Mulan's Legend and Legacy in China and the United States (review)

Dong, Lan. Mulan's Legend and Legacy in China and the United States. Temple University Press, 2011. 263p illus. with photgraphs Paper ed. 978-1-59213-971-2 $27.95.

CCB affiliate and assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois at Springfield Lan Dong traces the evolution of Mulan's image from her first appearance as a folk heroine in a premodern China ballad to her more recent status as an iconic female warrior and of course, her presence as a global phenomenon as marketed by Disney. Examining ideas of female agency, ethnic identity, and the cultural contextualization of storytelling, Dong includes an analysis of the diverse interpretations of the original tale, its cross-cultural journey from China into the Western imagination, and its ensuing representations. While the first half of the book is devoted to looking at the original ballad of Mulan and its influence in major Chinese-American adult literature such as Maxine Hong Kingston's Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, later chapters examine American picture-book incarnations of the tale and animated movies specifically aimed at children. Scholars interested in the cross-cultural mutations of folktales as well as the surrounding cultural contexts that inform such iterations will find Dong's investigations fascinating. An index and an extensive bibliography are included.