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Disney's 'Mulan' battles mixed reviews at Chinese launch with Uyghur uproar

News Service
16:05 - 11/09/2020 Friday
Update: 16:10 - 11/09/2020 Friday
REUTERS
File Photo
File Photo

"EXTREME REVIEWS"

The film, which has already been released on Disney’s streaming service in many markets, was rated 4.7 out of 10 on China's popular social media site Douban.

Some posters pointed out historical inaccuracies, including the use of buildings that only appeared hundreds of years after the film's setting.

The movie's "pre-sales started too late, and it got quite some extreme reviews before the premiere," said Liu Zhenfei, an analyst with Maoyan.

"On top of the fact that it is impacted by piracy issues, because the storyline is Chinese, it faces higher expectations when shown in China," he said.

The ticketing company predicted Mulan would likely take in less than 300 million yuan in ticket receipts during its entire run in China.

By comparison, "The Eight Hundred", a patriotic movie about China's fight against Imperial Japanese during World War Two, earned 141.3 million yuan on its first full day in August.

People coming out of the first screenings of Mulan said the politics had not put them off.

"We should not make art political," said Shanghai cinema-goer Gao Wenxing, 23.

"As a Chinese person, I don't think there is anything wrong with Liu Yifei's action," she added, referring to the actress who plays the Mulan and angered many with her support for police in Hong Kong at a time when the city was embroiled in unrest.

When asked in the past about the reaction to the film's Xinjiang shooting, China's foreign ministry has reiterated Beijing's denial of the existence of re-education camps in the region, calling facilities there vocational and educational institutions and accusing anti-China forces of smearing its Xinjiang policy. ($1 = 6.8365 Chinese yuan renminbi)

#Mulan
#Disney
4 years ago