When it comes to the roster of so-called ‘Disney Princesses’, there are few as physically formidable as Mulan – the Chinese warrior who steps up in her elderly father’s place to fight in the army, in disguise as a man, and defend the country from Northern invaders. Which meant that when director Niki Caro set about casting her Hua Mulan for the live-action remake (or, re-adaptation of epic poem ‘The Ballad Of Mulan’) she needed an actor who could deliver physical beatings as well as emotional beats. She found that combination in Liu Yifei, who made a big impression at the audition.
“I wanted to thoroughly explore this girl,” Caro tells Empire in the upcoming The Mandalorian issue. “Because I needed a warrior, and I needed a partner. So she did this gruelling audition and then we sent her straight to the physical trainer to do an equally gruelling physical assessment. Weights, push-ups, pull-ups, everything. She was brilliant in the dramatic part of the audition, and in the physical part she never stopped, never faulted. I knew at the end of that day that I’d found my warrior.” It was an ethos that extended beyond the audition process and into production. “She set the bar so high on set. She was so much tougher than any of the boys surrounding her. They were terrified of her strength.”
Read more about Mulan in the new issue of Empire, telling the full story of Star Wars’ new dawn as The Mandalorian (and Disney+) arrives in the UK – on newsstands from Thursday 20 February. Mulan hits UK cinemas on 27 March.
