The Hun Army are the murderous and bloodthirsty enemies of China and the primary antagonist group in Disney's 1998 animated feature film, Mulan. They are led by Shan Yu.
Background[]
Personality[]
Little is known about their personalities with the exception of Shan Yu's Elite, but the Huns all share a thirst for power and murderous intent, riding with wargs as well as fierce loyalty to Shan Yu.
Role in the film[]
Shan Yu is the leader of the Huns. There are also a group of Huns known as the Elite Hun Soldiers.
The Huns are first seen with Shan Yu in the burning down of a village (though only the aftermath appears on-screen). In their invasion of China, the entire Imperial Army wiped out the Hun Army and the Hun Army wiped out the entire Imperial Army under General Li in (another) off-screen battle. Several Hun archers shot fire arrows at Li Shang's troops from a mountain top after and Mushu accidently set off a cannon giving away the troops position (or they had possibly already spotted them before the cannon went off) the archers are killed by Shang's troops firing the cannons they managed to save either directly from the cannon explosions or they were knocked off the mountain and fell to their deaths. Almost all the Huns and all their wargs were wiped out in an avalanche while they were pursuing Mulan, Shang, and his elite soldiers, including Yao, Ling, and Chien Po. However, Shan Yu and ten of his Elite Hun Soldiers managed to survive, breaking out of the snow and heading to China to capture the Emperor. It is unknown what happened to them after they failed to capture the latter, though it is likely that if they survived, they were arrested, put in the dungeon for life, or executed.
Live-action appearances[]
In the Niki Caro remake of Mulan the Huns are replaced by the Rouran Army. They are now instead the ones who directly cause the avalanche through Mulan tricking them into firing a catapult in the direction of the mountain that triggers it.
Appearances outside of the film[]
In Disney's Arcade Frenzy the Huns appear in the Mu Shoot game. The player has to shoot fireworks at them to stop them reaching a village at the bottom of the mountain pass. Unlike the movie they simply run on foot instead of riding horses.
In Kingdom Hearts II, the Huns are completely absent and Shan Yu has an army of Heartless instead of them. However, Mushu still referred to Shan Yu as the leader of the Hun army, implying that the army exists or that the Heartless Shan Yu controls are actually Huns that were turned into Heartless.
In the manga adaptation of Kingdom Hearts II, the Huns are with Shan Yu, as in the movie, but also with the Heartless too. It not completely clear if the army was a mix of Heartless and Huns, or if the entire army was Huns that had been turned into Heartless and were simply disguised as their original selves, or if the entire army was Heartless disguised as Huns. Despite this, the manga implies that at least some of the Heartless were on loan from Organization XIII. The army still gets wiped out with an avalanche.
In Disney Sorcerer's Arena, Hun soldiers (particularly archers) appear as non-playable enemy opponents in battle. They attack by shooting arrows.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- A deleted scene featured a Hun soldier trying to save and hide a little bird that was tossed aside after the army had raided a village and trashing the contents of a cart they have taken back to their camp, only for him to be spotted by Shan Yu who was using the unused ability of him seeing through Hayabusa's eyes, he then brutally kills the soldier by stabbing him and feeds the bird to his falcon. This implies that not all of the Huns in the army are full on murderous, cold blooded killers and some do have a sense of good in them, but would be eliminated because of it.
- During production when designing the scene where the Huns charge down the mountain the soldiers carrying flags had a crescent emblem on them possibly meant to be the crest of Shan Yu and the Huns. This was not used in the final product and the flags were changed to just being plain black.
- This was likely to avoid offense to Muslim viewers.
- The army was intended to return in an earlier version of the story for Mulan II where along with Shan Yu they would all be ghosts haunting Northern China. The finale was going to involve the army fighting against Mulan and her allies, including the Fa Family Ancestors [1]
- Although being called Huns, this is a historical misconception; the Xiongnu were the tribal raiders that attacked China during the age of Mulan. The Huns did not exist around the same time as the Xiongnu and never attacked China. The misconception comes from the fact that both Huns and Xiongnu originated from the Eurasian Steppe and shared many cultural and militaristic similarities.
- This is further supported by Shan Yu's name, as a "Shanyu" or "Chanyu" was what the Xiongnu leaders were called, much like a Mongol leader would be "Khan."
- However the Chinese dubs of the movie do call them Xiongnu instead of Huns. This is likely because the Huns are more historically well known outside of China and the Xiongnu are more historically well known in China. It is also likely because the word "Hun" is an easier word to use and understand for the English audience as "Xiongnu" would be more difficult to pronounce.
- Despite that the real Huns and other similar nomad societies were believed to allow women to be soldiers (as shown with Shan Yu not underestimating Mulan for being a woman) none of the soldiers in the army are women and appear to be all just men. However this could just simply be that the women Huns stayed behind as in most common cases in war the women usually were not called to the front line staying behind to defend the territory, look after the livestock, children or to look after property while the men were away fighting.
References[]
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