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Copyright of Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines both industry-created and viewer-created paratexts of Disney’s new Mulan (2020) to shed light on the localization of industry-created paratexts for Chinese audiences, the reception of the film, and the tensions between industry-created and viewer-created paratexts in China. It reveals that Disney has localized the poster, trailers and promos of Mulan for Chinese audiences by highlighting the film’s all-star cast and creating an illusion of its faithfulness to The Ballad of Mulan, and the extolled virtues of filial piety and patriotism cherished in Chinese culture. The viewer-created paratext, danmu, of Mulan challenges the industry-created paratexts and demonstrates unfavorable reception of the film in China. It criticizes the film for its inauthenticity to The Ballad of Mulan, cultural appropriation, promotion of American values to meet the needs of English-speaking audiences for exoticness and cultural otherness. By investigating danmu as a viewer-created paratext, the present study has enriched paratextual research and reception studies in translation, media and film studies in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines recent Sino-US film collaborations, focusing on Mulan (2020) against the backdrop of geopolitical shifts and the COVID-19 pandemic. Through in-depth interviews and a case study, it investigates the lukewarm reception of Mulan (2020) in China. The study explores how external pressures have disrupted the previously thriving partnership, leading to investment uncertainty, intensified censorship, and shifts in audience consumption towards online platforms, which have exacerbated piracy issues. It also addresses the political tensions surrounding Mulan (2020), including controversies related to Xinjiang and Hong Kong, which hindered its box-office success in Mainland China despite domestic support. A comparative analysis with Mulan (1998) assesses the evolution of feminist themes and filial piety in the 2020 adaptation. The findings indicate that while efforts were made to enhance feminist narratives and cultural motifs, the execution was superficial, treating complex cultural themes as mere embellishments rather than integral elements of the narrative. The film's portrayal of these themes within a predominantly Western framework highlights ongoing challenges in bridging cultural narratives in Sino-US film productions. The findings underscore the profound impact of geopolitics and reveal the contentious portrayal of feminism and cultural integration in Mulan (2020), emphasizing the challenges in Sino-US film collaborations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disney’s live-action Mulan (2020) was adapted from the animated Disney film Mulan (1988) and has caused heated discussion after its release. The film successfully wins the Western market because it incorporates Western elements, such as the image of the Xianniang from the legendary story. However, Chinese audiences fail to fully accept the rewriting of traditional Chinese heroine in this live-action film because it partly subverts the content of Chinese legend. From the perspective of Said’s Orientalism, this paper discusses the interpretation of Chinese elements in the film, such as Phoenix, qi, and the traditional Chinese ethics of loyalty, courage, truth, and filial piety, intending to reveal the operation of cultural capital in the international cultural market of film and television in a more comprehensive way. This paper will further discuss that the canonization of Mulan sheds some enlightenment on how to introduce more Chinese literary works into the world as part of world literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a shining pearl in Chinese traditional culture, Mulan is deeply rooted in the people’s hearts with its unique female hero image. This work not only depicts the legendary experience of Hua Mulan's heroic fighting in the army instead of her father, but also cleverly integrates the family’s core elements and the ones of honor, loyalty and so on under the background of Eastern culture, so that the story has profound cultural heritage. First of all, the Oriental cultural complex is clearly reflected in Mulan. The scenes, costumes, etiquette and other details in the film all reflect the ancient Cinha’s unique charm, presenting the audience with an art world full of Oriental aesthetics. In addition, through Mulan’s character, the film shows the family’s high value and the one of honor and loyalty in Eastern culture. Secondly, Mulan’s role fully embodies female values in the film. He not only bravely joined the army for his father, but also made repeated achievements on the battlefield, breaking the shackles of gender stereotypes. This subversion of traditional gender roles highlights the women’s important status and value in society, and plays a role in promoting the awakening of female consciousness in Eastern culture. Finally, it analyzes Mulan’s influence on female consciousness and finds that it plays a vital role in shaping and inheriting female consciousness in Oriental culture. Mulan's heroic image inspires women’s future generations to face difficulties bravely and pursue self-worth. At the same time, Mulan's actions beyond the restrictions of traditional social roles also provide a model for women to realize individual independence and autonomy.

