Our Dream Cast For Disney’s Live-Action “Mulan”

Hey guys, welcome to OTGW. It's Mike. It's Dan. Today we received, well actually not today, but we received in the recent days some interesting news because, first of all, Cinderella the movie. Did you see it yet? No, I don't care. You didn't see it? No. Excuse me? I don't care. You don't care about Cinderella? I don't care about Cinderella. The most awesome princess there is. No. Why? Why is she the most awesome princess? Because she went through so much tribulations, like basically did not do anything bad to anybody else, basically took on so much hardship, and eventually was rewarded. That's like a beautiful story. I know. I know the story. I just, it doesn't interest me that much because my favorite Disney movies are Lion King and Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. You can stop. And Little Mermaid. You can just stop because Cinderella is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. The movie. Like I sat there watching that movie and afterwards. Really? Team Mike, Team Dan on this. No, no. I just haven't watched it yet. So I'll watch it. I'll watch it. I'm just not. I watched the movie. Listen. I didn't rush to watch it. I haven't watched it. Opening night. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. It was so beautiful. Oh my goodness. It was such a beautiful movie. Afterwards I was feeling positive. Oh my goodness. I was feeling, that song was nice right away. I got that song on Spotify. I don't even know what song you're talking about. It was like she lived by be brave and be kind. Such a good message and such a beautiful movie. And that casting was perfect. Lily James, perfect Cinderella. Yeah, I agree with you. Perfect Cinderella and this kind of ties into what we're going to talk about today. Because casting makes or breaks a movie a lot of the time. Absolutely. Can you name a couple movies that were horrible because of the casting? Yeah, I can name a couple. Well, when I was a kid and I found out that Batman 3 and 4 were going to be played by Val Kilmer and 4 especially like George Clooney. And everybody knows that's like the worst movie, one of the worst Batmans ever made. And even he is I think said to have regretted that decision. So that ruined the movie. Okay. I'm thinking of The Ultimate, Robin Hood, Kevin Costner or Kevin Costner didn't speak a lick of British accent. Actually, I love that movie. Look, here's the thing. I love that movie. That movie is great. That movie is a great movie. I'm just saying that Robin Hood was not the right Robin Hood. But see, I don't agree with you because that casting, even though you think it's incorrect, it didn't ruin the movie. I'm saying it didn't ruin the movie. A British guy who didn't speak British with the British accent is just kind of crazy. Yeah, I mean, what else you got? Oh, Fantastic Four. Those are all Fantastic Four. Are you kidding me? I thought to this day, that movie was ruined by Jessica Alba. What? Because I'm a huge, huge Fantastic Four fan. A huge. Yeah. And I think that her as Sue Storm was horrible. It was just because she was hot. That movie was ruined by that movie. Nothing was saying that movie. Anyway, so Cinderella, one thing after back to Cinderella, one thing I said after the movie was that the casting was perfect. It really made a lot of like a huge difference. Yeah. How you can relate to the main cast leads. Oh, Ever After, for example. Okay. Not a horrible movie. Which one was Ever After? The Cinderella story, Ever After. Drew Barrymore was Cinderella. Oh, right. Sorry, Drew Barrymore. No, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. So what we've been hearing the last several days or the past week now when this video is actually published is that the next live action movie because of the success of this one will be Mulan, which I have such mixed feelings about. Oh, me too. Because here's the thing. Me too. All right. I think you and I are going to have the same mixed feelings. Cinderella is a classic fairy tale. No matter how you kind of twist it, it's the same story. Absolutely. Mulan has already been twisted from the legend or ballad of Mulan into this Disney animation already. So right away, the story is completely different. Right. So that's one of my reservations. So now they're going to base a live action based on what I would think is the Disney version of Mulan, not the real story of Mulan. So because the real story of Mulan is not very romantic. No, it's not at