10 Subtle Ways Movies Foreshadowed Major Spoilers

4. Mulan's Chess Move Foreshadows How She Buries The Hun Army - Mulan (1998)

Children of Men Clive Owen
Disney

Right at the start of Disney's original animated Mulan - you know, the good one - we briefly see Mulan move a chess piece on a Chinese chess board.

At a cursory glance this seems completely innocuous, but anyone familiar with Chinese chess - formally known as Xiangqi - will likely recognise that the piece Mulan moves is a pao, which translates to "cannon" in English.

This is particularly telling given that Mulan ends up disabling the Hun army later in the film by firing a cannon which causes an avalanche, burying her enemies.

Given that the movie's world and culture were entirely new to the vast majority of viewers, though, this clever foreshadowing was easily missed by most.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.