With its unique cultural contributions and rich cultural connotations, Chinese culture has become increasingly influential in the world, so how to spread Chinese culture has become the proposition of the times. With this in mind, the purpose of this study is to find the differences between self-shaping and other-shaping and find the best way to adapt and disseminate traditional Chinese culture. Based on both quantitative and qualitative research, this study uses film subtitles, audience reviews, and interview material as samples to analyze the domestic movie Nezha: Birth of the Devil and the foreign movie Mulan. The results show that filmmakers prefer a similar theme and also use many cultural symbols, but have a very different emphasis on movie adaptations. Moreover, both domestic and foreign audiences haven’t formed an inclusive attitude to appreciate foreign movies; therefore, corresponding strategies should be adopted to better suit the audience’s interest and innovate traditional culture. In this way, this study can provide a new perspective for the adaptation and dissemination of traditional Chinese culture.

This study examines the visual emotive meanings involved in three films, that is, Mulan (1998), Mulan (2009), and Mulan (2020), which are adapted from The Ballad of Mulan. By adopting the theoretical framework of visual affect, this research conducts quantitative and qualitative analyses on the emotional episodes of Mulan in the three films. The study reveals that these films construct Mulan as a personality rich in emotions. However, there are distinctively different distributions of visual affect. In Mulan (1998), Mulan is built as a tomboy disrupting the masculine tradition, while in Mulan (2009) and Mulan (2020), Mulan is constructed as a filial and dutiful woman and an inherent legendary heroine respectively. The identity development revealed in this paper could be seen as a crucial way to transforming traditional figures in adapted films, contributing to the field of adaptation study from a semiotic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Trabalhos em Lingüística Aplicada is the property of Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Portal de Periodicos Eletronicos Cientificos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

On 4 September 2020, Disney released a remake of its 1998 hit animation, yet the film Mulan fails to replicate its success in the Chinese market this time, as reflected by its box office and online review. It is unexpected for Mulan to meet her waterloo is her homeland, as the patriotic legend involving cross-dressing has been entrancing and intriguing generations of Chinese people from both ends of the social spectrum via a range of media. Among divergent versions of Mulan narration, the Poem of Mulan composed circa the 5th century is the earliest and most established one, and since it has been in the school textbook for decades, the majority of Chinese people’s construal of Mulan is impinged upon by this work. The film Mulan, however, exhibits disparate core values from the Poem of Mulan: the former features filial piety and loyalty, whereas the latter feminism and being true. Furthermore, the film depicts Mulan as a quasi-witch woman with mighty qi that cannot by wielded by females, discrepant from the poem that is void of supernatural demonstrations and interventions, impinged upon by Confucian agnosticism and atheism. Additionally, the film demonstrates historical and cultural details that appear to be counterfactual to Chinese audiences, which is regarded as ignorance and disrespect of Chinese culture.

