For the title role in the live-action Mulan movie, Disney cast a relative unknown, at
least in the United States: Liu Yifei. While she may not be a household name in the U.S.,
she already has an established acting career under her belt. Here's the truth about Mulan
star Liu Yifei.
According to Women of China, Liu Yifei was born on Aug. 25, 1987. Her birth name was
An Feng, but she changed it after her parents divorced. Liu was primarily raised by her
mother, dancer and stage performer Liu Xiao Li. The actress took her mother's family name,
changing her name to Liu Qian Mei Zi. Later, when she was establishing her career, Liu
adopted the stage name of Liu Yifei. According to IMDb, she has also performed under the
name of Crystal Liu.
Heavy reported that Liu's father, An Shaokang, was a French professor at Wuhan University.
After leaving that position, he worked in Paris at the Chinese embassy. In 2017, he
became dean of Paris Diderot University's Confucius Institute.
Liu is also the goddaughter of one of the richest men in China, Chen Jinfei According
to Forbes, Liu's godfather is the chairman of Beijing Tongchan Investment Group and has
an estimated net worth of $62 million.
Liu Yifei started her career in front of the cameras not as an actress, but as a model.
According to HuffPost, Liu started modeling at the age of 8. Since then, she's landed
some pretty big gigs, including making it onto the cover of Harper's Bazaar China. According
to The Hollywood Reporter, some of Liu's high-profile modeling campaigns have included serving as
a brand ambassador for big brands like Dior, Tissot, Garnier, and Pantene.
Branching off of her modeling success, Liu decided to break into acting. In September
2002, at the age of 15, she was accepted at Beijing Film Academy, according to Women of
China. Being accepted to the institution was quite a feat, as 15-year-olds are generally
not accepted. Liu became the youngest student ever accepted at the school. She graduated
in July 2006.
"The confidence doesn't really come from outside or anything. I think it's something more.
Something beyond what we see."
Liu Yifei was just 15 years old and still in school when she began her professional
acting career. According to IMDb, her first role was in the 2002 TV series The Story of
a Noble Family. Two years later, she landed a role in her first film, Love of May.
In 2016, Liu told Cosmopolitan Korea that since she got her start, her attitude about
acting had changed quite a bit, saying:
While Liu Yifei is not a very well known actress in the United States, she's wildly popular
in her native China, where, according to The Hollywood Reporter, she is nicknamed "Fairy
Sister" for her pure image. She has more than two dozen credits listed on her IMDb page,
with nearly everything up to Mulan a Chinese production.
Entertainment Weekly reported that she is one of China's most successful young actresses
and is part of a group known as the "Four New Dan Actresses." The term "dan" traditionally
referred to male actors who won acclaim playing women in the Peking opera, although in modern
times it refers to women. Two of the other New Dans have become known to American moviegoers:
Zhang Ziyi, who starred in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Fan Bingbing, who was in
X-Men: Days of Future Past.
To star in Mulan, the lead actress has to speak fluent English. Given that most of Liu
Yifei's career to date has been in China, some people might be skeptical of her English
skills, but don't worry. She's fluent, and will tell anyone who doubts her to knock it
off.
"Stop laughing. I heard that."
She’s even lived in America for a while. According to The Hollywood Reporter, part
of Liu's childhood was spent in the United States. She moved to Queens in New York City
with her mother when she was 10 years old and lived there for four years.
Liu has also acted in English-language films. She starred in The Forbidden Kingdom with
Jackie Chan and Jet Li in 2008 and in Outcast with Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen in
2014.
To land the coveted role of Mulan, Liu Yifei had to beat out a lot of competition. According
to The Hollywood Reporter, the search for the star of the live-action film lasted for
a full year, and Liu competed against nearly a thousand other young women vying for the
role. The criteria to be Mulan was quite strict. Not only did the star have to be able to speak
English, but she also had to be ethnically Chinese, skilled in martial arts, and have
"star quality."
It was far more important to the makers of Mulan that they have the right person to play
the role than to have a well-known American star to play the part. The search for Mulan
took a team of casting directors to five continents in search of the perfect star to play the
part. The meticulous search finally ended when it was announced in November 2017 that
Liu had the role in director Niki Caro's film.