all. So, you know, there's no little dragon or whatever the heck. No. So I don't know what they're going to do, but I'm thinking they're going to base it on the animated version. They have to. Which is not accurate whatsoever. No, they have to. And we talked about this a lot because we know a lot about traditional Chinese history. And we always talk about what Mulan actually is about. Right. The essence of the story is filial piety. Right. Basically, devotion to your family. Exactly. Loyalty, courage, all these things. But Disney movies are completely based on romantic theme. You know why? Because it sells. That's what sells. Right. So like you said, they already twisted it. And I'm saying twisted. Yep. And no exaggeration. They completely twisted the tale of original Mulan, like you said, into the cartoon. Right. So now this version, it has to be based on that. Because what are they going to do? Like do a brand new version of Mulan that nobody knows? Plus like all the theater goers, they're going to go expecting to see the old Mulan. So we don't know for sure, but we're thinking it's going to be based on the animated version. So now we can say 99% is going to be based on it. So let's say it is based on the animated version. Now let's talk about cast. Okay. Because that's what this video is going to be about. Right. We are going to come up, you have a list. I have a list. Yep. Of what we think is the perfect cast for Mulan based on the animation series. So we took the characters from the animation series and we're recasting them. Um, I didn't cast the dragon. I cast the dragon. You cast the dragon? I didn't cast the dragon. Uh, I basically only casted the main, the main characters. Um, but I think what this is going to be is, uh, cause you're good at this. Like you're good at like not overanalyzing stuff. Right. So you're going to give the popular versions. Or I'm going to give the right or the right. Right. Versions could be the, and me, I mean, I sat there, like I thought a lot because, because I didn't want this to become this kind of like, you know, all romanticized version of Mulan. Okay. So, which is also going to make this list very interesting. Let's dive into this thing. So you want to do Mulan last or Mulan first? Uh, let's do Mulan last. Okay. Well, let's start with the obvious one that you didn't come up with. I casted the dragon. Okay. Um, I think, okay, look, they're probably not going to have a live action dragon in there. No, they're not. Right. They're not even going to have an animated dragon. You know, you know what they're going to have? They're just going to have this like, uh, some dude, who's funny, some dude or girl who's like kind of this, you know, comedic, right. But I'm just saying, if let's say if they did have a dragon in there, right. You gotta keep it Eddie Murphy. Yeah, I agree with that, man. I agree with that. Cause you can't imagine the dragon or like the donkey from Shrek not being Eddie Murphy. Exactly. And Eddie Murphy needs to revitalize his career. So this would be a very good move for him, I think. All right. Well, you know, that's just throwing it out there. Obviously he's not Asian. That's the funny choice. Who would you cast as the dragon, as an Asian person? As an Asian person, I think they would have to sound very Asian. Yeah. Uh, but also very funny. You gotta be funny. So funny plus Asian. That's kind of a hard mix. What about, um, the, the, the Korean comedian? Community. Uh, yeah. Uh, the guy from Hangover. But I thought of him too. The issue with him is he does not have an Asian accent. He's very like, you know. But he could probably do one. But do, what do you think? That kind of like, he's small. He's like, you know, he's like loud. He's kind of like the Asian Gilbert Godfrey, you know, like. I thought of him too, but like. Cause it doesn't need to be, there's no age limit there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Cause you need a wacky character. I know. I know. I know. Okay. I want to throw something out. Yeah, what up? Why don't you, why don't they cast me? You? I could play the dragon. You want to play the dragon? I could be like a, like a funny, obnoxious little. Well you guys are both like tiny. Yeah, tiny. They could dress me up. Yeah. Yeah. Guys, like this video if you want to see me cast as a new Mulan dragon. I don't think you're that quirky funny though. But I'm saying as an, but like if they wanted me to act like that, I could try to act like that. So if the dragon