"I'll Make a Man Out of You" is a song written by composer Matthew Wilder and lyricist David Zippel for Walt Disney Pictures' animated film Mulan (1998). Appearing on the film's soundtrack Mulan: An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack, "I'll Make a Man Out of You" is performed by American singer Donny Osmond as the singing voice of Captain Li Shang in lieu of American actor BD Wong, who provides the character's speaking voice. The song also features contributions from Lea Salonga as the singing voice of Mulan, Eddie Murphy as Mushu, and Harvey Fierstein, Jerry Tondo and Wilder himself as Yao, Chien-Po and Ling, respectively. In addition, Mushu has a speaking line unlike the other characters in the song.
"I'll Make a Man Out of You" was written to replace the song "We'll Make a Man of You" after the film's original songwriter Stephen Schwartz departed from the project in favor of working on DreamWorks' The Prince of Egypt (1998). Wilder and Zippel were inspired to complete the song after conceiving its ironic title, and the initial draft of the track was immediately approved by Disney. Prior to Mulan, Osmond had auditioned for the role of Hercules in Disney's Hercules (1997), a role for which he was ultimately turned down by the directors because they felt that he sounded too old. Disney eventually cast Osmond as the singing voice of Shang because his singing voice is similar to Wong's speaking voice. An up-tempo military-style song that incorporates both Eastern and Western musical styles, "I'll Make a Man Out of You" is performed by Shang during a rigorous training montage in which his young, inexperienced soldiers attempt to justify their worth. The song's title is considered ironic because Mulan, who relies on intelligence, ultimately proves more competent than her male comrades, including Captain Li Shang, who takes a liking to her, while its lyrics explore hyper-masculinity contradicted with Mulan's gender.
"I'll Make a Man Out of You" has received mostly positive reviews from film and music critics, some of whom dubbed it the film's best song, while praising Osmond's performance. Critics have also drawn comparisons between the song and Disney's Hercules, while likening Mulan's role and transformation to actress Demi Moore's performance as Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil in the film G. I. Jane (1997). The song has since appeared on several "best of" Disney songs lists, including those of Total Film and the New York Post. Discussed by film critics, film historians, academic journalists and feminists, the song has gone on to be recorded and covered in several different languages—namely Mandarin, Cantonese and Spanish—by entertainers Jackie Chan and Cristian Castro, respectively. Commercially, although the song was not released as a single and did not chart, it was certified 3× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for equivalent sales of 3,000,000 units in the United States. It was also certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for equivalent sales of 400,000 units in the United Kingdom.
Writing and recording "I'll Make a Man Out of You" was written by composer Matthew Wilder and lyricist David Zippel, who were hired to write Mulan's songs because Disney was interested in recruiting songwriters "that ... would give kind of a different sound to each of the songs." While Zippel, a Broadway lyricist, was recruited because the directors were impressed with his work on Disney's Hercules (1997), at the time Wilder, a pop singer, had been best known for his song "Break My Stride". Bancroft believes that, although the songwriters "had two different sensibilities ... the blend [of their styles] worked well together, especially on ['I'll Make a Man Out of You']".Songwriter Stephen Schwartz was originally slated to write lyrics for Mulan until he was replaced by Zippel "at the last moment." Schwartz had written a song called "We'll Make a Man of You" for the scene in which Mulan is training to be a soldier. The song was ultimately replaced with Wilder and Zippel's "I'll Make a Man Out of You" when Schwartz was forced to resign from Mulan by Disney executives Peter Schneider and Michael Eisner because the songwriter had also agreed to score rival studio DreamWorks' animated film The Prince of Egypt (1998). Wilder and Zippel first conceived the song's title, which then inspired them to write its lyrics and music. Zippel identified determining the song's ironic title as the moment "he knew he'd hit on something great" by "contrasting Mulan's gender with the concept of what it means to be a man." The songwriters were hoping to create an original version of a training montage that was funny without being obvious, while remaining in character at all times. In an unlikely situation, the filmmakers universally enjoyed the song from its very first draft.
Wilder described himself as using "an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach" to composing its music, explaining, "I knew I wanted it to sound large and I knew what the tempo and the cadence of the piece was." Combining Eastern and Western styles, Wilder borrowed "drum cadences from traditional Chinese drums and then marrying that with military snares", upon which he continued building until "it became this cacophonous effect of a Chinese marching American band". Wilder and Zippel decided to incorporate drums into the track to demonstrate a sense of masculinity and musculature, identifying the song as very odd in structure but appropriate for its lyrics. Zippel's incorporation of "naturalistic descriptions of masculinity" into the song's lyrics – raging fire, coursing river, great typhoon – was used in an attempt to "get inside Shang's head space", elaborating, "I was just trying to be in character for the captain and how an Asian captain would lead his group differently than how a Western captain would call his troops," identifying as an opportunity "to put some specificity into it." Wilder recorded the song's demo himself, which was arranged into a composition featuring a 100-piece orchestra and male choir conducted by musician Paul Buckmaster.
