Just here to repost some of my favorite Hardie Boys art I've made cuz my boys deserve to have RESPECT PUT ON THEIR NAME and also cuz the fanbase grew since I last posted anything and I wanna continue to spread my Titus/Glen propaganda

I’ve been stuck at my home, haven’t go out for 2 weeks due to lockdown, and I played Disco Elysium. I felt in love of this world! The art is so amazing and I love how the impressionism-style of painting is consistent through out the whole game-play. I haven’t do “oil style” drawing for years and it makes me wanna practise more on this style. 

My first 2D animated music video!

FULL VIDEO

For the past 4 months I have been collab with local indie band, directed and illustrated a 4 minutes short animated music video. The story is inspired by the situation now in Hong Kong, and other places that are still fighting against tyranny.

(Sorry the whole thing is in chinese/cantonese.)

Why are you guys mad that that Ariel is a women of colour? You should be mad that Li Shang isn’t part of the live-action version of Mulan, because they wanted Mulan to “not be reduced to a love interest”. Li Shang had a story too. His father died & he had to step up and become a leader at a young age. He had to make a decision to kill or not kill the person who saved his life. He risked his life, trusted Mulan and dressed up as a prostitute to cause a distraction instead of crying about masculinity. He was a role model to little boys. By Disney doing this, Li Shang is the one reduced to a love interest. You can’t claim to be a feminist & then oversee things like this.

Okay, bro.  If Shang isn’t a bisexual icon, why did Disney replace him with a different love interest?  They didn’t do that with any of the other live action princess movies.

Whether Shang is canonically bi or not, Disney definitely felt threatened by the attention his sexuality got.  Clearly there must have been evidence of something if Disney felt the need to completely axe his character.

Wrong Representation of Culture in the 2020 Mulan Film

I guess everyone knows that the live action remake of Mulan is a lot worse than the 1998 original, but as an East Asian person, I want to address how our culture is wrongly represented in this movie. I have not seen this movie and I will not, but I feel like this problem needs to be addressed.

1. The Concept of ‘qi(氣)’

In the movie, Mulan is born with the power of qi and she is special in that way, because normally, only men/warriors can harness qi. However, this is hugely inaccurate. Qi represents the vital energy inside a person, therefore is inside everyone. Qi is not a special power. Therefore, Mulan being born with this ‘power’ does not make sense at all. In addition, most men using qi as a power and Mulan being special as a woman born with that power is even less feminist than the original. This just implies that only women that are born powerful can be equally strong as men and that is not empowering at all.

(I mean wtf)

2. The Phoenix

In the 2020 adaptation, a Phoenix shows up. (And it is supposed to represent Mulan in a way) On the other hand, there is not such a thing as a Phoenix in Chinese (or Asian in general) culture. Disney just deleted Mushu the dragon because it was unrealistic and put in a Phoenix instead which is non-existent in Asian culture. (Though there is a birdlike creature similar to a Phoenix in Asian culture called 鳳凰 but those two represent different things. )

“ Some say the Phoenix is consumed by flame and emerges again.”

THAT QUOTE IS FROM THE MOVIE. WHEN THE CONCEPT OF A PHOENIX BEING REBORN THROUGH FIRE IS ONLY IN WESTERN MYTHOLOGY. THIS IS NOT FREAKIN HARRY POTTER.

3. Mulan Receiving the Sword

First, look at the scene.

The emperor does not directly give the sword to Mulan in the live action adaptation, unlike the animated movie. If the emperor gives a sword to another person indirectly , it means the emperor is ordering that person to kill themselves.

4. The Witch

Instead of the Huns, the Chinese army has to face a powerful witch. Later in the movie, the witch says that people treated her as an outcast because she was a powerful woman with magical powers. However, this does not make sense because ‘witches’ were not a thing in China in that time period. Actually, women with powers (mostly people who can bring spirits or tell the future) existed in China(and other countries including Korea and Japan), but they were not witches, more like shamans. Even though people did not see those women as all good and not dangerous at all, ‘witch hunts’ did not happen. (In fact, many common people sought help from them) Yeah so the witch does not make sense too.

Only western ppl killed witches get your facts right

(And that makeup was totally unnecessary)

There are a lot more, but these were just some of the most visible and the ones most relevant to the story. It’s funny that many of these info can be found by searching on the internet. This just emphasizes how much the people behind the camera were irresponsible about the culture they are supposed to represent in their movie.

To all the people who say, “ I watched Mulan for Asian representation.”

This is the representation you want to give people of Asian descend. In a pandemic that happened because of this Asian country’s negligence. That has been seen physically and verbally abusing its citizens of African descend. That is literally committing genocide as you read this. That has been on the verge of colonizing all of Asian and Africa. That doesn’t even care for the well-being of it’s own culture and citizens. 

This is the representation you want to give your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, family, friends and CHILDREN?!!

Mulan 2020 (and why I agree with Schaffrillas)

Folks, let’s talk about this film.  It is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen in 2020.  In fact, it’s so bad and so terribly bland, I got bored of it twenty minutes into the film and didn’t bother watching the rest of the film.  The characters have no personality, the titular character was incredibly boring, the characters are snobbish and terribly sexist, and I couldn’t care less about the phoenix in the movie.  I was really disappointed Mushu, the cricket, Mulan’s grandma, and Mulan’s three goofy friends weren’t in this pointless remake.  Sure, it’s intended for mature audiences.  Sure, you, my friends, and my parents love this film.  Sure, the soundtrack is okay.  But, I couldn’t care less about it when the story and the characters are so BORING!  The acting for Mulan was mediocre, and the actress is terrible.  I mean SHE SUPPORTS POLICE BRUTALITY in Hong Kong!  What the actual hell?!  As for Schaffrillas Production’s review on the film, I agree with him 100%.  The characters I mentioned that weren’t in the remake all have personality, and that defines a movie along with a great story, hence why I enjoyed the animated version and its sequel.  As for the remake, screw it.  Screw its story, screw the characters, screw the actors and actresses, screw the impressive CGI, screw everything.  Not even the the protagonist is memorable and the acting of literally every character in the movie makes it so much worse.  The only character that did good job in the movie was the phoenix, and even she was mediocre and boring.  This film is definitely not worth watching.

