10 Films With Glaring Historical Inaccuracies

Time to crush some childhoods.

Mulan is based on the story of Hua Mulan, a character in a sixth century Chinese poem. Mulan was considerably more badass than Disney made her out to be, having been taught how to fight long before she decided to join the Chinese army. She definitely didn't need a musical training montage to teach her how to fight.

Disney did get Mulan's tomboyishness correct, but she didn't leave in the dead of night. She told her parents she was leaving, and given her father was too old to fight, they thought it was the right thing to do. Also Mulan never had to go through a big gender reveal, then save the Chinese Emperor in order to prove herself. In reality, after twelve years of war, Mulan requested that she be permitted to return to her home, and it was only there that she unveiled herself as a woman.

At the end of her time with the military, Mulan's story splits, with one version seeing her happily married, but another version having her return to her family to find that her father had died, her mother had remarried, and Mulan herself was to be sent to Heshana Khan as a concubine. Refusing to become a sex slave, Mulan committed suicide, which wouldn't have suited a Disney ending.

Pixar maybe, but not Disney.