Copyright of Oceánide is the property of Spanish Society for the Study of Popular Culture (SELICUP) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Archivum is the property of Universidad de Oviedo, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the (im)politeness of Disney's two versions of Mulan and their receptions on Twitter. As for the films, it takes advantage of the availability of the same sharing scenes and storytelling scripts of the two versions. Considering their reception, over 6,700 tweets and comments were collected, using #Mulan and #DisneyMulan and from the two accounts of @DisneysMulan and @Disney, respectively. The analysis of the instances was based on the current literature on (im)politeness models. The results revealed that all of the impoliteness instances were found in the live-action version, guiding the inaccurate depiction of Chinese cultural and historical elements highlighted in the audiences' comments, classified into pointed criticisms as the third most reoccurring strategy in the corpus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The live-action adaptation of the Movie Mulan produced by Walt Disney in 2020 sparked heated discussion from the audience after Disney tries to represent a strong female action hero by giving Mulan, the female protagonist, a superpower attribute called „chi‟. In the era of new media, audience expressed their opinion through Twitter. Thus, the tweet responses and reviews on several websites were consecutively taken as primary and secondary data as it is an audience analysis research, applying feminist theory to examine the audience responses to the representation of female action heroes with a superpower. The research found that the majority of the audience, approximately 80%, falls into the opposition audience. They do not like the representation of Mulan with a superpower. On the other hand, less than 20% of audience fall into the dominant and negotiate audience. The high percentage of the oppositional audience indicates that the audience of the live-action Mulan would rather choose the representation of Mulan who came from a humble background instead of someone who was born great. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mitochondrial E3 ubiquitin ligase 1 (MUL1) is a mitochondrial outer membrane‐anchored protein‐containing transmembrane domain in its N‐ and C‐terminal regions, where both are exposed to the cytosol. Interestingly the C‐terminal region has a RING finger domain responsible for its E3 ligase activity, as ubiquitin or in SUMOylation, interacting with proteins related to mitochondrial fusion and fission, cell survival, and tumor suppressor process, such as Akt. Therefore, MUL1 is involved in various cellular processes, such as mitochondrial dynamics, inter‐organelle communication, proliferation, mitophagy, immune response, inflammation and cell apoptosis. MUL1 is expressed at a higher basal level in the heart, immune system organs, and blood. Here, we discuss the role of MUL1 in mitochondrial dynamics and its function in various pathological models, both in vitro and in vivo. In this context, we describe the role of MUL1 in: (1) the inflammatory response, by regulating NF‐κB activity; (2) cancer, by promoting cell death and regulating exonuclear function of proteins, such as p53; (3) neurological diseases, by maintaining communication with other organelles and interacting with proteins to eliminate damaged organelles and; (4) cardiovascular diseases, by maintaining mitochondrial fusion/fission homeostasis. In this review, we summarize the latest advances in the physiological and pathological functions of MUL1. We also describe the different substrates of MUL1, acting as a positive or negative regulator in various pathologies associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. In conclusion, MUL1 could be a potential key target for the development of therapies that focus on ensuring the functionality of the mitochondrial network and, furthermore, the quality control of intracellular components by synchronously modulating the activity of different cellular mechanisms involved in the aforementioned pathologies. This, in turn, will guide the development of targeted therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MIML library is a Java software tool to develop, test, and compare classification algorithms for multi-instance multi-label (MIML) learning. The library includes 43 algorithms and provides a specific format and facilities for data managing and partitioning, holdout and cross-validation methods, standard metrics for performance evaluation, and generation of reports. In addition, algorithms can be executed through xml configuration files without needing to program. It is platform-independent, extensible, free, open-source, and available on GitHub under the GNU General Public License. