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Taking American Disney Movie Mulan as an object of research, this paper will reveal some different cultural values. As well known to all, Chinese and American people possess different cultural values, which may be reflected in the movie. That is why the movie can make people understand the cultural value better in another way. Meanwhile, people learn lots of information about Hua Mulan when enjoying movies. It provide another form of art when people having intercultural communication.
The story of Mulan was first recorded in Gujin Yuefu (Music Record Old and New) and now is called Mulan Shi or Mulan poem, written by Zhi Jiang of the Chen Dynasty. This poem The Mulan Ballad comes from the anthology Yuefu Shiji (Collection of Music-Bureau Poems), compiled by Guo Maoqian during the twelfth century in the Song Dynasty. Having no elder brother, Hua Mulan enlisted the emperor’s army, taking her aged father’s place under male disguise, fighting bravely as a skilled soldier, and finally became a famous general according to the ballad. When the war was over, she refused to accept the official rank and treasure offered to her and returned home. Putting on her colorful dress and make-up, she resumed her girlhood, and thereafter Mulan lived obediently with her parents and took good care of them.
Although Hua Mulan took the man’s place under male disguise, her image was still a favorable woman’s image. She knew to share her parent’s burden because she was the elder child in her family. In order to take the responsibility and show loyalty to the emperor, she joined the army in man’s disguise. Far from achieving self-realization and pursuing fame and wealth, she became an obedient lady after accomplishing her task. Then she performed her domestic duty faithfully, and she was an image of Confucian patriotic and filial daughter in Chinese tales.
2. Literature Review
Hua Mulan is the first Chinese cinematic endeavor of the Mulan legend since the 1939 film Mulan Joins the Army, a war film that attracted its audience by relating to the Second Sino-Japanese war. And Maxine Hong Kingston was believed to be the first writer who adapted Chinese myth and folklores in Chinese American literature. “She employed the motif Hua Mulan in her work The Woman Warriors, in which the adaptation of the image of Hua Mulan is impressive and controversial”.(Yang, 2008: 51) In The Woman Warrior, Kingston reproduced the story of Hua Mulan by means of combining the different Chinese stories with American reality. She fancied that Mulan was a warrior and during the battle she met her fiance and gave birth to a baby in the barrack. After she killed the local tyrants and set free the imprisoned women, she knelt at her parents-in-law’s feet, promising to do farm work and housework. Kingston’s version of Hua Mulan is equivalent in frame with the original, but different in connotation. The Swordswoman is an image of “modern feminist, who wants to take revenge, to lead revolution and to make contributions” (Kinston, 1999: 40).
The 2009 feature film production of Hua Mulan, directed by Jingle Ma and co-directed by Wei Dong, is much less a war movie and much more a portrayal of Mulan’s character, portrayed by Zhao Wei. In the movie, Mulan becomes an esteemed general, but at great personal cost and sacrifice. The growth of Mulan as a general is eclipsed by her character development as a human being. A romance may seem out of place in a war film, but the result is deeply moving portrayal of the great personal suffering and sacrifices of Mulan, and of those who fight in wars. Eventually, her love for her comrades extends to her love for all human life, and she makes a final sacrifice to bring lasting peace between the Rouran and Wei nations.
3. Traditional Virtue in China and Inpidual Freedom in America 源'自:优尔-'论/文'网"www.youerw.com
3.1 Traditional Virtue in China