The Secret of Mulan is a 1998 Animated Musical and an entry in UAV Entertainment's Secret of... series.
The film is a mockbuster of Disney's Mulan, with all the characters reimagined as insects and other small animals, potentially making it a mockbuster of A Bug's Life as well.
Tropes:
- Action Girl: Unlike the Disney version, Mulan knows martial arts from the get-go. Zhing-Zhing also qualifies.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Bowtie uses a lot of 'm' adjectives to describe or flatter Mala Khan.
- Aerith and Bob: In this Wuxia, there's Mulan, an actual Chinese name... and then there's Zhing-Zhing, and Bowtie. And then there's "Mala Khan", which attaches the name "Khan" seen across many cultures on the Asian continent, onto a name based on the Latin prefix for "bad".
- Anachronism Stew: Clothing from the Qing, Ming, and Han dynasties are mixed together for the good guys, with Mala Khan and his men (sans Bowtie) dressed in samurai armor.
- Animals Not to Scale: This film features rabbits, frogs, turtles, etc. that are about the same size as its bug characters.
- Animated Musical: Par for the course with UAV productions.
- Anthropomorphic Animal Adaptation: One that is centered on a caterpillar Mulan.
- Artistic License – Arachnids: Not only does the spider that appears in the climax have only two eyes, it emits webbing out of its mouth rather than its abdomen.
- Disney Villain Death: Subverted. Mulan sends Mala Khan falling off a cliff, but then it's revealed that he has wings.
- Evil Is Bigger: Mala Khan is much more massive than the rest of the main cast.
- Evil Overlooker: Mala Khan is shown in the sky glaring down, as shown on the video cover above.
- Failed a Spot Check: After Mulan hatches from her cocoon, nobody notices that she now has two legs, as opposed to her previous six.
- Four-Legged Insect: Averted with Mala Khan, Bowtie, and the ants, who all have the proper amount of limbs, but played straight with the spiders (six), caterpillars (eight limbs counting their arms and all their legs), dragonflies (four), and butterflies (also four).
- Furry Confusion: The anthropomorphic insects use normal insects as either weapons or mounts. Also, there are anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic mammals.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: During her duel with Mala Khan, Mulan hides the fact that she can fly until she falls off a bridge. After apparently besting her opponent, he reveals that he pulled the same trick.
- Interchangeable Asian Cultures: If the Disney film is anything to go by, Mala Khan is supposed to be Mongolian or otherwise from somewhere north of China proper. However, he's dressed like a freaking Samurai. Let's not even get started on the name.
- It's All My Fault: Zhing-Zhing's mindset after the Dragonfly Prince abducts Mulan.
- Magic Pants: Mulan's pants somehow change along with her when she goes from being a caterpillar to a butterfly. Possibly justified when you consider that her species most likely takes this into account when they go through metamorphosis.
- The Mockbuster: Not only of Mulan, but also A Bug's Life and possibly even Antz given Bowtie's voice is quite obviously an imitation of Woody Allen's.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Mala Khan's assistant Bowtie looks like Woody Allen as a pill bug and has similarities in voice and mannerisms. This is presumably because Allen voiced Z in Antz, which came out at around the same time as this movie.
- Plot Hole: Like the original poem, Mulan dresses as a man in order to join the army. Yet Zhing-Zhing appears to be part of the army, as the Prince asks her to report her findings to him, and nobody seems to care.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Prince fights alongside his men.
- Secret-Keeper:
- When Zhing-Zhing learns that Mulan is a woman disguised as a soldier, she promises not to tell anyone about her secret identity.
- Mulan's family mouse servant who joins her.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl:
- Mulan and her sister, respectively. The former is an aggressive martial artist, while the latter is more conventionally feminine.
- Downplayed with Mulan and Zhing-Zhing; they're both Action Girls, but Zhing-Zhing is the one who acts more girly than Mulan.
- A Villain Named Khan: The leader of the invading army is named Mala Khan.
- Villain Song: Both Mala Khan and Bowtie get one. Mala Khan's is even the first song in the movie.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- After Mulan goes to join the army, her sister isn't mentioned or seen ever again, and her parents only appear towards the end shortly before she leaves with the Prince.
- Bowtie is completely gone for the remainder of the movie after Mala Khan has him release their secret weapon on The Prince during the climax.
