First live-action trailer of Mulan starring Crystal Liu Yifei: the big takeaways, and fan reaction to teaser of Disney film
- Teaser focuses on title character, played by Chinese actress Crystal Liu Yifei, and her conflicting roles as good daughter and great warrior for her country
- There’s no sign of Mushu the wisecracking dragon and no sound of the classic songs from the animated original. Everything points to it being a realist war epic
The trailer, which debuted during the Women’s World Cup final game on Sunday, drew a big reaction online, with more than 650,000 tweets alone by midday on Monday (4am UTC).
Rather than show us the characters played by other high-profile cast members such as Donnie Yen, Jet Li or Gong Li, the teaser revolves around the two sides of Mulan, who is told by her parents about the “excellent news” that a matchmaker has found her an auspicious match, to which she replies: “Yes, I will bring honour to us all.”
Somewhat ironically, we then hear a voice-over from Cheng Pei-pei (Come Drink with Me), one of the top martial arts actresses in Chinese-language cinema, about “the qualities we see in a good wife, the qualities we see in Mulan”, as a montage of Mulan training to be a soldier and fighting on the battlefield plays.
Notably, and disappointingly for some, there is also no sight of Mushu the wisecracking dragon in the trailer, which appears to suggest a realistic war epic is in the offing. We also aren’t hearing any of the classic songs from the animated original.
Mulan is one of the most anticipated of Disney’s recent live-action remakes, and comes after such popular films as Maleficent (loosely based on Sleeping Beauty), Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella.
Some of the latest tweets about the Mulan trailer
The casting of Liu (The Forbidden Kingdom), an actress unfamiliar to most Western audiences, in the leading role was the result of a year-long worldwide search.
Directed by Niki Caro (Whale Rider), Mulan will open in cinemas on March 27, 2020, and will be the first major Hollywood film with an all-Asian cast since Crazy Rich Asians took the American box office by storm in 2018.
