Mulan is one of many Disney animated classics that got a direct-to-video sequel, and it could have had another, but it never happened. Walt Disney Pictures has explored a variety of styles and stories for decades, but it will always be best known and remembered for its animated movies. Among those is a franchise that not all movies can be a part of, as there are some specific and secret requirements to be met. This franchise is the Disney Princesses one, and among those is the 1998 movie Mulan.
Based on the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, the movie tells the story of the title character (voiced by Ming-Na Wen) who joins the army to fight the invading Huns after her sick father is recruited, so she takes his place – but to do so, she has to disguise herself as a man. Mulan is joined by Mushu (Eddie Murphy), who offers her guidance and becomes her sidekick. Mulan was a big commercial and critical success, and as happened with many other Disney Princesses, she got a second movie, though one that was directly released in home video, and she could have had a second sequel.
Mulan II was released in 2004 and had most of the original voice cast back, including Ming-Na Wen and Eddie Murphy. The story followed Mulan and her fiancé, General Li Shang, as they went on a new mission together: escorting the Emperor's three daughters across the country to meet their soon-to-be fiancés. Although Mulan II addressed some mature topics such as arranged marriages, something different in the Disney world but that still could have resonated with the audience, the movie was poorly received, joining the infamous club of bad sequels to Disney’s animated movies. However, prior to the release of Mulan II, Disney had plans for a third movie that would have also skipped a theatrical release.
Simply titled Mulan III, the movie was announced to be in development in 2002, and the writers of the first movie, Raymond Singer and Eugenia Bostwick-Singer, submitted two stories for this second sequel, which included a new character named Ana Ming. Singer and Bostwick were not part of Mulan II as they were busy with other projects outside the Disney bubble, but they were given a description of the second movie and got to see some reels, which helped them develop some ideas for the third Mulan adventure. However, Mulan III was canceled before Mulan II was released, but the character later got a bigger, though not necessarily better, revision in live-action form. Released in 2020, Mulan followed the same premise as the original one but got rid of the musical side of it along with Mushu, and while it was well-received by Western critics, Chinese critics weren’t on board with it in big part due to its cultural and historical inaccuracies.
Plot details on the unmade animated movie Mulan III are unknown, so who Ana Ming was and her role in Mulan’s story is unknown, along with what Mulan and Shang’s life together would have been like. Ultimately, it was for the better to not give this beloved character another direct-to-video sequel when the first one wasn’t well-received and ended up hurting the image and popularity of the first one, and if there’s something viewers learned from all those smaller Disney sequels is that they are usually never as good as the original movie.