Mulan live action cast, characters, songs, release date and everything you need to know

Ah, Mulan. Definitely one of our favourite Disney cartoons (so much so it was voted in the top 10 of all time by you lot), thanks to its combination of comedy, action and a progressive storyline.

It’s so beloved, fans were pretty annoyed when Mulan was left out of Wreck-It-Ralph 2‘s promotional Disney princesses imagery and even angrier when it appeared she’d been whitewashed in the trailer.

Because Mulan means so much to so many people (including us), we’ve been following the live action reboot with interest – which has had its own controversial moments along the way.

Here’s all the latest news and scoops on the live-action Mulan movie.

Mulan live-action cast: who’ll be in it?

In November 2017, it was announced that Chinese actress Liu Yifei will be playing the part of the titular (and ethnically Chinese) character after a casting search which lasted a year, with over 1000 people being auditioned.

Yoson An has been cast as Mulan’s love interest. The actor will also star in Peter Jackson’s upcoming Mortal Engines, and he has previously appeared in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny and Australian TV series Dead Lucky.

Jet Li has been in talks to play the emperor of China, who in the original film orders the mandatory conscription of one male from every Chinese household into the army. Li’s a legendary action star in his native China (and in the west, too) so his casting is exciting.

Meanwhile, Rogue One‘s Donnie Yen will star as Mulan’s mentor Commander Tung, which will potentially reunite him with Li – they’ve starred together in several films, including the classic Hero.

One of China’s most well-known actresses, Gong Li, is set to play a powerful villainous witch, a new character.

Mulan live-action characters: who will appear?

One character who controversially won’t appear is Li Shang, the primary love interest in the 1998 original and Mulan’s commander. The remake’s casting suggests that he has been removed.

Many fans have suggested that Shang is bisexual, because he appears to show an interest in Mulan when she is disguised as a male soldier called Ping, as well as when she is eventually revealed to be a woman.

There’s been a strong reaction amongst fans against the live-action remake’s removal of the character.

Mulan live-action songs: What will we hear?

Li Shang’s absence isn’t the only thing that’s made fans angry.

When the film’s director Niki Caro, revealed the musical would be missing something else that’s significant – “From what I understand, no songs right now, much to the horror of my children” – it wasn’t just her children who were horrified.

Thankfully, Caro changed her tune fairly swiftly.

“I don’t know where that’s come from,” she said. “We’ve never talked about songs, and no decision has been made.

“I haven’t even started working on it yet.”

She added that: “It is exciting that people are this passionate.”

Mulan live-action release date: When will it be out?

In 2016,it was revealed that the film would be landing in cinemas in winter 2018.

However, earlier this year Disney announced that Mulan will now bow in the US on March 27, 2020, to allow much more time for its creative team to re-envision the project. Niki Caro’s status remains unclear following the release shift.

That’s a fairly massive two-year shift, so hopefully it’ll give them time to add loads of songs AND put Li Shang back into the narrative. Well, we can dream, can’t we?

And it probably goes without saying that we’re going to need to see some kind of singing dragon, ideally voiced by Eddie Murphy, in this thing at some point too.

For all the latest Mulan news and scoops, bookmark this page, as we’ll be updating it as soon as any new information comes in.

Mulan trailer: When can we see it?

A spring 2020 release implies we won’t see a teaser till summer 2019 at the earliest. Bookmark this page, because it’ll be here the moment it’s available…

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