Mulan's dark side and the international boycott against the Disney film

The new and spectacular Disney film is no longer an animation as was its original story in 1998. At that time, 22 years ago, it was a drawing that caused a sensation and left its fans who wanted more versions of that warrior defender of an empire with a taste. Mulán returned more than two decades later but embodied in Yifei Liu, an actress who leaves no doubt about her talent and skill in the different stages.

These scenarios are today the result of international controversy. Many of Mulan's scenes were filmed in Xinjiang, the epicenter of the systematic violation of human rights by the Chinese regime. The location, in itself, holds no reproach. However, several analysts and international media warned that the end of the $200 million mega-production was a clear indication of what could be considered excess by the producers. "A scandal", in the words of The Washington Post.

The directors had no better idea than to thank the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the regional authorities for providing them with the sets. They were also pleased with the propaganda media in Beijing for the support given during their stay there. The CCP and the Xinjiang rulers are targets of international denunciations of human rights violations. Complicity, clumsiness, or neglect?

"There is a dark side to those landscapes. Disney filmed Mulan in regions of China. In the credits, Disney offers special thanks to more than a dozen Chinese institutions that helped with the film. These include four Chinese Communist Party propaganda departments in the Xinjiang region, as well as the Turpan City Public Security Bureau in the same region, organizations that are facilitating crimes against humanity," Isaac Stone Fish wrote in his column.

For their part, international agencies warned about the boycott that is underway in repudiation of the alleged complicity of producers with agents of the regime. The remake faces new calls for a boycott after it emerged that some of the scenes of the assured blockbuster were filmed in that Chinese region, where widespread abuses against the rights of the region's Muslim population have been widely documented.

Human rights groups, academics, and journalists have denounced harsh repression against Uighur and Kazakh Muslims in Xinjiang, including mass internment, forced sterilizations, slave labor, and intense religious and movement restrictions.

In addition to public health concerns, Disney conducts an on-demand viewing experiment that can dramatically alter the way people watch movies. Although Disney has produced several movies for home consumption, it has never done so with a production of this size, and Hollywood watches nervously.

The signing of Liu Yifei came after an international casting to find an actress who embodied the spirit of Hua Mulan in a more mature and combative way than the 1998 cartoon version.

Disney has tried to respect as much as possible the Chinese culture and tradition in the new film which, far from being a mere adaptation, delivers more darkness and mystery than its predecessor. To get closer to the Asian audience the script has changed. The famous dragon does not speak because it would be considered a lack of respect for such an important image in its tradition.

Certain characters were also dispensed with in order to avoid a love affair between an older man with authority over a young woman, and power relationships give more weight to female roles. The plot is stripped of its more musical part to give more weight to the scenes of combat and action, recorded on impossible stages. As impossible, perhaps, as their thanks are unnecessary.