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Film: Mulan

Disney stole my $30.

On so many levels, this film fails. First, not gripping at all. The opening scenes are clunky, poorly shot, no grace, wit, or tension. Takes too long to get the story going. (My wife complained about the editing, too).

But, then - the action. Yikes. I had to look up the filmmaker who turns out to be the director of Whale Rider, which sort of makes sense. It was like she needed to learn how to stage action. I don't understand how critics lambast a film like Lone Ranger and can support a film like Mulan. It would be like saying - I love watching high school basketball versus the Raptors-Celtics. They aren't even in the same league.

Another thing, one that probably no one will say - having all the Chinese actors reading their lines in English is weird! There is zero smoothness to the dialog. It all comes out awkward and unnatural. It's funny what's happened here. In the old days, you'd have Western actors playing Chinese. Now, of course, that's offensive, but their dialog and scene execution was believable. Now, we have folks with English as a second or third language awkwardly trying to speak in Americanized dialog and if you ask me - it's a disaster. I'd prefer the film be in Mandarin.