Every year brings new stars from world cinema into Hollywood’s orbit. This year Mulan star Yifei Liu is primed to crossover into American cinema in a big way due to her star performance in the live action remake. Whether its acting as a fully-fledged warrior princess or pretending to fit in with the boys, judging from the trailer alone her performance seems to combine grace with humour and humility with fierceness.
She is already a huge star in Mainland China. She is one of the new Four Dan actresses, a term first coined in 2000 by Guanghzou Daily to refer to Zhang Ziyi, Zhao Wei, Zhou Xun, and Xu Jinglei, but used again by Tencent QQ in 2009 to include Liu Yufei among the stars of the next generation. She also has over 55 million Weibo followers thanks to her strong acting presence, starting in 2003 when she played Wang Yuyan in a television based on the Louis Cha novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils. Thanks to her elegant posture and beautiful looks, she has been nicknamed the Fairy Sister by her fans in The Middle Kingdom.
To win the role of Mulan, she fought off 1,000 other candidates, showing how prestigious this film is for ethnically Chinese actresses. While she did star in the Chinese-American co-production Outcast, alongside Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen, which did terribly with critics, as well as feature in the American-production yet Chinese-starring The Forbidden Kingdom, Mulan is likely to win her scores of new admirers across the USA.
Nonetheless, she did get into some hot water after praising police brutality in Hong Kong last year, leading many to say that they would boycott the film entirely. Additionally, not all of her films have been successful, outings such as The Chinese Widow making only 26 million yuan ($3.9 million) and The Third Way of Love making just 73 million yuan ($10.5 million). Despite these issues however, she has been involved in some of the biggest Chinese productions of the past fifteen years.
To learn more, read our essential list below. Spanning from romantic fantasies to superhero movies to kung fu wuxia movies, these are the films you need to catch up on the Chinese superstar. Think we missed something in particular? Let us know in the comment section below!
The Forbidden Kingdom
The first film to pair Jet Li and Jackie Chan together, The Forbidden Kingdom tells the story of a young Boston teenager who finds himself transported to a village in Ancient China after picking up a strange golden staff in Chinatown. Soon he is caught up in a perpetual battle between the Monkey King and the Jade Warlord. Liu Yifei plays Golden Sparrow, a young woman who has sworn revenge against the warlord.
The film was a dream come true for fans of martial arts, who were treated with the spectacle of two legends trading blows. As a result, the film was an international success, grossing $128 million on a mere $55 million budget.
White Vengeance
The opening film of the 2011 Pyongyang Film Festival, White Vengeance tells the story of what happened between the fall of the Qin dynasty and the beginning of the Han dynasty. Based on a historical event known as the Banquet at Hong Gate, it portrays two brothers fighting over who gets to control the country. Operating like a chess game, before descending into fully fledged action fantasy, you can never quite tell who is going to emerge as the victor.
Liu Yufei plays Consort Yu, who serves as a love interest for the warlord Xiang Yu, and is quite a famous figure in Chinese popular culture. It grossed around 160 million yuan ($23 million dollars), a particularly impressive amount back in 2011.
For Love Or Money
Films like For Love Or Money show that Liu Yufei can also play in straight romances as well as historical epics. In this movie, based on the novel by Hong Kong author Amy Cheung, she plays opposite Korean star Rain, who rose to huge acclaim as a songwriter before transitioning into the Chinese film market. He plays Xu Chengxu, a wealthy heir to a large corporation who pretends to be a poor artist in order to pursue a career. Yifei Liu on the other hand, plays Xing Lu, who is the descendent of a disgraced noble family. Containing lots of twists and turns, the film didn’t do too well in the box office though, making just under $10 million, with many critics criticising their lack of chemistry although agreeing that Liu Yufei was improving as an actress.
The Four Trilogy
Based on the novel series by Woon Swee Oan, the Four Trilogy tells the story of Four Great Constables employed by Master Zhuge to apprehend criminals. It is set during the reign of Emperor Huizong, with the Four always given the same nicknames: Emotionless, Iron Hands, Life Snatcher and Cold Blood. A Chinese riff on franchises such as the X-Men, Van Helsing and Resident Evil, it imbues Kung Fu films with a more Western superhero approach. Liu Yifei plays Emotionless – who is able to read people’s minds and use telekinetic powers – in all three films, which despite poor critical results, grossed nearly $100 million in total.
Once Upon A Time
Based on the fantasy novel Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles Peach Blossoms by TangQi Gonzi, Once Upon a Time sees Liu Yifei play opposite Yang Yang. It is a story of infinite love, spanning thousands of years. Liu Yifie plays Bai Qian, a godly woman hanging out in the Heavenly Realm who upon discovering another realm comes across a crown prince, who reveals that they have been in love before. As the title suggests, the film spans eras, places and concepts to dwell on the eternal concept of love. A deliberately artificial melodrama, filmed on huge sound-stages, and replete with lavish costumes and production design, Once Upon a Time is a romance quite unlike any other.
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