With Aladdin still fresh in everyone's minds and only slightly more than a week to go until the release of Jon Favreau's The Lion King, Disney is already looking ahead to its next live action adaptation of an animated classic. That film is Mulan, from director Niki Caro and starring newcomer Yifei Liu. The first trailer has just arrived...
Offering a slightly different take on the Chinese folktale to the 1998 version, the film will nevertheless follow the eldest daughter of an honoured warrior who is spirited, determined and quick on her feet. When the Emperor issues a decree that one man per family must serve in the Imperial Army, she steps in to take the place of her ailing father as Hua Jun, becoming one of China’s greatest warriors.
There's no motormouthed proto-Donkey Eddie Murphy companion dragon here. But the cartoon's hero setpiece of the Huns engulfed by a spectacular avalanche certainly does appear to have been ported across to this new version. And that, at the very least, should be something to be behold.
Also in the cast are Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Jason Scott Lee, Yoson An, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Ron Yuan, Tzi Ma, Chum Ehelepola, Gong Li, Rosalind Chao and Cheng Pei-Pei. Shooting took place in China and New Zealand last year, and Mulan fights her way into cinemas on 27 March, 2020.