rule.”

Not only that, there’s also a part at the dinner table of very different emotion – when Ip Man is with Hong for a family dinner, giving the teacher a chance to show his soft, fatherly side of the student and how many people he must support.

We can see that Yen is at the height of his acting career. Lee said, “His prowess is staggering, but it is even more pleasurable to see his improving acting chops and the more sympathetic interplay between him and Hung than their previous appearance in Yip’s SPL.”

Supporting roles all have the feeling and humanity that Ip Man had shown in the first movie. However, none of them has the same sort of feeling that we see in the original. Lee said, “Shahlaviand Mayer compete in ham acting to be Most Obnoxious Racist Colonialist in the kung-fu canon, but one can hardly tell them apart – so alike are their growls and grimaces.”

Lee ended her review by saying, “From lingering close-ups of paraphernalia, like Ip’s ashtrays and his wife’s (Lynn Hsiong) biscuit-tin-cum-piggy-bank, ‘50s shop signs and posters, the meticulous art direction and tastefully saturated image colors provide a trip down memory lane for Hong Kong moviegoers.”

If you loved the first movie, you should definitely see this one. You will absolutely like it and fall in love with the franchise even more. Sure, the whole franchise is built around a pro-China vibe, but I think that’s normal in different countries movie industries. However, just see it for great acting, great story, and great fighting.

Look out next week for the next installment in “Ip Man Month.”

Mulan (2020)

Last night, I checked out the “Mulan” remake, which is released on Disney+ and you have to watch it by paying a premium fee, so I think I’ll let everyone know what I thought about it.

Even though this is a strong lead, the remake suffers from bad pacing, boring characters, and VFX problems that doesn’t make it anywhere as good as the superior 1998 original animated film.

Directed by Niki Caro, “Mulan” has a wide Asian cast. From the start of production on the remake, the movie was supposed to borrow from the legend of the character than how the 1998 original told the story.

The remake is targeted to the young woman audience that is supposed to be very familiar with. The basic story of “Mulan” has been the same since the original Ballad of Mulan Chinese poem: the young woman who disguises herself as a man to replay her old and handicapped father. The 2020 remake starts off the same, telling the Emperor of China’s (Jet Li) order that one man per family must enlist in the Imperial Army. Taking her father’s (Tzi Ma) sword and armor, Mulan goes off into the unknown and sees herself while saving her country. On this simple level, “Mulan” is the exact same film as the original animated film, but it separates itself a lot from here.

Niki Caro’s “Mulan” takes a lot from the original folktales and not from the animated film, but it also introduces new characters and elements. Many characters that are in the animated film were either written out, replaced, or broken into separate characters. Maybe the largest deletion of the film is not having Mushu, the comedic relief of the animated film. Fans of the original will miss the character, who brought a lot of light to the story and have Mulan a great person to think ideas back and forth.

Even though Yifei Liu plays Mulan well, it feels like she did not have a lot of lines in this film. Sheraz Farooqi said in his review, “Of course, the nature of the plot, as Mulan is under the cover of a man’s appearance leads her to be quiet for most of the film, it would have been nice to have her speak more often. The omission of Mushu once again plays into this as Mulan is alone throughout most of the film.” The second deletion fans will miss are the songs. Farooqi said, “While some notes and instrumental versions of the original songs find their way into the remake, the lack of ‘I’ll Make a Man Out of You” was definitely felt.” The character who sang that song, Li Shang, was broken into two characters, Commander Tung (Donnie Yen) and Honghui (Yoson An). Farooqi noted, “While the reasoning behind it made sense, unfortunately, the film itself did not serve either character well. Both felt very one-dimensional versions of a three-dimensional character in the original.”

Other than that, the villains were also poor in the remake compared to the animated film. Now I know that Shan Yu, the villain in the original animated version, will never be ranked amongst some of the best Disney villains at the time, but the two villains in the live action remake, Xian Lang (Gong Li) and Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee) were not in any way better. Farooqi mentioned, “Each felt very one-note and character development for one them happened in a blinding second, to the point where their arc’s conclusion came off as puzzling, yet predictable. While the actors who played them did well with what they had, better writing and extra breathing room could have gone a long way.”

Farooqi continued, “On the topic of pacing and breathing room, something about 2020’s Mulan felt off. The film moved from scene to scene at a lightning pace, character development for the side characters happened in a more cartoony way than the cartoon itself and things felt disjointed in the plot in the third act. One could imagine there is a longer cut of Mulan that would have let the film breathe, specifically in the final half of the film.”

All these flaws aside, “Mulan” is still enjoyable. The film does by a good cast, specifically, it’s lead Liu. The production design of the film was nice and the choreography was well done too. Technically speaking, the film’s visuals are beautiful and it has a nice soundtrack. Farooqi said, “When comparing it to the recent Disney live-action releases, the film does not really reach the pulp feel of Aladdin or the 1:1 remake of The Lion King.” Even though I do applaud “Mulan” for being different from the original animated movie, I think it could have depended on the original a little more, like with the comic relief characters like Mushu, or have the iconic songs in the film.

In the end, “Mulan” is another one of the better live-action remakes that Disney has done. Even though the pacing and some pointless characters really detract from the strong acting performances, the film does get credit for being a more serious look at the Mulan story.

As I mentioned before, even though I like the beautiful visuals and look of the film, and the fight choreography was enjoyable, and cast and performances were nice, it really lacks with having a little forced humor that causes a slight chuckle and not having any of the iconic songs from the original. Also, I really don't think the runtime of the movie really needed to be close to two hours. For a film that was originally supposed to have a theatrical release, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it only got released in theaters in countries that don’t have Disney+ and others where subscribers had to pay Disney+ a premium fee to buy, I think I will let you decide if you want to watch it. I don’t think it was worth having a premium fee to watch the film and even though it is decent and one of the better live-action remakes, I don’t see myself re-watching this after a first viewing. Like I said, it’s a decent, ok film, but I would prefer to watch the original animated film like always. However, it’s not nearly as bad as some of the others, like “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King,” so I give it credit there.

Thank you for joining in on my review tonight. I’ll see you next Friday for the next installment in “Ip Man Month.”