This weekend ABC Family is doing a very royal lineup of Funday movies, and we can’t wait to rewatch one of our favorites, Mulan. Mulan is funny, beautifully animated, and features one of the most courageous and loyal Disney characters out there. In preparation for your weekend viewing, here are 13 things you might not know about this beloved film:
1. Mulan took five years to complete.
2. It took 700 animators, artists, and technicians to complete the film.
3. They brewed 1,630 pounds of coffee during production.
4. The directors, Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, made a cameo towards the end of the film.
5. The character of Cri-Kee was championed by the late Joe Grant, who was one of the oldest Disney animators at the time (he worked on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). He first suggested the character, and all throughout development, Joe would slip sketches of Cri-Kee under the directors’ door.
6. The filmmakers had to take several passes at the “Reflection” lyrics. They wanted to express that Mulan really didn’t want anything, except to be herself and to make her dad proud.
7. When Chi Fu calls out the names of people to serve in the army, they’re actually the names of some of the staff. The glowing Chinese calligraphy is also the names of artists that worked on the production.
8. In the sequence where Mulan prepares to leave home, we see a face looking at her every time she makes a decision. These faces represent the ancestors, and make us feel like they know what she’s doing.
9. Filmmakers wrote three song options for Mushu to sing when he introduced himself to Mulan, but every time they added one in, it seemed to halt the movie. Mushu’s song was eventually cut from the film.
10. There was a lot of debate about how low Ming-Na Wen, the voice of Mulan, should make her voice when Mulan was pretending to be a boy. It was hard to have her do a low voice throughout the entire film, so the directors had Ming-Na start low, and cheat her way back up to her normal voice.
11. At one point in development, the general was not Shang’s dad, but they changed that later on, feeling that it gave Mulan more emotional weight. Both Shang and Mulan do what they do to honor their fathers.
12. Jackie Chan voiced Shang in the Chinese version of Mulan.
13. According to producer Pam Coates, the crowd bowing to Mulan at the end wraps up what the team was trying to express with the film. Mulan is a woman who, because she is true to her heart and true to herself, actually alters the way society thinks.