Dubbing Differences: Mulan

  

I found the following notable changes in the Brazilian Portuguese dub of Disney's Mulan:

• Shan-Yu says “Very good,” instead of “Perfect.”
• Mulan to Little Brother: “Come on, love” instead of “smart boy.”
• “Uphold the family honor” is simplified to “Honor the family.”
• Mulan: “Root for me!” instead of “Wish me luck!”
• Another fun reversal: “The bath’s cold because you were late” instead of “It would have been warm if you were here on time.”
• On the last few notes of “Honor to Us All,” the Portuguese singers drop an octave, almost like they can’t sing high enough?
• Instead of saying “Not good for bearing sons,” the matchmaker says “Don’t even think about being able to have children.”
• “The Final Admonition” is called “The Duties of a Good Wife.”
• Mulan: “Reflect before you fall. ...Act!” Done for rhyming in Portuguese, but it’s not as humorous.
• Mulan: “This isn’t fair!” instead of “You shouldn’t have to go!”
• Instead of saying “Don’t make me have to singe nobody to prove no point,” Mushu says “I’m not even going to teach you how to use this cutting-edge technology.” I've never understood what that means in English, much less in Portuguese.
• Instead of saying “Your misguidance led Fa Deng to disaster!” the ancestor says “Fa Deng lost his head because of you!”
• The lead ancestor speaks in a continental Portuguese dialect instead of Brazilian.
• Shan-Yu says “I’m here” instead of “I’m ready.” This fits the voice acting much better.
• When Mulan is rehearsing before entering the men’s camp, she says “Your sword is nice” instead of “I see you have a sword.”
• Mulan says  to Mushu “Do I know you?” instead of “Who are you?”
• Chien-Po says to Yao “Let’s sing” instead of “Chant with me.”
• Instead of “You ain’t worth my time, Chicken-boy,” Yao says “Never mind, you big coward.”
• Mushu calls Yao a “weakling” instead of a “limp noodle.”
• The word for “captain” is “commander.” Makes me wonder about the translations of other military titles and stations in other languages.
• The soldiers say “It’s his fault!” instead of “He started it!”
• Mulan has a very interesting and intensive change in one of her lines. The original is “Sorry you had to see that. But you know how it is when you get those manly urges, and you just gotta kill somethin’! Fix things, cook outdoors...” In Portuguese, she says “Excuse the mess, but it’s the masculinity! The desire to break things! Belch, say swear words…”
• Mushu says “Saúde” instead of “Gesundheit,” which is the proper Portuguese response to a sneeze. Also, he says “I’m too much!” instead of “I kill myself!”
• Mushu expands upon an English line in Portuguese. Instead of saying “Of course, Ping did steal my—” he says “He did steal my girlfriend—”
• Li Shang says “You’ll spend a pleasant night choosing rice in the kitchen.” I think this might be a genuine error in translation, because the verb definitely means “choose,” as in “pick” something. Not “pick up.”
• Mushu just calls the “porridge” “breakfast.” Probably another lip-syncing issue.
• Instead of “No fightin’, play nice with the other kids” Mushu says “you’re not gonna fight, you’re just gonna play” which rhymes nicely in Portuguese, and instead of “kick the other kid’s butt,” they say “break his nose.”
• Mushu says “Make a grimace” instead of “Let me see your war face,” and he says his “fur slippers” ran for cover, instead of his “bunny slippers.”
• Instead of saying “That’s my tough-lookin’ warrior!” Mushu says “That’s what the people like!”
• The pun with Chi-Fu saying “Order!” and then they start “ordering” food is lost, making for an odd exchange. 
• The soldiers order “a caramel banana,” something called “mia casubia,” and some kind of sandwich.
• Instead of “And I’ll do it with my shirt on,” Yao says “And keep watching, because I’m not even going to break a sweat.”
• Li Shang: “One is not complete without the other” instead of “You need both to reach the arrow.”
• The line “I’ll make a man out of you” is “I’ll change you, improve you, one by one.” It fits the lip syncing nicely.
• A lot of “Make a Man Out of You” is translated directly and impressively, especially the part about the coursing river, great typhoon, and raging fire. Though instead of saying “mysterious as the dark side of the moon,” they say “the light of the moon will give us inspiration.”
• Mushu says “She has some things that are impossible to ignore!” instead of “There are a couple of things I know they’re bound to notice!”
• Chien Po doesn’t yell when he jumps in the water, which is a weird and awkward change.
• Ling and Mulan say “I think Ping and I can take you!” “I don’t want to take him anywhere” in English, but this slight change in the meaning of “take” is lost in Portuguese: “I think I and Ping can overthrow you!” “I don’t want to overthrow him.”
• In English, Ling starts to say “C’mon, don’t be such a…” but in Portuguese he says “Stop being a little woman...”
• Mushu says in English “And since we’re out of potpourri, perhaps you wouldn’t mind bringing us some.” In Portuguese, he says “Since we ran out of lipstick, see if you can bring us eight more boxes.”
• Instead of “What’s the matter? You’ve never seen a black and white before?” Mushu says “What’s the problem? I’m the Panda General. Never heard of me?”
• Chi Fu says “Are you from the army?” instead of “Who are you?”
• The song “A Girl Worth Fighting For” is very different and has some good lines:
• Yao: “She can tend to my wounds” instead of “Adore my battle scars”
• Chien Po: “But if she cooks with dexterity.”
• Ling: “I know I’m sensational, irresistible.” Yao: “Your modesty is terrible.”
• Chi Fu: “A woman to me has to be colossal.” Yao: “A woman to him is his mom who cooks him lunch!”
• Mulan: “It’s a great loss” instead of “I’m sorry.”
• Li Shang: “Let’s march!” instead of “Move out!” And later: “March. Didn’t you hear?” instead of “I said move out.”
• Mulan: “You missed! How could you miss? He was a meter’s distance!”
• Mushu says “This won’t be easy” instead of “This won’t be pretty.”
• Instead of saying “I have to do something,” Mulan says “I have to take an attitude,” which has the meaning of “I have to take action.”
• This may be an issue with the excess of syllables in Portuguese compared to English, but instead of saying “Did you see those huns? They popped out of the snow... Like daisies!” he says “You saw what happened. All of those Huns... popped out of the snow!”
• We must have more expressions in English involving butts than I realized. Every one in this show is replaced with something decidedly non-butt related. Mushu says “Let’s make those Huns run!” instead of “Let’s go kick some Hunny buns!”
• Mulan: “Pay attention” instead of “Keep your eyes open.”
• The emperor calls his “children” his “subjects” and replaces “The Middle Kingdom” with “our glorious empire.”
• Shan Yu omits “and now it’s your turn” when talking to the emperor to immediately talk about bowing to him. This is probably because the verb for “bow” has many more syllables: “a-jo-elh-ar.”
• Instead of saying “Ugly concubines,” the Hun says “Ugly like a beast.”
• Instead of “That’s what I call Mongolian barbecue,” Mushu says “That’s instant roast chicken.”
• Mushu says “The enemy of crime” instead of “Your worst nightmare,” and I think it might be a superhero reference or something similar.
• Li Shang: “It was a good fight” instead of “You fight good.”
• Mulan says “imperial seal” instead of “the crest of the emperor.”
• Li Shang: “I would love to dine” instead of “Dinner would be great.”

Check out other Dubbing Differences here!