Love of Country Motif
This is a very strong motif throughout the movie. At various intervals characters remind each other of why they are fighting; nobody wants to be at war or participating in bloodshed but they all do so because they love their country and are dutiful citizens of it.
Giving Up Love Symbol
Mulan's selfless and patriotic act of giving up the man she loves for the good of the country is a symbol of her love for China and for the Wei province specifically. She knows that if there is a union between the ruling families of each province then there will be peace in the future and she puts this ahead of her own happiness symbolizing her love for her country and her willingness to sacrifice for it.
Pretending Motif
The key characters in the movie do an awful lot of pretending; for example, Mulan pretends to be a man so that she can fight in place of her father. Wentai pretends to have been killed so that Mulan starts to think with her head again and not with her heart, as she had been when she was prioritizing his safety over the success of a battle plan. The pretenses are not intended to do harm but to protect a loved one from being put in a position of danger or detriment to themselves.
Tiger Symbol
Mulan's friend Tiger receives that name because he is brave, and in China the tiger symbolizes bravery and power.
Family Motif
The movie begins and ends with Mulan's love for her family; she makes enormous personal sacrifices both for her father's health and his safety but also to enable him to retain his honor. She does not want to be discovered to be a woman because this would bring about great dishonor, if people knew that he had allowed a daughter to take up arms in his place. She also does not want news of her execution to reach her father so she asks that it is kept a secret. At the end of the movie when she can have anything that she wants from the Emperor she chooses just to be allowed to go home to her family. Throughout the film the importance of family is shown to be what drives Mulan and it is a constant motif in both her character and in the film as a whole.
