Who Is Liu Yifei? Disney’s ‘Mulan’ Casts Chinese Actress As Titular Character

Disney has finally found the star of its upcoming live-action “Mulan” film!

Chinese actress Liu Yifei, who’s also known as Crystal Liu, has been cast as the titular role, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In the original 1998 animated Disney film, about a young Chinese woman who goes undercover as a warrior to save her elderly father from having to do so and facing death, Ming-Na Wen (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) voiced the the lead character.

Now, Yifei is taking on the lead role in the live-action adaptation, which is part of Disney’s roll-out of live-action versions of its animated classics, and is set to take the Disney world by storm after the worldwide search to find her.

The 30-year-old actress first started acting in 2002 with a few small TV roles to start before she landed the main role of Xiaolongnü in the 2006 TV series “The Return of the Condor Heroes.” She was in 40 episodes of the show.

In the years since wrapping her TV series, Yifei has gone on to star in many films, both in China and in the United States, which helped prove to Disney that she’s a perfect crossover actress.

She was in the 2008 action-fantasy film “The Forbidden Kingdom” with Jackie Chan and Jet Li, as well as 2014’s action movie “Outcast” with Nicholas Cage and Hayden Christensen.

Aside from starring in “Mulan,” Yifei is also working on the film “Inversion” with Samuel L. Jackson, which is supposed to be released in 2018, about an American con man who teams with a young Chinese physicist to save Earth from a loss of gravity.

Along with acting, Yifei has also served as a brand ambassador for Tissot, Garnier, Dior and Pantene.

All of her past experiences combined have made her the perfect actress for the role, as Disney’s casting director searched five continents and saw around 1,000 actresses before deciding she should play Mulan.

See Yifei as Mulan when the Disney film hits theaters in 2019.