One of the areas that we’re diverged from the original is we actually start with Mulan as a child and we see her spirit, we see that she isn’t like the other kids and we see the difficulty that causes her and her parents.
Which then becomes a theme of the movie in that she doesn’t fit in and she doesn’t know her place. Everyone’s very concerned for her, she has all these great qualities about her but she doesn’t do things the way that a young girl is supposed to and it isn’t until she’s dressed as a boy that people encourage those things in her.