"We searched every village, and once I was in the room with Yifei, I realized that I'd
found my warrior."
Not everyone was thrilled at the news of Liu Yifei being cast as Mulan. While Liu is one
of China's most popular actresses, some people also consider her to be one of the worst.
In 2017, after the announcement she'd be playing Mulan, Quartz reported that Liu holds an average
rating of just 5.2 out of 10 on Douban, China's equivalent of IMDb.
Douban's users nominated Liu for China's worst actress in 2012, 2013, and 2016. And according
to Sixth Tone, Liu won a Golden Broom, the Chinese equivalent of Hollywood's Golden Raspberry
awards or "Razzies," for Most Disappointing Actress in 2017.
According to W magazine, Liu Yifei can play numerous instruments and has an excellent
singing voice. She landed a recording contract with Sony Music Entertainment Japan in 2005,
releasing two albums so far. One is a self-titled album released in China which spans genres
and has a little bit of everything from rock to rap. The other, released in Japan, is called
All My Words.
While Liu has a beautiful voice, we won't be able to hear her vocal talent in action
in Mulan. Unlike the original animated classic, the live-action Mulan movie isn't a musical.
According to Vox, the film features instrumental versions of the original film's soundtrack,
but fan-favorite songs such as "Reflection" and "I'll Make a Man Out of You" aren't sung
by characters in the film.
One of the things that makes Liu Yifei so fitting for the role of Mulan is her extensive
martial arts background. According to Asia One, in addition to being trained in martial
arts, Liu is also skilled in sword fighting and does a lot of her own stunts. Those skills
were certainly put to good use when filming the live-action Mulan movie.
Liu has shown off her expert fighting skills before, and she has even worked alongside
some of the greatest martial arts experts of all time who passed on some of what they
know. In The Forbidden Kingdom, she performed alongside legendary martial arts experts Jackie
Chan and Jet Li. The two icons gave Liu some tips to improve her own fighting skills. She
told channelAPA in 2008,
The world sees Liu Yifei as a great beauty, but she looks at things a bit differently.
Liu has said her acting talent is far more important than her appearance. The star told
Cosmopolitan Korea,
Kind of a Mulan-like attitude, isn't it?
In 2019, many people called for a boycott of the live-action version of Mulan after
Liu expressed support on Chinese social media for the Hong Kong police, who reportedly used
excessive violence to subdue demonstrators in the pro-democracy protests in the special
autonomous region. Protesters were initially outraged by a bill that would have extradited
some accused criminals to mainland China.
News outlets such as Radio Taiwan International picked up the story:
"Liu Yifei said this. She said, "I support the Hong Kong police. You can hit me now.
What a shame for Hong Kong.'"
One Twitter user wrote,
Another said,
Some people came to Liu's defense, though. Skyler Shuler of The DisInsider theorized
on Twitter that Liu had been coerced into supporting the Hong Kong police, writing:
Actors portray so many different emotions and characters in their roles that it can
be difficult to guess what they're really like. But Liu Yifei is pretty open about what
she is like in real life. According to Liu herself, her personality is multifaceted.
The actress says that her defining personality trait, though, is her flexibility. Liu told
Cosmopolitan Korea,
Again, this sounds like another thing that Liu has in common with the laid-back Mulan.
Liu Yifei is also a huge animal lover. Animal welfare is near and dear to Liu's heart, and
the star of the live-action Mulan movie has gone so far as to use her own home as an animal
shelter. In 2017, Nextshark reported that the actress had been taking in stray cats
for years. Liu feeds the cats, has them spayed or neutered, and finds homes for them. Liu's
house reportedly had a brick fence at one point which the actress removed as cats were
getting stuck in it.
Toggle reported that Liu's love for animals seems to be a family trait - her mom also
loves animals, helping with her daughter's cat rescue operation and taking the kitties
to the vet. Fans have said that Liu has had as many as 60 rescued cats in her home and
in her yard at once.
Most people travel to get away from it all, to escape the hustle and bustle of the daily
grind, to relax, and to see the world. While Liu Yifei often has to travel for work, she
doesn't really think of herself as a globetrotter. Instead of traveling as a means of escape,
Liu has something other than rest and relaxation in mind when she hops on a plane. Liu told
Cosmopolitan Korea,
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