Chinese actress Liu Yifei was chosen from nearly 1,000 candidates to play Mulan in Disney’s live-action movie set to come out in 2019.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, casting directors traveled to five continents to find the perfect person to play the titular role. They searched for a Chinese actress with martial arts skills and the ability to speak English and chose Yifei.
Yifei began modeling at 8 years old, and when she was 10, Yifei and her mother moved from China to Queens when her parents divorced. She lived there for four years and returned to China to pursue a career in acting and modeling, according to her IMDb page.
In addition to starring in Chinese movies and television shows, Yifei also snagged roles in American movies such as “The Forbidden Kingdom,” a 2008 film starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and the 2014 film “Outcast” starring Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christiansen.
Yifei is also an accomplished singer and has released two albums in 2006 titled “All My Life” and “Lie Yifei.”
She will also star in the 2018 film “Inversion” where she will play a physicist who tries to save the earth from a loss of gravity alongside “a street-wise American con man” played by Samuel L. Jackson.
