The original 'Mulan' co-director breaks down how he feels about the changes made in the live-action movie

• Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Disney's live-action "Mulan."

• "Mulan" is now available to stream on Disney Plus for an additional $29.99 in the US and is playing in some theaters worldwide.

• Original co-director Tony Bancroft tells Insider what he thinks of the movie's new characters and surprise cameo.

• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Disney's live-action "Mulan" is out on Disney Plus and in select theaters and it has the stamp of approval from the animated movie's co-director.

"I thought [director] Niki Caro did a great job of bringing Mulan to life, to real life here in live-action," Tony Bancroft told Insider in March.

Similar to the 1998 film, the live-action movie follows Mulan as she takes her father's place in war to protect the emperor from a vengeful group of outsiders led by Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee).

Unlike its predecessor, the new film does away with fan-favorite Mushu in favor of a phoenix and ditches the majority of songs from the film. After viewing the film in March, Bancroft told Insider he was happy with many of the film's changes. His favorite moment included a surprise cameo near the movie's end.

Bancroft is OK that the film didn't have Mushu and liked the phoenix character.

The live-action film did away with the tiny dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy. When asked if he was OK with the character's absence from the new film, Bancroft said, "Totally."

Instead, he embraced the new phoenix character which took his place.

"It was not silly or corny like I was afraid it might be," Bancroft said of how the film handled the phoenix.

"And I did not miss Mushu," he added. "Actually in this film, and the tone of the film that they presented, he would have been really ridiculous, and not really appropriate."

He was happy the film focused more on the relationship between Mulan and her father.

When Insider previously spoke with Bancroft, he hoped the live-action film would explore more of the relationship between Mulan and her father. The new film places their relationship front and center.

"I was happily surprised," said Bancroft. "In the animated version, we had some more scenes with Mulan, and her family and her father, particularly, and ended up cutting some or moving where they were in the film, but definitely cutting some."

"We were making an 80-minute film whereas this is two hours. So we had different restrictions set upon us," he added. "You could have dug deeper in a lot of relationships in the original 'Mulan' and thankfully in this one I feel like they do."

Bancroft was even OK that most of the songs were gone from the movie because there were winks and nods to them.

"They definitely had songs at the end over the credits, full songs," Bancroft said, referencing new songs and recordings from Christina Aguilera and a Mandarin version of "Reflection" from Yifei Liu. "I thought those were terrific."

"But yeah, I didn't mind it," Bancroft said of the lack of songs in the new movie. "They kind of hinted towards the music in the score several times, and it was also in a couple of dialogue bits where a character would say a line from one of the songs. That was another neat nod to the songs. It was really well done."

If you listen closely, you can hear versions of "Reflection" and "Honor to Us All" in the background during specific scenes of the new film. A few characters speak dialogue from "A Girl Worth Fighting For."

Bancroft said he was impressed with the reminiscent elements and with how the matchmaker sequence evolved.

Bancroft was fine with the split made to Li Shang's character. Early in the animated movie, they also considered making him Mulan's equal.

"We actually had that in our original one, too," Bancroft said. "Shang was one of the troops in her army, just like Ling, Chien-Po, and Yao."

Bancroft said they considered separate characters for the general and Li Shang so it was interesting for him to see this play out in the live-action film.

"We had another character named Bao Gung who was the sergeant and then Shang was in the army," said Bancroft of the cut "Mulan" character. "It was very similar."

Bancroft said Bao Gung was the original villain of the 1998 movie who would have turned out to be a traitorous spy. When he was cut from the film, Li Shang was promoted to general.

Some of the five soldiers could have been fleshed out more.

In the animated movie, you get to know Mulan's comrades in war — Ling, Po, and Yao — really well. In this film, the gang of three becomes a gang of five, and not as much time is spent with each one individually.

"You don't know them as well by name as we did in our movie, but they did use the consistent characters and archetypes," said Bancroft. "They were a lot of fun to see."

Bancroft's favorite moment in the film was a big nod to the original animated movie.

Ming-Na Wen, the original voice of Mulan, has a small cameo late in the film. She introduces Mulan to the emperor. Bancroft had no idea about the cameo and the actress was sitting right near him.

"Ming-Na was sitting behind us in the screening and I turned around to her and I said, 'You didn't say anything,'" said Bancroft. "And she was like, 'Yep, this was my secret.'"

Overall, he really enjoyed the live-action film.

"This, to me, is what all these Disney remakes should be," Bancroft said. "They should be one-part nostalgic and reminiscent of the original and two parts, all-out original, let's go in a different direction. And I feel like Niki Caro and the Disney team really did that with this one."

To watch "Mulan," you'll need a subscription to Disney Plus. Early access to "Mulan" costs an additional $29.99 in the US. You can sign up here for $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year. (When you subscribe to a service through our links, we may earn money from our affiliate partners.)

Read the original article on Insider