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender equality is often dismissed and rarely applied in society. Women and men tend to receive different treatments and regulations. Mulan live action is made with a variety of messages that can be taken, one of them being gender equality. The representation of the messages of gender equality is the focus of this research. The purpose of this research is to determine and understanding the message of gender equality represented in Mulan live action. This research is conducted with a qualitative approach with Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic theory as data analysis technique. The data is obtained by primary data collection which is documentation and observation, also the secondary data collection which is literature study. The result of the research shows that the message about gender equality in Mulan live action exists Implicitly. The movie shows the process of how gender equality can occur and how women and men should not be treated differently. In this movie the main character, Mulan, represents gender equality by boldly showing that women can bring honour to their family the same way men do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study looks at how Disney princess films perpetuate sexist tropes through language. By focusing on both feminism and linguistics, it uses an interdisciplinary approach underpinned by data analysis and media criticism. This paper uses a content analysis study of The Little Mermaid (1989) and Mulan (1998) to look at Disney's role in shaping representations of women, and how this representation has shifted within the decade of the release of these two films. This paper answers the question: in what ways does language in media perpetuate sexist tropes; more specifically, how has the language of male characters in media perpetuated misogyny. The content analysis looks at aspects of gender representation by grouping female and male characters separately in three observable categories. These are: the number of characters speaking more than 50 words of dialogue, the percentage of dialogue spoken by each gender, and the total number of sexist expressions used by each gender. Sexist language is further categorised in two parts. The first is discriminatory language used by men about women, and the second is discriminatory language used by women about men. Data analysis shows that there are more male characters than female characters; male characters make up more of the spoken dialogue and male characters use more sexist language than female characters. This paper argues, that although Disney has come a long way in making the female characters independent and strong on their own, they fail to identify the main problem of female representation, which is language used by males. In using feminist critical theory to criticise the two adaptations, this paper identifies the ways media perpetuates gender discrimination through language, propagating the subjugation of women, and how this has not changed in the decade between the release of the two films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is concerned with the inter-modal translation of Disney's 1998 animated film Mulan. It treats Disney's team of adaptors as corporate translators, exploring how their intervention enabled the legendary figure Mulan and the ballad named after her to travel from ancient China to the modern world to serve the artistic and commercial purposes of their patron, the Walt Disney Company. This study examines Mulan's journey along with the team's process: first, their research of the source; second, their activation of a two-phase cultural translation, enabling Mulan to enter 1990s America – assimilating her into US culture and fitting her into the Disney Formula. Key alterations and their impact are then scrutinized. This research critically reviews and assimilates prior scholarship, adapting relevant concepts such as traveling theory and post-translation rewriting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Walt Disney Company is immensely influential around the globe, but in the near future, the world's largest film market will reside in China rather than the United States. It is thus important to examine how Disney's 1998 Mulan and its 2020 remake contribute to the advancement and oppression of Chinese/Americans within Hollywood. This paper will compare both films by analyzing each film's casts and crews, reception in the global film market, critical responses, treatment of racial and gender identity within each narrative, and the sociohistorical contexts in which the films were produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Niki Caro's live-action Mulan (2020), the "witch," named Hawk by film critics or Xianniang (Immortal Woman) in closed captioning, is a twenty-first century "walk-on" (fly-in?), entirely absent in the genesis of the Mulan legend, the fifth-century "The Ballad of Mulan." Nor does she exist in any previous reincarnations in the Chinese and English language, including Maxine Hong Kingston's ethnic classic The Woman Warrior and Disney animation Mulan. Given the absence of the witch before 2020, is Caro's addition to the cast a Western wolf in Eastern sheep's clothing, speaking in English to boot, swallowing whole the gullible global audience? Is Caro affixing, fixating on, a feminist, homoerotic tail to an imperial, heteronormal Chinese tale? Is Caro a Western neo-imperialist bewitching--pun intended--the East in the name of a liberal, all-Asian performance? Hawk performs black magic on the battlefield, courtesy of Caro's special effects and computergenerated imagery. Occidental media technology conjures up the ghost of a phantasmagoric Orient, except this Orient is possessed by the Anglo-European mania over sorcery. How to read Hawk's power--including that of possessing and zombiefying her victims--empowered by Orientalism, or the Chinese witch's agency vested by the Australian Caro? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020 the new American film “Mulan” was released, which tells the story of a brave girl named Mulan who dressed in men's armor and went to war instead of her father. However, despite the fact that the film was based on the Chinese ballad “The Song of Mulan” and the director's promises to show the traditions and culture of China, the film turned out completely different from what it was supposed to be.

