Let’s get down to business.
After months of searching, Disney has finally found the actress who will star in the iconic role of Hua Mulan in the live-action adaption of the 1998 original animation.
Liu Yifei has been announced as the star of the upcoming film and fans are delighted at the news.
The 30-year-old actress is from the Wuhan, Hubei province of China and is one of the biggest stars in the country.
The studio met with over 1,000 actresses for the role in the highly anticipated movie, and it seems that they saw the perfect fit in Yifei.
She started her career as a singer, releasing two albums in 2006 and recently making an appearance on a soundtrack for her 2016 drama, So Young 2: So You’re Still Here, so you know she’s got the chops to belt out Reflection.
However, it was in her stint on the Chinese TV show The Return of the Condor Heroes that garnered her huge attention, and the nickname ‘Fairy Sister’.
The news has been extremely well-received among fans of the original film, with many praising Disney for choosing a Chinese actress to play a Chinese character.
Disney launched a global search to find the right actress to play Mulan. Liu Yifei is one of the most popular actresses of the current generation in China today. She’s nicknamed “Fairy Sister” by the Chinese public. https://t.co/K7TM2RJXC0
— Rebecca Ford (@Beccamford) November 29, 2017
Disney actually casted a chinese person as mulan, not a white person, japanese, or korean person omg pic.twitter.com/wH9yBgrI8M
— laryssa (@peachyjunhui) November 29, 2017
Now if only we could find a director who can actually appreciate the importance of and the nuances of this story instead of Niki Caro who sees it as a “girly martial arts extravaganza”. Preferably a WOC.
— DJ Sapien (@DJ_Sapien) November 29, 2017
Soooo glad that #Disney respects the original story and find the right Asian face instead of a white face to play #Mulan and she sure is one of the most popular Chinese actresses of her generation. Well done Disney! #LiuYiFei https://t.co/q0ssbSXP16
— Lingli Zhang (@LingliZhangLily) November 29, 2017
Mulan is due to be released in 2019.