spits fire, you just spit on people. Yeah, whatever, whatever. But I, but I do that in real life. You do that in real life too. Let's start with the Emperor. Who did you have as the Emperor? Gotta have him. He needs to be in this movie. I disagree with that. Oh, what? I disagreed with that. Wait, do you disagree with him as the Emperor or him needs to be in this movie? No, I disagree with him as the Emperor. Okay. I have, I have George Takai. What? What? George! Dude. George Takai. What? As the Emperor? As the Emperor. All right. What's your reason? The Emperor was skinny. Oh my God. You're totally basing this on the movie. George Takai is, is skinny and he has a very, uh, proper way of speaking to him. I think he'll play off the Emperor. All right. If you're basing it completely on the, on the movie. That's what I'm doing. Yeah, fine. I'll give you that one. But, but in my real live action movie, do you think you could do it? Okay. Chao Yong Fat has played an Emperor before. Yeah. And then the King. Yeah. So he could do, he could definitely do it. And also like on the modern movies, he's played a couple times. Okay. Like the Tang Dynasty one. Okay. But I'm just, I'm just saying. Which I heard was really bad. I'm just saying like, uh. But in my version. There's a couple resemblance. Oh yeah. I think George Takai could, could pull this off. And look, I'm not going to sit here and be like, okay, it's a Chinese story. It has to be Chinese people. I think, you know, any Asian, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. I'm going to say it's going to be Chinese. You're going to say the whole cast is Chinese. I think. They're speaking English, dude. Yeah. So what? They're all speaking English. So? So? You don't think Chao Yong Fat can speak English? I'm just saying it doesn't limit it to just Chinese speakers. I mean, look at Fresh Off the Boat. That's Korean. I understand that. Here's my reasoning. Cause I'm already, I'm already not happy or slash excited that they're doing this because I think it's going to further perpetuate Mulan as a fairy tale and not as a tale, you know, like a, like a traditional Chinese tale. Okay. So to counter that, I want Hollywood to cast an all Chinese cast. Okay. Well, because I think it'll like, come on, give us something. Look, I just feel like in Hollywood, all Asians are, are under represented. So I, I'm good with all Asians getting some opportunities here. Yes, I agree. But I think that at the bottom of the totem pole is Chinese. Really? I absolutely think so. You got Korean. I disagree with that. You got Japanese. I disagree with that. Yeah. Look at, look at the top list of Hollywood stars say on IMDb. Most of them are Korean. I don't think so. Like who? Like who? What about most of them? I think, I think the hierarchy of Hollywood for Asians wise, like I think Chinese are, are near, near at the top. No, I'm talking about Hollywood. Lucy Liu. You got Lucy Liu. One chick. Chao Yong Fat has been in Hollywood. Jackie Chan, Jet Li. Those name like well-known, name four well-known Korean stars that's been in a lot of movies. You can't. Can you? No, you can't. Rick Yun. How do you know what that is? Rick Yun, the guy from Fast and Furious. Remember we did a hot male video, video. That's fine. That's, that's one movie where no one can just like. And then the guy from Lost. You, you go to, okay. That guy, he's in everything. You're done. He's done with this argument. You're done. John, John, uh, the, the, the, the guy from, uh. You can't even name him. You can't even name him. John Cho? You're done. You're done. John. Yeah. John Cho. Dude. No. Yeah. Have to, half the people on the streets don't know who John Cho is. They knew the guy from the Berg, um, White Castle movie. You don't have to say it like that. Most people, you go up, you're like Lucy Liu. Okay. Everybody knows. Chao Yong Fat, everybody knows. Jet Li, everybody knows. All right. You know what? I changed my mind. It doesn't have to be all Chinese, but I like to see them try though. I like to see them try. Let's move on. Let's move on. Okay. So what's the next one? Okay. Next one is, uh, uh, Mulan's mother. Okay. Fa Li. Fa Li. How old is she supposed to be in this, in the tale? Probably. I'm thinking 40s or 50s. Cause the regular, the original Mulan is like young. She's like a, she's barely like an adult. She's like 16, 17, 18. Right. So you're thinking back in the day, the parents didn't have her. In the 40s. Okay. I say, uh, Constance Wu. No. Yeah. Because here's why, because she's 33 now and she can swing five. She's 36. No, I just checked it. She's 33. Constance Wu is not 33. Check it right now. Constance Wu is 36. Check it right now. Check it right now. Check it right now. I thought she was 26. She's not. She's 33. Check it right now. Check it right now. No way. Check it right now. Just click on that. 1982. How's that 36? How's that 33? I said that's 33. That's not 33. Yes, it is. 19, I'm 33. Dude, I'm 1983. When did it say 26 though? Uh, it was a mistake. I think it was a mistake because I, I thought that was, she looked too young to be 26. I mean, too, too old. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I think that, um, she's already playing a mom now, a young mom. So I think with a little makeup, um, she could play somebody in her forties. And I think that she's a big enough name and she's got the talent to play the mom. She's not a big enough name. But I think that this is an opportunity to give her that. For the mom. Because the mom is a classic. Okay. Who? Um, Mina Win. Uh, which, can you show me which one's that one? The original Chung Li. Oh my goodness. Back in the day. Yeah. She's old. She's in her fifties now. I think she's in her fifties now. Do you think that's too old though? I don't think that's too old. What is she looking like now? Oh, I remember this girl. Oh my goodness. She's 51 now. She's been in so many. She would be a perfect mother of Mulan. She's been around, around. I mean, I mean, she's even kind of been around recently. Yeah. She's very recently. She's in Marvel's, the, uh, the TV series. How old is she? She's 51. She was like the best looking 51 year old I've ever seen. Asians age very well, but yeah, fine. Okay. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. She would be a, I think, uh, I think she played the original Mulan at one point. Really? I think so. I think that, uh, I, okay. Cause I was, I was saying Constance Wu. Cause I think I wanted to try to keep the cast a little bit younger. Yeah. She was the voice for the Disney Mulan. Who? Mina Win. Oh really? Yeah. She was the voice for the animated Mulan. Oh, it's kind of like, uh, it's kind of like, uh, all right, let's go. Next up. Next up. Let's do Shan Yu. Oh yeah. Who is the, uh, and the villain. I stand by this one too. Yeah. What do you got? Ken Watanabe. Come on, dude. I don't think he's evil enough. I don't think he's evil enough. I don't think he looks evil enough. No, he he's got that look like that Mongol, like he's darker skinned. He's got the big head, the facial hair, shaved his head. I don't, I don't disagree with that. Remember this Batman Begins. He was, he played, he played the fake, uh, Ra's al Ghul. That was pretty good. Right? It was like, but then like imagine him even tougher. That's a good one. Wait, let me ask you something. Let me ask you something. Yeah. Yeah. You just changed your mind about like, about not doing a full Chinese cast. I know. And then you put him on your list when you still in your mind thought you were putting out a whole Chinese cast. No, no. Because how, how contradictory can you be? Because my, my thing was, uh, the main, like Mulan. Oh, you don't think the main enemy is the main? No, I didn't think they had to do because they come because they were already mixed blood. The Mongols to the North. You know what I mean? I have Jason Scott Lee. Who is this guy? Jason Scott Lee. He played the dragon in Bruce Lee's story. Okay. Okay. Look at him. Look at him. Look at a picture. Let me see some other ones. Let me see. Look how villainous he looks with the shaved head. That, that was look like, look at, look at how good of a villain. Holy crap. You hit, you hit it. That that's him right there. He looks like a bad dude. Yeah, he does. How come he, we don't see him a lot and he doesn't have a lot of jobs now after, after like, he's got, that's a bad guy. That's a bad guy. Exactly. Whoa. That's a bad guy. I mean, like, look at this photo right here. I mean, he literally looks like the cartoon. Yeah. Oh my goodness. That's a good one. That's bro. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. I know who you're going to do for Chow Yun-Fat for the dad. All right. I could, I could definitely do that, but I think he's best. He's more suited for the emperor. I think, wait, wait, depending on how important of a character, like if he's not that important of a character, you know what? I like yours better because I feel like they got to show the relationship between Mulan and the father. I think Chow Yun-Fat would exhibit more of a warm, loving fatherly figure vibe. He has that potential. He's able to just, just exude that warmth for the daughter because you need to have that with the father. Right. So I don't think like, I don't think a lot of Asian actors can able to do that. Yeah. I'm changing my mind to that. You can't change your stuff. You have a list. That's a good one. You have a list and you stood by it for like 20 minutes of this discussion. Now you're going to change it. Oh my goodness, dude. Oh my goodness. Now we got the male lead. The male lead. Li Shang. Li Shang. Sorry. All right. What do you have? Let me just preface by saying I don't want to cast like a pretty boy Asian guy. Okay. What do you have? Because in the, in the Disney movie, he was a pretty boy Asian guy. Yeah, he was. Right. I don't, I don't want to, I want, I want to cast someone like Rick Yun, who's got that look. Okay. So you cast Rick Yun? No, because I think he's too old to play that guy. So I'm going to cast this guy, Godfrey. What's his name? Godfrey Gao. Godfrey Gao. Gao. Yeah. Cause in some of the photos I've seen him in, he's got, he's kind of got that scruffy look. He's pretty. But he's not a pretty boy. You know, he's not all clean cut, you know, clean shaven. Like I want to see like kind of a manly dude. Well, I'm going to put up my, my dude, Daniel Henney. Yeah. He's hard to miss. Yeah. I think he needs to be in the army. He needs to have a physique. But that's, that's, that's why I didn't want to go. Cause he's a pretty boy. Daniel's not just a pretty boy. Daniel's got the physique going on too. But the face though, you know, it's pretty boy face. Like you're in a Chinese army in the Song Dynasty. You don't think they have pretty people? I don't think there's pretty people walking around. I don't think there's like pretty boys walking around. I'm not saying everyone's a pretty boy. I'm saying this guy who has the physique and also has the face. I think he could be a good choice. I don't hate your choice either. Okay. Okay. We have for our final position. So, so I chose someone nobody knows about. Okay. She's, she's like, I wouldn't even say she's up and coming. Like she's been in some indie movies. And, uh, I found her through a list on IMDB and I based it solely on like what I think Mulan should look like. And I was looking online and I noticed that she also was doing a lot of martial arts. Her name is Celia Ao. C-E-L-I-A-A-U. So I looked at her and online, she was like training for martial arts and my Mulan, she has to be fluent, well-versed in martial arts because that's the original story. You can't fake that. Okay. You can't just have some hot girl go learn some moves. No, you need someone who is trained in martial arts or who has the ability to do that. Otherwise, I mean, like, come on, you're not going to get you. I'm going to go see this movie for the action. I'm not going to go see it for the love story between her and Lishan. You know what I mean? You will be going to see it for that. But 99% of people are going to see it for the role. I understand that. And that's why this is my list. They're not going to cast someone like that, but I don't want to just see a pretty face up there. My choice is, uh, I think an obvious choice. Okay. Jamie Chong. I know who, I know exactly who that is. You know why? I don't think she'll She actually played Mulan. I saw that. I saw that. She did a good job. Okay. I think she can pull off something in a grander scale. That's why I think Jamie, I used to have a crush on Jamie for like two years. Okay. Here's what I want to say. She's not a bad choice because obviously like she's a seasoned veteran actress in Hollywood, so she can handle the role because it's a big role. I just think she's too pretty. I feel like Mulan like shouldn't be that pretty. Well, look, you don't know Mulan is not pretty. That's true. Have you seen Mulan? I've seen artworks of her. Have you seen Mulan? Yeah, I haven't seen Mulan. She could be pretty. I just feel like, okay. Jamie Chong, like I think you mentioned, she used to play it. She played it for the ABC. She played in ABC's Once Upon a Time. She played Mulan. I saw that. She did a good job. She did a good job. Yeah. Yeah. Like she's really pretty. I mean, I feel like it takes a little bit like when somebody is really pretty. Don't penalize the pretty. Okay. But like I said, they got to, I don't care who it is. They got to be believable when they