This article takes Disney animation as the research object to analyze the Chinese and American culture in the animation. The first part introduces the background of the animation. The theme of the animation comes from the long-standing narrative folk song Mulan Ci during the Southern and Northern Dynasties of China, and it introduces the parallel montage of animation narrative. The second part narrates the Chinese cultural elements in Mulan, and expounds on Disney's use and blending of Chinese cultural elements from three aspects of ink painting effect, national costumes and Confucianism. From the perspective of Western culture, the third part analyzes how to integrate Western thought and characteristics, and contrast with Chinese culture in Mulan from three aspects: Mushu, character and hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Directed by the feminist filmmaker Niki Caro, Disney’s 2020 live-action remake of Mulan (1998) strove to be a more gender progressive, culturally appropriate, and internationally successful adaptation of the Chinese legend of Mulan than the animated original. Contrary to the film’s intended effect, however, it was a critical and financial letdown. The film was criticized for a wide range of issues, including making unpopular changes to the animated original, misrepresenting Chinese culture and history, perpetuating Orientalist stereotypes, and demonizing Inner Asian steppe nomads. In addition, the film also faced boycott calls amid political controversies surrounding China. It received exceptionally low audience ratings in both the US and China, grossing a total well under its estimated budget. This article argues that Mulan (2020) is not, as many believe, just another Disney film suffering from simple artistic inability, cultural insensitivity, or political injustice, but a window into the tension-ridden intersectionality of the gender, sexual, racial, cultural, and political issues that shape the production and reception of today’s cross-cultural films. It discusses three major problems, the Disney problem, the gender problem, and the cultural problem, that Mulan (2020) tackled with respectful efforts in Caro’s feminist filmmaking pattern. The film made significant compromises between its goals of cultural appropriateness, progressive feminism, and monetary success. Although it eventually failed to satisfactorily resolve these at times conflicting missions, it still achieved important progress in addressing some serious gender and cultural problems in Mulan’s contemporary intertextual metamorphosis, especially those introduced by the Disney animation. By revealing Mulan (2020)’s value and defects, this article intends to flesh out some real-world challenges that feminist movements must overcome to effectively transmit messages and bring about changes at the transcultural level in the arts.

Disney’s Mulan (1998) has generated much scholarly interest in comparing the film with its hypotext: the Chinese legend of Mulan. While this comparison has produced meaningful criticism of the Orientalism inherent in Disney’s cultural appropriation, it often ironically perpetuates the Orientalist paradigm by reducing the legend into a unified, static entity of the “authentic” Chinese “original”. This paper argues that the Chinese hypotext is an accumulation of dramatically conflicting representations of Mulan with no clear point of origin. It analyzes the Republican-era film adaptation Mulan Joins the Army (1939) as a cultural palimpsest revealing attributes associated with different stages of the legendary figure’s millennium-long intertextual metamorphosis, including a possibly nomadic woman warrior outside China proper, a Confucian role model of loyalty and filial piety, a Sinitic deity in the Sino-Barbarian dichotomy, a focus of male sexual fantasy, a Neo-Confucian exemplar of chastity, and modern models for women established for antagonistic political agendas. Similar to the previous layers of adaptation constituting the hypotext, Disney’s Mulan is simply another hypertext continuing Mulan’s metamorphosis, and it by no means contains the most dramatic intertextual change. Productive criticism of Orientalist cultural appropriations, therefore, should move beyond the dichotomy of the static East versus the change-making West, taking full account of the immense hybridity and fluidity pulsing beneath the fallacy of a monolithic cultural “authenticity”.

Foreign films have long been used in English Language Teaching (ELT) and been proved effective in improving learners' linguistic competence. Cultivating Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) has gradually become a vital goal in English Language Teaching (ELT). However, whether foreign films can be used to improve learners' ICC is less researched. Taking Byram's ICC model, this paper tends to show foreign films can also be effective in improving learners' ICC. This article reports an empirical study designed to explore the processes students engage in when viewing Disney film Mulan in a Chinese college classroom. Students' study blogs, quizzes, and interviews are major research data and the analysis of the data illustrated foreign films' role in cultivating learners' ICC and explored the mental process of students' interpretation of foreign films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]