In the original Mulan, the fine line between calling it an animated musical or a musical animation was often quite difficult to distinguish but in the case of Disney's new sequel, the distinction is pretty obvious. Mulan II does not possess a score that even remotely comes close to the original. The biggest problem with Mulan II is that the few songs the movie have are so instinctively forgettable that even an international star like Lea Salonga, who provides the singing voice of Fa Mulan (voiced by Ming-Na Wen), fails to save them. Sequels generally tend to use the same success formula from the originals and build on them. Along the way, the producers at Disney must have forgotten that the score in the original Mulan was an integral part of its success. The strong award-winning Jerry Goldsmith score and popular Matthew Wilder songs associated with the original have been ushered out and in their places, composers Joel McNeely, whose credits include other Disney sequels such as "Return To Neverland" (2002) and "The Jungle Book 2" (2003), and Jeanine Tesori, recognized as the first female composer to have two hit  musicals, "Thoroughly Modern Mille" and "Caroline or Change" running concurrently on Broadway in 2004, step into their considerably large shoes.

The sequel lacks the innocence as well as the grandeur of the original (who can forget the huge battle scene?) but retains all of its previous charm and heart. The story revolves around another age-old Chinese custom -- Arranged marriages. Fa Mulan and her fiancé General Li Shang (voiced by B. D. Wong) are sent on a mission to escort three of the emperor's daughters to be betrothed to the prince of a rival state in return for an agreement of an important alliance that would save China. Along their journey, Mulan's guardian dragon, Mushu (voiced by Mark Moseley who replaces Eddie Murphy in the original Mulan), attempts to break them up to save his pedestal which he would lose with their marriage. The three princesses find love with the three bumbling guards who return from the original Mulan movie and are torn between following their duty to their country and to their hearts.

The biggest disappointment for fans of the original would lie with the quantity and quality of songs -- both of which are severely lacking. The original Mulan movie was nominated for an Academy Award in 1999 as "Best Original Comedy/Musical Score" but voting Academy (AMPAS) members would be hard pressed to find anything substantial in such mediocrity. New songs like "Lesson Number One" and "Like Other Girls" do nothing to stand out and at some point, even the producers realize that nothing beats the original and inserts in a redux version of a song formerly heard in the original movie ("Girl Worth Fighting For"). The Atomic Kittens follow in Christina Aguilera's footsteps and perform a pop cover of a song in the soundtrack ("(I Wanna Be) Like Other Girls"), but they hardly work with the same quality material as Aguilera's "Reflections".

This is not to say that everything memorable about the original has been discarded from the sequel. The animated picture retains the clear pastel colors from the original - a welcome delight from other animated films which inundate audiences with excessively bright colors and texture. At the heart of the movie remains characters that audiences can relate to and who they will root for. There are several powerful scenes, notably when General Li Sheng sacrifices himself to save Mulan when both of them are clinging onto a rope bridge that cannot support their combined weight and at the end when General Li Sheng makes a return to stop Mulan from taking the place of the other princesses and marrying the prince of the rival state.

As an animated movie, Mulan II has a strong story with a lot of heart which cannot be said about many other recent animations. However, being a sequel, it would have been too fatuous on the part of the producers if they had thought that this movie would be judged on its own merits rather than being compared to the original movie. The biggest victim of such comparisons would be the severely deficient score in the sequel. In Joel McNeely's defense, this young, talented composer needs to be composing for a platform of new animated films rather than imitating the composition styles of Jerry Goldsmith, Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman. His original composition "Here Beside Me" hints at his latent talent when it is not stymied by another composer's writing style but this song (sung by Kiwi teen soprano Hayley Westenra) is only featured at the end credits after The Atomic Kitten's "(I Wanna Be) Like Other Girls".

Fortune cookie-isms such as "When one's heart is overfilled with joy, some may spill from the eyes" and "The blossoms reach for the sunlight above, yet unseen, the roots reach for the rainwater below" abound once again in Mulan II. Perhaps it is time that Disney producers need to pay heed that "when sequels do not follow the same recipe for success, the dish will not be as palatable". 

 Reviewed on 19 March 2005