Did you know that the legend of Mulan dates back to 420 AD? The heroine
first appeared in a famed Chinese poem that rose to prominence during the
Northern Dynasties. Disney’s 1998 feature, Mulan, holds true to the basic
premise of the poem–patriotic girl with ailing father disguises herself as a
man to join the army and goes on to many victories in battle.

But Disney’s incarnation of the tale was one in a long succession of
adapatations with different outcomes. In 1960, the story was adapted into an
opera, The Lady General Hua Mu Lan, which many consider the best-known
version and most like the Disney film. There’s one notable exception: instead of
being discovered as a girl while unconscious, Hua Mu Lan in the opera resists
the efforts of her comrades to remove her armor when wounded, vowing to die
before taking off her gear. No one out her true identity until the war has
ended.

One version of the folklore involves Hua Mu Lan’s death during battle.
Another outcome of the oral history involves her suicide in order to escape an
unwanted marriage. A 1939 black and white film Maiden in Armor also drew
its inspiration from the legend of Mulan. And in 1999, a farcical TV comedy
called Hua Mu Lan, began airing on a local Taiwanese station. In that
version, a general is smitten with the disguised heroine and believes he’s in
love with a “man.”

The most recent Mulan continuation is, of course, Disney’s straight-to-DVD
Mulan II, where Mulan’s plans to marry are postponed when she’s placed on
special assignment to escort the Emperor’s daughters to their own marriages in
other Chinese cities.

Now that the U.S. has become greatly familiar with the legend, do you think
more serialized stories about Mulan will continue to crop up? Let us know.