Mulan (1998)

Original review:  Not especially interesting; certainly not up to the usual Disney standard. Eddie Murphy as the dragon was much more successful--playing basically the same role--a few years later in Shrek.
Re-view review: I had forgotten that this is a musical. I had forgotten that this movie is, for the most part, as charming as it is. Honestly, I had forgotten pretty much everything about this film. Apparently it didn’t make much of an impression on me then, but upon re-viewing I find it to be better than I had previously realized. Most of the strength here comes less from what Mulan does and more from who she is. The story’s climactic escapades come across as far-fetched and overwrought, thus dropping the assessment down just a bit. But everything that comes before the climax entertains quite well without ever slipping too deeply into the kinds of silliness that a story such as this--a gender-swapping tale--inevitably seems to invite. I cannot speak to the historicity of the story, or its rendering here, as I know hardly anything significant about Chinese history--but hey, medieval France had Joan of Arc, so why not Fa Mulan creating her own legend? Just as the character herself proved more than worthy, so too does her story fit in to the Disney pantheon. She makes a damn good warrior, and a fine princess, too.