True to its heart?

The music of Mulan

Like Mulan itself, the soundtrack (on Walt Disney Records) is pleasing but rather tamer than what Disney did for Hercules. There are just four songs: "Honor to Us All," which the makeover artists chirp as they're preparing Mulan for the Matchmaker; "Reflection," Mulan musing sadly to herself after having failed with the Matchmaker; "I'll Make a Man out of You," Li Shang's boast to his troops; and "A Girl Worth Fighting For," which Mulan's army comrades Yao, Chien-Po, and Ling sing to keep their spirits up. The closing-credits single, "True to Your Heart," is performed by Stevie Wonder and 98[[ordmasculine]] accompanied by that ancient Chinese instrument, the harmonica; it's so catchy I almost didn't mind that it has nothing to do with the film.

The two army numbers play off Mulan's secret: Shang is unaware that one of his soldiers isn't even a guy, and Mulan's friends don't realize the girl they're fighting for is right there with them. But apart from a hint of the 1812 Overture at the end of "A Girl Worth Fighting For," the wit that pervaded Hercules is in short supply. David Zippel, who did the lyrics for Hercules, uses the bland "Go the Distance" rather than "Zero to Hero" as his model, giving us "Let's get down to business/To defeat the Huns/Did they send me daughters/When I asked for sons?" (from "I'll Make a Man out of You") and "Bet the local girls thought you were quite the charmer"/"And I'll bet the ladies love a man in armor" (from "A Girl Worth Fighting For"). Even "Reflection" rides on Matthew Wilder's music rather than the likes of "Now I see/That if I were truly/To be myself/I would break/My family's heart." Singing Shang's number, Donny Osmond shows some grit, but he's still the voice of the Whitebread West. And though Lea Salonga, as Mulan's singing voice, is at least Asian, it's symptomatic of Disney's thinking that she also did the singing for Aladdin's Jasmine -- one Third World voice fits all.

The soundtrack is filled out by Jerry Goldsmith's mostly martial score, whose "Attack at the Wall" opens with the requisite (ever since John Williams "sampled" it for Star Wars) allusion to the Mars section of Gustav Holst's The Planets. There's a nice oboe-laced reprise of "Reflection" in the overture-like "Suite from Mulan"; and the recurrent (ever since Beauty and the Beast) nod to Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony is replaced, appropriately, by hints of that composer's Chinese-laced Das Lied von der Erde. Various Oriental instruments lightly color "Mulan's Decision" and "Blossoms." "The Burned-Out Village" is spooky and sepulchral, but it doesn't rise to the moment when Mulan leans the doll up against the sword of Shang's father. Finally, Christina Aguilera performs the "pop" version of "Reflection," for those who might find the film version too, uh, Oriental.
-- JG

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