do the fighting. Yeah. They got to be believable. Jamie Chong, I think she has some martial arts training. I'm not sure, but she's done martial arts movies in the past. So I believe in her. She was in Dragon Ball. Okay. Yeah. They have to make this one all Asian. I don't care if it's Chinese, Korean, Japanese. Of course. Look, this will be heavily scrutinized. It will be. Because it's now a race issue. If the casting goes towards someone who is not Asian for an Asian part, obviously. This is where you mentioned earlier, like, I don't know why Hollywood decided to jump from Cinderella to Mulan. Right. Like you just bypassed like eight other stories. There's so many other movies I would like to see as live action more than Mulan. Like what? Like Little Mermaid. Duh. Purely because I want to know how they do it. Because how do you pull off Little Mermaid live action? That's really interesting to me. Really see computer generated. Me, my favorite would be Beauty and the Beast. I want to see that. Okay. I want to see if they're going to take the dark angle or more of a lighter tone. It has to be a lighter tone. It's Disney. Everything will be PG. It will be. But I love that story so much. And I think there's a lot they could do, especially with the technology today. But even like Aladdin would be better. Aladdin would be great. Come on. Dude. And you'd have a beautiful. There you go. You have your beautiful princess. I mean, so many gorgeous. Jake Gyllenhaal would play the Aladdin. You know what? They got to do that just just for just for funny sake. And starring Jake Gyllenhaal like. That's what I'm hoping though. Because the Mulan, the story, you guys seen us do a lot of videos on Mulan. The story of Mulan is a beautiful story. But not from the perspective of a romance story. Exactly. It is a beautiful story based on family values. Absolutely. So I'm kind of the. Yeah. The live action to me when when it was announced in my head, I was like, oh, it was I wasn't so excited about it. Right. Because, you know, if OK, look, if the Disney version was the story of Mulan, I have no problem with it. But because the Disney version already changed, deviated so much from the original story. So it's kind of kind of killing me to see like, OK, then now it's going to be a live action based on not the real story, but the Disney animated change to modify story. But the story of Cinderella is, you know, more or less more or less when you and I know it where everybody else knows it. Right. It's the same version. But the original Mulan, nobody knows it because you're like. Nobody knows it. We know it like Asians, Chinese people know it. Right. People who are familiar with Asian culture know it. Right. So a lot of people do know it. Right. Except for that this audience is obviously, you know, a more westernized audience. Absolutely. You know what's curious? What's up? Would be how Chinese people receive this movie. Oh, I mean, I think we could guess. Because the cartoon is one thing, right? The cartoon is one thing. OK, it's kind of making fun. Right. So, OK, now you're trying to do this. Now you're live action. Epic. It's an epic. Now people are kind of expecting that this is going to be like a real story. And also checking out Mulan is interesting because it's not it's not like just a fairy tale with a few characters like Cinderella. It's literally if you think about it, it's an epic. There are war scenes. So when you think about movies like that, you're really thinking about, you know, all those like movies, like, you know, the battle, like the Gladiator, those type of movies. Right. So it has a it has a big chance to sink. And, you know, the budget is going to be really high. And it's basically, yeah, I just I really don't know why they picked this. I love to do. Let's see. And but definitely. But hey, it's creating a lot of buzz around the Internet. That's why we're talking about it. But also, obviously, one of the reasons, but other one is because, you know, we love the original story. Obviously. Yeah. I just hope that they don't they don't mess it up too much. Like, that's my hope. If they don't mess it up too much, I'll be happy. Well, we'll see, I guess maybe in a year or two. I don't know when it's going to come out. But all right, guys, let us know in the comments below. Team Mike, Team Dan on our respective casting lists. War, let us know your perfect cast. We didn't really stand by your cast. All right, guys, thanks so much for watching. Peace. See you later.