What was the biggest film of 1998 to further the cause of equal opportunity butt-kicking? Mulan, created by the fine animators at Disney studios, a 5th or 6th century Chinese poet, and countless others throughout the centuries. Visit the Mulan FAQ to learn more about this film.
Incidentally, the Chinese characters on this page read "Mulan." They were written by Mi Fei (1051-1107), one of the dominant figures in Chinese art. To find out more, check out the China the Beautiful pages, or the China the Beautiful West Coast Mirror. You can find the original poem, with calligraphy by Mi Fei, on their Ballad of Mulan page.
Rick Harbaugh has a nice site with the original poem at http://zhongwen.com/mulan.htm. Every character is hyperlinked for more information about that character. It's nicely done.
There are many places you can find the art from Disney's version of Mulan, and I am not going to attempt to match that on this page. Instead, I'm going to present other recent depictions of Mulan.
I last updated this page on 1998 September 13, and I'm still looking for more pictures. Come back soon, and you may see others. I'm also planning to make icons for the Macintosh.
Thumbnails appear on this page, linked to larger versions of the scans.
The following images were drawn by Jeanne M. Lee from her book The Song of Mulan, published in 1995 by Front Street. (ISBN 1-886910-00-6). The book contains a new translation of the original Chinese poem along side the the original Chinese.
The following images were made by Tomie Arai for the book China's Bravest Girl: The Legend of Hua Mu Lan. The book contains an original poem based on the legend by Charlie Chin, along with a Chinese translation by Wang Xing Chu. It was published in 1993 by Children's Book Press. (ISBN 0-89239-120-0)
Pan-Asian publications has recently released a new book based upon the original Mulan poem. It's called The Ballad of Mulan and retold and illustrated by Song Nan Zhang. It's a large book (each page is letter-sized). The end-papers have a map of China and depictions of various artifacts from the Northern Wei Dynasty. It includes a short historical discussion about Mulan. The poem is printed in simplified Chinese characters in the back, while the traditional Chinese characters are integrated into the artwork. (You won't see it on the pictures from this page because I didn't take them directly from the book.)
The book contains a prose re-telling of the original story. (Personally, I find it lacking in poetry....) It is available in several languages. The ISBN of the English version is 1-57227-054-3. You can visit Pan-Asian publication's WWW site at http://www.panap.com/. Follow the "Story Online" link to preview the Mulan book. (The exact link is http://www.panap.com/mulan_index.html.)
The following illustrations are by Jean & Mou-Sien Tseng from the book Fa Mulan: The Story of a Woman Warrior by Robert D. San Souci. It's a retelling of the Mulan legend. It was published in 1998 by Hyperion Books for Children. (ISBN 0-7868-0346-0)
The following image is part of a teaser poster for the upcoming Disney film. I think it's the best piece of artwork I've yet seen from the film, so I'm including it here.
The following image was drawn by Mark Henn as part of the visual development of the Disney animated movie. The animators continually refered back to this pose because they felt it captured her strength, dignity, and determination. It's reproduced in The Art of Mulan. This particular scan comes from The Legend of Mulan, published by Hyperion in 1998. (ISBN 0-7868-6389-7) It is a folding book containing the originial poem, a new English translation by Lei Fan, and decorated with art made during development of the film.
The following images come from The Legend of Mu Lan: A Heroine of Ancient China, written and illustarted by Jian, Wei and Gen Xing. It was published by Victory Press in 1992. It contains a prose story based on the legend. It's available in English (ISBN 1-878217-00-3) and several other languages.
I've put up a small sample of the icons I'm making. Let me know what you think of it so far! (You can see more of my icons on my icon page.
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