I thoroughly enjoyed this latest offering from Disney. In all fairness, I must admit to not seeing Hercules or The Hunchback, so I am not up to speed with their recent offerings.

I found the animation a little jerky, especially in the beginning, but the style is so different to the Lion King or Aladdin that it may even have been appropriate.

It was nice to have a film focussed around a strong heroine, who for once did NOT look as if she escaped from a Barbie Doll factory.

Mulan is smart and witty, quick thinking and agile, and compassionate when necessary. An ideal wife, one might think.

The film is light on songs for a change, but those that are there work fine.

In keeping with the Disney tradition, the hero is easy to spot the moment he appears on stage. This hero, however, takes a decidely back seat to Mulan, who prevents total disaster twice.

Taking a tip from Aladdin's genie, Disney tried to introduce a similar character in the form of a pocket-sized dragon, straight from the American ghettos. Unfortunately a fixed-size dragon does not offer as much scope as a genie that can do anything, no matter how hard Eddie Murphy tries.

The Chinese government is not impressed with the film. They claim historical inaccuracies, I suspect they didn't like the dig at nepotism in the military.