Every time I think it can’t possibly get worse, it does.

Quick Mulan Summary

Disney’s Mulan (1998): A woman is every bit as valuable as a man, and masculine traits aren’t the only ones that matter. (In fact, men could benefit from embracing their feminine sides!) Disney’s Mulan (2020): A woman can be valuable if she’s divinely blessed with superhuman powers that make her better at doing manly things than the men. Guess which film I prefer? 

MUSHU in Mulan (1998) — dir. Tony Bancroft, Barry Cook

I’ve been hearing a lot of criticism for the Mulan movie and what I’m getting is that the only good thing about this movie is that we get a perfect comparison of the Strong Female character trend vs the Strong character that happens to be Female

(Please note I have yet to see the live action movie, I am going off reviews I have found here on tumblr so if anyone who has seen it would like to judge my accuracy please do so)

The strong character that is female:

The original animated series had Mulan grow and become a strong character. Her being a female gave her some advantages over the men but she also has some disadvantages. She had actual character beyond being a girl trying to prove she is better than men, in fact she doesn’t have a trace of that trait, she proves herself as an individual rather than prove herself as a gender. She proved women were capable soldiers by being a capable soldier.

The Strong Female Character:

The live action remake took that and threw it out the window. Mulan was a strong warrior from the start we saw no growth. She only had advantages over the men her only disadvantage was that they would not accept women. Which is weird because if she is already as capable as any soldier even without formal military training, they’d have no reason to turn her away. The movie is all about proving the gender rather than the individual. They didn’t even keep to that because there was no realization moment for the military men between the reveal scene and two scenes later when they put her in charge of a mission.

They lessen her impact of being a female in the army by making it look like it was the betrayal of her identity that made them kick her out, rather than her gender, rendering the whole point of disguising herself pointless

Reasons to boycott Mulan aside from the police brutality issue:

ok yall I don’t know why you wanna see that bootlicker mulan live action remake when you got a gourmet fucking feast waiting for you out there

it’s called “reflection: a twisted tale” and it’s an alternate take to disney’s mulan

i just got through it in two hours and the basic premise is when mulan makes the avalanche and shan yu swings his sword at her,,,,, it’s shang who gets hurt due toi him jumping in front of the blade. mulan is never injured and therefore her true identity hasnt been revealed (yet) and the all of the huns are dead

mulan, as ping, feels guilty for it and takes care of him while hes bleeding out and realizes hes dying so she has to go to the underworld to save his life 

this book has everything i loved from the movie and gives me more

Should you pay to watch live action Mulan?

Here, let me help you with your decision.

No.

The movie is directed by a white woman who didn't bother to research about the Chinese culture and thinks an ancestor is a phoenix and that Chi is a magical power. The editing is really off and the music score was just, no. As a Chinese, this movie feels like being inside a white person's mind and looking through their eyes what they think Chinese culture is about. Tbh the animated movie was better even with Mushu.

What you can do instead is watch Mulan: Rise of A Warrior. Thank me later.

Just my stream of thoughts while watching Live Action Mulan

Wtf. Did this white woman even get feedback from Chinese historians or even double check her research??? Were there even script supervisors? Cultural fact checkers? Imagine if Disney actually hired Chinese people on their creative team. They had FOUR (4) screenwriters for this movie and EVERY SINGLE ONE WAS WHITE

In traditional Chinese medicine Qi is NOT gender specific and can go through anyone. There’s literally a line in the movie “if you had such a daughter, her chi, the boundless energy of life itself speaking through her every motion… could you tell her that only a son could wield chi?” HUH Disney you are a multi-billion dollar company. You’re telling me NO ONE double-checked this for cultural/historical accuracy?

Mulan living in a southern Chinese Tulou (a type of communal home traditionally native to rural Southern China) when Mulan is from Northern China

They used the Western idea of phoenixes emerging from the ashes which is completely a Western concept. Traditionally Chinese phoenixes don’t do that.

How did a movie with a 200 million dollar budget make the costumes look so bad?!?! lmao

There was a line where a commander told the soldier to line up for showers. Showers!?!?! In ancient China?!?! On an army campsite?!?!?

Taking OFF her armor and ponytail DURING battle for the sake of showing/reminding everyone she is a woman?!?! Her long hair now flying in the air in front of her face, zero change that her hair ever covers her eyes?!? Dumb. Honestly this screams male writer having a female power fantasy. 

The Western screenwriters conveniently forgot or didn’t research that male soldiers also often had long hair but put it in a bun. That scene where Mulan walks with her hair down shouldn’t have been such a giant reveal and shock simply because she took her hair down.

What was the point of replacing Shang with just another dude she had no emotional connection or chemistry with and him conveniently falling in love with her once he discovers she’s a woman?!? For what?!?! They literally got rid of Shang in the first place bc it wasn’t apart of the traditional narrative. Then they unnecessarily added a bland underdeveloped character that did the same thing anyway (become a love interest) but this time there’s ZERO emotional payoff.

You know what? This movie DOES work as a satire to show the consequences of a lack of cultural research, having no one from the creative team actually be from that culture and have knowledge about it, badly researching history and culture, using a Western cultural lens in an Eastern story, and how a white female screenwriter will still somehow write through the western male gaze