The Mulan live action film is the next big Disney remake and with a UK release date planned for spring 2020 it looks like the rate of production will continue at pace. It’ll be the 7th in the recent run of live action films from Walt Disney Pictures as it has set out to remake large swathes of its animated classics, which started out tentatively with Jungle Book in 2016, leading up to Dumbo, Aladdin, The Lion King and Lady and the Tramp live action adaptations in 2019.
The pace of release doesn’t look like it’ll be as ferocious in 2020 with just the Mulan live action planned, but then there will be a further six up to the end of 2023. They’re all untitled as of yet, but with four scheduled to come out in 2022, a massive back catalogue of animated films and the success of the recent live action films this could all turn out to be the tip of the iceberg. Although, the question is what Fisney will do when it exhausts it’s opportunities, but maybe by that time we’ll have 360 VR experience movies to start the process off again with.
AdvertisementWith a story centred around the Chinese Empire’s fight against the invading Hun forces, the cast for the film has been put together to give it a culturally fitting production. Chinese-American actress Liu Yifei has been cast in the lease role as Mulan and she’s joined by Jet Li as the Emperor of China, Jason Scott Lee as Hun commander Bori Khan and Gong Li as the witchy antagonist of the film, Xianniang.
Mulan live action UK release date
The Mulan live action UK release date has been confirmed for Friday the 27th March 2020, which sets it up for the Easter Holidays pretty well. It’s out in cinemas in the USA and Canada on the same date with 22-years separating it from the arrival of the original animated film in 1998.
AdvertisementWith such a long lead-in time for the release date there isn’t a lot of competition for Mulan out on the same weekend with just Peter Rabbit 2 scheduled as of yet. However, with such an important release window, we’re expecting at least one or two additions in the coming months. It’s also got the challenge of going up against the next James Bond film, No Time To Die, which is out a week later.
You can see more on the film on the Walt Disney Pictures website at https://disney.co.uk/movies/mulan-2020.
Age rating and parents guide
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) won’t confirm the official Mulan live action age rating for the UK until just a couple of weeks before the release date, but there’s plenty to go on to allow you to plan ahead. To start with, the story looks set to stick close to that of the animated film, which had an age rating of U, with mild threat and violence as it’s parents guide notes.
The main addition to this is that both The Lion King and Aladdin live action adaptations received age ratings of PG, although with similar parents guide notes. As such it seems highly likely that the 2020 Mulan film will be given the same certification. We’ll add in more details as they’re confirmed.
AdvertisementRuntime
As with the age rating, the runtime for the film hasn’t been confirmed with the release still a long way off, but The Lion King and Aladdin (2019) were around the two hour mark, so that’s the best bet for Mulan too.
Story synopsis
Set in China as the Chinese Empire faces invading Hun forces from the North, the Emperor calls for the conscription of one man per family to fight in the war. This would see her ailing father being sent to the war front, so she disguises herself as a man to take his place and finds herself flung headfirst into the battle to save her homeland from the invaders.
That may sound tough, but the general gist is that she’s just as much a warrior as her father used to be when he was younger and would prefer this to getting set up in an arranged marriage with the Matchmaker’s selection. Flying in the face of tradition, she blazes a trail of heroism as she progresses through the training and marches to face down the approaching horse.
You can follow Disney Studios on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DisneyStudios to see more on the film in the build up to the release.
