Jason Scott Lee,novel lucah kakak ipar who plays the villain Bori Khan in Disney’s live-action Mulanreboot, admits he’s disappointed that he doesn’t get a song. But he’s also chuffed about his return to a Disney film -- where he is firmly the baddie.
“I guess when you get older, they make you the bad guy,” Lee told a group of journalists on the New Zealand set of the film in October 2018.
The actor took on a swathe of good guy roles during the '90s, playing the likes of Bruce Lee in Dragonand Mowgli in the first live-action remake of The Jungle Book, and voicing David Kawena in Lilo & Stitch.
You May Also Like
“I find it more rewarding, though, in a way, to play the opposite," he said. "You know, as I’m growing into my 50s, it's kind of cool."
Like a lot of things from the animated version, the Huns won’t make a return in the live-action Mulan. As Bori Khan, Lee plays the warrior leader of the Rourans, out for personal revenge against the Chinese empire.
Owing to the film’s efforts towards cultural accuracy, the Rourans have replaced the historically incorrect Huns, whose military efforts were actually focused toward Europe, not ancient China.
On the set of 'Mulan.' Credit: Jason Dunne / Disney It’s also a distinctly more serious and violent film, and Bori Khan is a seemingly more complex villain than the yellow-eyed Shan Yu from the animated version. Lee imagines Bori Khan sees Mulan as “an issue that springs up in his plans to take back the land and the culture of the Rourans."
“I think in essence, Bori Khan has been through a lot of wars. He's a tough character that you just can't knock down,” Lee continued. “I think the respect he's given by the tribal leaders of the other Rouran allows him to unify the other groups to increase his army, increase power and have the ability to tackle the Emperor.”
However, you may not see much explanation of Bori Khan's true motivations in the movie, as Lee revealed that they were "pushed out" of the story due to censorship issues and were not included in the screenplay. But the character's push against colonialism still drives Lee's performance.
“The way I'm approaching it is that colonialism has pushed out native or indigenous cultures. Bori Khan's fight is to regain and recompose his culture of the Rouran connate and to reestablish their power structure,” he explained.
Lee added: “That's something that we also talked about coming into the project. I shared my take with the director [Niki Caro] and she said, 'Oh, that's a good perspective, is that the culture of the Rourans have been overrun by the Chinese.’"
Given that context, "he feels that it's his duty, his responsibility, to regain that pride and that stature of a once-great nation.”
Gong Li in 'Mulan.' Credit: Disney In another major change, Bori Khan is joined by a shapeshifting witch named Xian Lang — played by Chinese star Gong Li, a later addition to the cast. According to Lee, both villains have an “equal partnership” in their fight against the empire, but Li wanted parts of her character changed.
“When Gong Li came on, there were a lot of creative things that she wanted to add. She wanted to not play this victimised type of sorceress. She wanted to make it more masculine, so that she could show that she had a prominent warrior spirit rather than the wispy, willowy, enchantress in the character, and they started steering the witch's character that way,” Lee revealed.
Mulan’s producer, Jason Reed, explained the addition of Xian Lang was to “expand the perspective” of the film.
“We wanted to have a female antagonist in the movie, as well as just having the male antagonist, so that we could explore female power in that society and in different ways and have different perspectives on it,” Reed said.
Despite all the changes, Reed said Mulanwill have a similar story to its animated predecessor, in that Mulan will overcome the invaders -- and an antagonist who underestimated her, all the way to the final battle.
“That’s me and her all the way,” Lee said of the final standoff.