Niki Caro decided not to include Mushu in the live action remake of 'Mulan' because she wanted to ''commit to the realism of Mulan's journey''.

The film's director chose not to feature the lovable dragon confidante in the new remake of the hit movie because she wanted to focus on Mulan's - played by Yifei Liu - ''real relationships'' with her fellow soldiers.

Speaking to USA Today, she said: ''We were very inspired about what Mushu brought to the animation which was humour and levity. The challenge was to bring that to Mulan's real relationships with her fellow soldiers. Mushu, beloved as that character is in the animation, was Mulan's confidante, and part of bringing it to live action is to commit to the realism of her journey. And she had to make those relationships with her fellow soldiers.''

Meanwhile, the movie's producer Jason Reed recently revealed why they decided not to make 'Mulan' into a movie musical like the animated version was.

He said: ''Part of our thinking is that we thought that this material would be a great opportunity to do something new for the Disney label, to take this and convert it from a musical comedy, which the animated film was, which is great. We still love it, and it's one of my favourite Disney animated movies of all time. That movie still exists, but then to take that material and use it as the foundation on which to do a big epic adventure movie. You can't watch Gladiator with your five-year-old, it's just not appropriate. But I love those movies, and when I was growing up I loved watching David Lean movies, and I loved watching these big-scale movies that told big stories.''