Your walls and armies have fallen, and now it's your turn! Bow to me!
„
~ Shan Yu taunting and forcing the Emperor to submit to him.
“
It looks like you're out of ideas.
„
~ Shan Yu to Fa Mulan after cornering her, also his last words.
Shan Yu is the main antagonist of Disney's 36th full-length animated feature film Mulan.
He is the mysterious chieftain of the Huns who is determined to conquer China because he believes that the Chinese emperor who built the Great Wall as both an insult and a challenge.
As a violent warlord, Shan Yu leads his horde of Huns to invade, savoring when China knows he is there. He is the reason that Mulan joined the Imperial army in her father's place and also the reason of Mulan getting nearly executed by the orders of Chi-Fu upon discovering her true gender. He also has the falcon named Hayabusa as his pet, and the Elite Hun Soldiers as his henchmen. He also uses Hayabusa as a messenger and spy. He is the arch-nemesis of Fa Mulan and Li Shang.
He wished to conquer all of China due to seeing the Great Wall as an insult and a challenge to his strength.
He presumably killed the soldier who lit the signal flare that alerted all of China to his presence, likely by impaling him with the sharp stick from the Chinese flag he just burnt.
Due to only needing one man to send a message, he had his archer kill one of the two messengers he ordered to warn of him, even though neither of them were a threat to the Huns.
He massacred an entire village, killing a large number of peasants and Chinese soldiers, including children and General Li, rather than go around the village like his archer suggested.
Prior to this, he was shown setting fire to and presumably massacring other villages.
He wounded and tried to kill Mulan at the mountains for causing the avalanche that killed most of his men.
He kidnapped the Emperor and tried to force him to bow to him, and when the Emperor refused, Shan Yu tried to kill him.
He was about to kill Li Shang, and would have if Mulan didn't interfere.
While he seems to be benevolent to his soldiers, even shouting in rage when he sees his armies destroyed, and his falcon Hayabusa, it is never actually stated he actually cares about them and is likely to have only treated them well and was angered by their loss out of pragmatism.
Furthermore, he is not concerned about his soldiers when the Chinese figured out that he was on his way towards the emperor.
Trivia[]
His live action counterpart Bori Khan, does not qualify for showing care for his father and for having a well-intentioned motivation of regaining the land he lost to the empire.
His Kingdom Hearts version can’t qualify due to being too standard villainy and is an generic doomsday.