Dropping a nice little jewel online, the first official look at actress Liu Yi-Fei in the title iteration of Mulan arrived via Twitter on Monday. The photo signals the official launch of production from Disney with Whale Rider and McFarland, USA helmer Niki Caro directing.
Actress Liu, whose preceding credits also include The Forbidden Kingdom, Outcast, The Four trilogy and Once Upon A Time, revives the fandom stemming from an ancient folkloric tale of a young Chinese maiden who masquerades as a male soldier in order to save her father. Disney rolled out two animated films both in 1998 with the Oscar nominated Mulan, and as a DTV release in 2004 while actress Zhao Wei took the mantle for a mainland production in China under director Jingle Ma in 2009.
Liu leads a cast that includes action legends Donnie Yen and Jet Li, New Zealand actress Xana Tang and actresses Rosalind Chao, Cheng Pei-Pei and Gong Li, and actors Yoson An, Jason Scott Lee, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Ron Yuan, Tzi Ma and Nelson Lee. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver penned the script with Elizabeth Martin and Lauren Hynek.
Jason T. Reed, Chris Bender and Jake Weiner are producing with Barrie M. Osborne, Bill Kong and Tim Coddington serving as exec producers.
Mulan will shoot in China and New Zealand, and will open in theaters on March 27, 2020.