The live-action "Mulan" eliminated some of the animated version's fantasy elements in favor of a more grounded, historical-epic feeling. Therefore, the main mission of its Oscar-nominated visual effects teams was to make what magic remained seem almost casual and, oh yeah, to create an entire photorealistic Imperial City out of digital Legos. "The biggest thing was world-building, really," said Weta Digital's Anders Langlands (a previous nominee for "The Martian"), adding that director Niki Caro "had a very clear idea that she wanted it to feel realistic for this essentially still-fantastical story." The VFX helped the action scenes evoke classic martial arts movies with invisible wire work and running up walls, and made sorcery such as witch Xianniang's (Chinese superstar Gong Li) shapeshifting occur with a minimum of bells and whistles.