Disney has finally done it. After three years and a string of relative disappointments from their animation team, the Mouse-House has produced what is sure to become a classic film. More importantly, it has created--perhaps for the first time--a picture which spins a timeless moral tale that is as endearing and important for adults as it is for children. Mulan, Disney's latest full-length animated picture is based on a 2000 year-old Chinese poem. The Disney story, which of course elaborates (and perhaps exaggerates) the legend, centers around Fa Mulan (voiced by Ming-Na Wen). Young and headstrong, Mulan epitomizes everything a girl should not be in 5 A.D. China. She's an early feminist: free-thinking and out-spoken, with an uncanny ability to offend all the social sensibilities of the day.

When the Hun army, led by a ruthless Shan-Yu (an appropriately evil-sounding Miguel Ferrer), invades China in response to the building of the Great Wall, the men of the nation are called upon to fight. Mulan's aging and crippled father, however, is unfit to go. Yet Fa Zhou (in what would have been an emotional, and gut-wrenching sequence even for a live-action picture) throws down his cane, and accepts the call to battle. Fearing for her father's life, Mulan steals his armor and rides off the join the army in his place. When word of her deed reaches the family ancestors, they call upon the great stone dragon to bring her back. Of course, in classic Disney style, the stone dragon does not awaken. Instead Mushu (Eddie Murphy in a hilarious turn), the gong-ringer and runt dragon who is easily the disgrace of the family, defies the ancestors and goes in the stone dragon's place.

The rest of the story...as they say, is history.

What makes Mulan so special, beyond the story itself, is its candid approach. Naturally, the classic themes of "brains over brawn," and "beauty on the inside" are recycled without mercy. But this time, it doesn't feel old or cobwebbed. Mulan is a true hero; her story is not about proving that a woman can be a man, but rather that a hero can be both--that in being a hero, one defies all gender boundaries. This is a lesson for both children and their parents, and it is taught very discretely and earnestly by a team of Disney orchestrators and second-string animators (the Orlando, Florida team) who have equaled, if not surpassed, the work of their predecessors.

The animation is superb. Clean, vibrant lines define the landscapes, and sharp edges outline the faces and movements of the characters. The details are remarkable. Shan-Yu's face, for example, is marked by ruthlessness and intelligence--almost an exact mimicry of the face of his pet falcon. Certain sequences, like Mulan's decision to go to war in her father's place are not only visually striking, but compelling in feel. When Mulan puts on her father's armor, the black and red fiery background allows her face and body to become genderless, and you can honestly feel the pounding of her heart as the drama unfolds. And then there is the battle scene: 2000 Huns on horseback sweep over a snow-covered mountain. Done in computer animation, it excels anything I've seen before in American animation. Clearly superior to the use of computer animation in creating the Hydra in Hercules (which somehow didn't fit the style of the rest of the picture), it blends seamlessly. The whole battle sequence (in which we see, remarkably, no death scenes) reminds me of the battles from another famous picture based on a legendary poem.

Animation is painting in motion, and in Mulan you can actually see the individual pictures as if they were framed paintings hanging in a museum. Disney toots its own horn (not to anyone's surprise) by exclaiming that its animators spent three weeks in China modeling Chinese artistic techniques. Whatever they did, it worked.

Of course, it's not perfect. Perhaps in their fear, or inability to move past the aesthetic of a white-washed society, the animators gave the leads too much of a Caucasian look, particularly in the faces. Grandmother Fa (June Foray) looks and sounds more like Grandma Betty from Nebraska than she does an old Chinese woman. Likewise, Mushu the dragon breaks from the clean forms. And while Murphy's "home boy at the great-wall" routine grows on you, and is occasionally tearfully funny, it remains jarring to the end (and you know Murphy sounds like he keeps wanting to curse, even slightly, just to pop in a "damn!" Disney probably had to hold him back with threats).

The rest of the voices are superb. Pat Morita, who plays the emperor, and Soon-Tek Oh as Mulan's father particularly stand out. But it is Mulan herself who carries this film. Ming-Na Wen has a soft but firm voice, and a comedic flair which works well during the various sequences where she's avoiding discovery in the army. In the song "Reflection", her quest to discover her true-self, is believable--and in many ways, hits close to home (at least to anyone who remembers what its like to struggle through the teen-age years). However, the orchestral suite is much more compelling than the songs. I'm longing for the day when Disney can make a non-musical animated film, but at least these songs are relatively effective during the film. Afterwards, you're left thinking instead of humming any tunes. There is a beautiful sequence towards the end of the film, when Mulan comes home bearing gifts from the emperor, and her father says to his daughter "the greatest gift and honor is having you for a daughter." It's a touching moment, and amazingly, you can actually see a father's love in his eyes. For a moment you're forced to forget that he's only a picture on the screen.

Disney's Mulan homepage has an English translation of the Chinese poem which inspires the story. Though it's probably an awkward and clumsy translation, its last stanza reads:

They say to choose a hare,
you pick them up by the ears.
There are telling signs to compare:
In air the male will kick and strike
While females stare with bleary eyes.
But if both are set to the ground
And left to bounce in a flee,
Who will be so wise as to observe,
That the hare is a he or a she.

Men and women are different, the poem tells us, but when challenged we are all human beings--passionate and courageous. It's truly a lesson for the ages, and it's a wonder that we still refuse to believe it. This whole tale is kind of a coup for the feminist movement, and rather amusingly, it looks like Gloria Steinem and company were about two thousand years too late.