Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast both stormed the box office, and now Disney’s Mulan is moving closer to production by casting the lead role.
Liu Yifei, 30, is a Chinese actress, model and singer. She is also fluent in English after spending some of her childhood in New York.
The casting has been met with excitement on Twitter. Many Hollywood films have been accused of whitewashing, and thousands recently took part in a campaign to stop white people being cast in Asian roles.
Films which have faced criticism include The Great Wall, starring Matt Damon, and the Hollywood remake of Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell, starring Scarlett Johansson.
For those of you who don’t know, Mulan is a young girl who disguises herself as a man, and with the help of her dragon sidekick Mushu, becomes a skilled warrior.
This is what we need – another feisty female on the big screen. Granted, we love Cinders and her glass slippers, and we adore Belle and her love of books, but what we want (what we really really want) is a Disney princess who wants to kick a little arse. Mulan is the girl who can really impress with her mad warrior skills.
Earlier this year Niki Caro was appointed as Mulan‘s director. Hailing from New Zealand, she’s the woman behind Whale Rider (whose young star Keisha Castle-Hughes was nominated for an Oscar for her role), The Zookeeper’s Wife and episodes of Netflix’s Anne of Green Gables adaptation, Anne with an E.
The film was previously set for release for 2 November 2018, but at Disney’s D23 Expo in Los Angeles, it was announced that the ballet spin-off The Nutcracker and the Four Realms will now have that spot instead. And with no further news on the Mulan front, it looks as though it will be much closer to a 2019 or even 2020 release date.
