Don’t expect to see Mushu in the upcoming live-action Mulan.
The Yifei Liu-led Disney film, which just got a PG-13 rating, is missing some details from the animated version that you might want to know about before hitting theaters to catch the remake.
PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Yifei Liu
The film is making several changes for a more grown-up audience, including skipping out on beloved classic songs from the animated film, as well as animal sidekicks – including Mushu the dragon.
“Mushu was very popular in the U.S., but the Chinese hated it. This kind of miniature dragon trivialized their culture,” explained USC professor Stanley Rosen to THR.
“We had a lot of conversations about it,” producer Jason Reed explained, going on to say that they settled on telling the story “in a way that is more real, more relatable, where we don’t have the benefit of the joke to hide behind things that might be uncomfortable and we don’t break into song to tell us the subtext.”
Director Niki Caro also opened up about the film pushing the boundaries: “You have to deliver on the war of it, and how do you do that under the Disney brand where you can’t show any violence, gratuitous or otherwise?…those sequences, I’m proud of them. They’re really beautiful and epic — but you can still take kids. No blood is shed. It’s not Game of Thrones.”
Find out why the movie was given a PG-13 rating…