Before Mulan, American singer Donny Osmond had auditioned for the lead role in Hercules, a role for which he was ultimately not cast because the directors felt that his voice sounded "too old" and "too deep" for the character. Osmond later revealed in an interview with People that he was so embarrassed by his Hercules audition that he had nearly considered ending his singing career prematurely. A few months later, Disney contacted Osmond with interest in casting him as the singing voice of Shang after comparing his audition tapes to BD Wong and determining that both actors have "very similar voices." In one scene, Osmond's character, Shang, is hit in the stomach while singing "I'll Make a Man Out of You". In order to sound as realistic as possible, Osmond punched himself in the stomach several times while recording the song.
Context and use in Mulan "I'll Make a Man Out of You" is performed by Captain Li Shang during Mulans training montage, which has also been identified as the film's "boot camp sequence." The scene explores Shang's attempt to train his newly recruited squadron of incompetent soldiers in the hopes of ultimately transforming them into a skilled army. Occupying a significant portion of the film's plot, Shang promises to turn his team of "rag-tag recruits" into men, implying that they are merely boys unless they learn to fight while entirely unaware that Mulan is a woman. The musical number is used to "compress dramatic time or narrate" in a more compelling way than had solely dialogue been used. The scene begins with Shang shooting an arrow into the top of a tall pole and challenging all of his soldiers to retrieve it, each of whom fail until Mulan eventually succeeds. According to the book Into the Closet: Cross-Dressing and the Gendered Body in Children's Literature and Film by Victoria Flanagan, Mulan is successful in retrieving the arrow because she uses "an ingenuity that is based upon her ability to incorporate aspects of femininity into her masculine performance." By the end of the scene, all of the soldiers have improved dramatically and the results of their practice and training are finally revealed. In what Joshua and Judges author Athalya Brenner called "a humorous reversal toward the end of the movie," Mulan and her male comrades disguise themselves as concubines in order to infiltrate the palace and rescue the emperor while "I'll Make a Man Out of You" reprises in the background.Critics have observed ways in which the scene explores Mulan's growth and transformation as the character evolves from a clumsy, inexperienced recruit into one of the army's most skilled soldiers, in spite of her gender. According to the book Literacy, Play and Globalization: Converging Imaginaries in Children's Critical and Cultural Performances, the montage depicts Mulan's gender as "an obstacle to overcome." Author Phyllis Frus wrote in her book Beyond Adaptation: Essays on Radical Transformations of Original Works, "The need for inexperienced young men to go through a rigorous training results in a sequence common to many films," and that the scene "shows the challenges Ping/Mulan faces due to her" inexperience. As observed by Juanita Kwok in the book Film Asia: New Perspectives on Film for English, the irony of the scene lies within the fact that "Mulan proves herself more competent than any of the men." The author also observed that the scene's first refrain accompanies shots of Shang, while its second "coincides with Mulan climbing to the top of the pole." Additionally, while the earlier, all-female musical number "Honor to Us All" "functions as an account of the constructedness of female gender," "I'll Make a Man Out of You" "juxtaposes and makes explicit the contention that gender is a cultural product," according to Johnson Cheu, author of Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability. The Representation of Gender in Walt Disney's "Mulan" believes that the song emphasizes desirable masculine traits, namely "discipline ... tranquility, celerity, strength and fearlessness," while Shang, according to Putting the Grail Back into Girl Power: How a Girl Saved Camelot, and why it Matters, "views [femininity] as comparable to weakness." In her article Disney's "Mulan"—the "True" Deconstructed Heroine?, Lisa Brocklebank argued the song explores themes such as othering, ostracism and abjection. Hannah Yasharoff, writing for USA Today, believes Mulan is used to counter the idea that masculinity is "the only way to become strong enough to win the war".
Comparing the song to other training sequences such as Private Benjamin (1980), Wilder explained that the filmmakers "were trying to marry the idea of that hyper-masculinity as if it were a Marine moment, but instead of it being Marines, it was the Chinese army." Critics have drawn similarities between the "I'll Make a Man Out of You" sequence and Hercules' training montage in Disney's Hercules (1997), as well as actress Demi Moore's role as Lieutenant Jordan O'Neil in the film G. I. Jane (1997). In the book Ways of Being Male: Representing Masculinities in Children's Literature, author John Stephens wrote that although both Mulan and Hercules depict "the active male body as spectacle," Mulans is less "straight-forward" due to the character's gender. Michael Dequina of The Movie Report observed that "Mulan's transformation is highly reminiscent of Demi Moore's in last year's Disney drama G.I. Jane, but Mulan oneups that film's hour-long toughening process by efficiently covering the same ground during a single, rousing musical number."
Music and lyrics