‘Mulan’ Hits a Wall of Chinese Red Tape

“Mulan” may be doing well in Peoria, but will it play in Peking?

That is one of the biggest questions surrounding Walt Disney Co.’s latest full-length animated hit, which is raking in healthy receipts at the U.S. box office but has yet to screen here in the land where the movie is set.

Based on an ancient Chinese legend about a girl who marches off to war in her father’s place, “Mulan” would seem a natural, friendly fit for China, whose enormous moviegoing audience has had Hollywood salivating for years.

For the moment, however, the film remains trapped in official limbo, under potentially protracted deliberation by Beijing’s movie censors.

As it floats in a state of--quite literally--suspended animation, “Mulan” points up the unpredictable and often frustrating workings of the Chinese entertainment industry, a minefield for enthusiastic but unwary foreigners and an uneasy intersection of politics and culture in the world’s most populous nation.

Few observers doubt that the waiting game for Disney, which is on a rocky footing with China’s central government, turns as much on delicate questions of policy and politics as on aesthetic merit.

“We’re hopeful that they’ll decide to show the film,” said John Dreyer, Disney’s chief spokesman for matters dealing with China. “It’s moving through the process.”

But exactly when and where that process will end is far from clear.

In an unusual dispatch this week, the official New China News Agency quoted “reliable sources” as saying that “the Chinese government needs time to discuss whether to import the movie.”

The agency cited “artistic taste and story line” as factors in determining which foreign films premiere in China, adding that approval for “Mulan” will be a “complicated issue.”

Those complications include everything from the low limit slapped on the number of international films allowed to the Communist regime’s intransigence over Tibet, a sensitive spot that triggered a cat-and-Mickey-Mouse game between Beijing and Disney more than a year ago, in a warning to other studios hoping to tap the Chinese market.

Only about a dozen foreign movies are permitted in Chinese theaters annually on a profit-sharing basis between the Chinese and the original distributors, a quota that chafes studio executives.

The issue is such a sticking point that President Clinton lobbied for greater access to the Chinese film market during last month’s Sino-U.S. summit. Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, has also met with Chinese officials to persuade them to ease the restrictions.

But the cultural authorities here have so far refused to increase the number of revenue-sharing foreign films for 1998, according to China Entertainment Network, a private consultant firm based in Shanghai. Prospects for next year are equally dim.

Already this year, the Chinese moviegoing public has seen Leonardo DiCaprio drown in “Titanic,” George Clooney flit around in a cape in “Batman and Robin” and Tommy Lee Jones escape death by lava in “Volcano.” (Nearly all the films screened in China from abroad end up being American ones.)

All told, five or six imports have hit local cinemas; three more, including “Deep Impact,” are queued up for release, sources say.

The window is therefore shrinking, though not completely closed, for “Mulan” to be screened in China by year’s end.

Seen purely in terms of content, the Disney offering would appear to be a sure bet. The typically wholesome young heroine, who disguises herself as a man to do battle, is also daring, intelligent and cunning. And malevolent-looking Huns make for a politically correct enemy. China’s landscape, featuring de rigueur drawings of the Great Wall, is rendered to lovely effect.

And, learning its lesson from a mild debate over “The Lion King,” Disney has produced not one but two versions of “Mulan” dubbed in Mandarin Chinese--one for viewers in Taiwan, where “Mulan” is already playing, and another with idiomatic expressions and humor more familiar to mainland theatergoers. Back in 1995, some official culture gremlins in the Chinese government had complained that “The Lion King,” the only animated Disney film besides “Toy Story” to be shown in China, catered too much to Taiwan’s taste.

With so many brownie points to back it up, what or who could possibly stand in “Mulan’s” way, especially if the Huns couldn’t?

Enter the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader.

To Beijing’s ire, Disney went ahead last year with the release of “Kundun,” Martin Scorsese’s biographical film of the Dalai Lama, complete with an unflattering portrait of the Chinese annexation of Tibet. China, whose official memory goes back almost as far as its 5,000-year-old civilization, has not quickly forgiven or forgotten Disney’s political transgression.

“There’s no secret they [weren’t] happy about it,” acknowledged Dreyer, the Disney spokesman.

Since then, the Communist government has cooled toward the entertainment giant and its plans to widen operations in China, including dreams of building a Magic Kingdom in the Middle Kingdom. (China was also displeased last fall with MGM’s “Red Corner” and Sony’s “Seven Years in Tibet.” Sony has not released a film there since, but a spokeswoman for the studio says it is optimistic that it will be able to resolve the situation; MGM had no comment.)

The message was clear: If Hollywood wants to use China to make more money, perhaps the dearest concern to Hollywood’s heart, then it had better rethink its attitude toward volatile issues like Tibet.

Although some critics accuse Disney of now trying to toady up to Beijing with “Mulan’s” positive depiction of China, company representatives said the film had been in development long before “Kundun” premiered.

“We have continued to do business in China,” Dreyer said. “We continue to have discussion with Chinese officials about all of our businesses and exploring . . . our potential for either expanding or starting up businesses there.”

Meanwhile, some Chinese are already catching a glimpse of the latest Disney animated extravaganza, despite official delay over whether to release the film. Pirated copies of the film on video compact disc are available on Beijing’s streets.

One buyer, a 40-year-old magazine editor, even obtained her copy in an “authorized VCD” store. Like virtually all Chinese adults, the woman grew up hearing the story of Mulan in school, taught in the verses of a famous classical poem.

“I expect it will be a lot of fun,” she said of Disney’s rendition, which she plans to watch at home.

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Times staff writer Robert W. Welkos also contributed to this report.