Zhao Wei was cast by director Jingle Ma as Hua Mulan over actresses Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, and Liu Yifei, who were all considered for the role. Yifei would go on to play the same character in Disney's live action remake Mulan (2020).
The director, Jingle Ma, has explained that this film is vastly different from the 1998 Walt Disney animated film and that the looks from the character in this movie adheres more to his imagination.
Unlike other adaptations, this version of Mulan has no magic or fantastical elements, as director Jingle Ma wanted to make a war film that was more grounded in reality.
The original cut of the film was 138 minutes long, before about 24 minutes of footage was excised in the editing room. The North American Blu-ray does not feature any deleted scenes. They can be found on the Hong Kong Blu-ray however.
Both Wei Zhao (adult Mulan) and Jiao Xu (young Mulan) have co-starred with Stephen Chow - with Zhao in Shaolin Soccer and Xu in CJ7 (in a prophetic move prior to being cast as young Mulan, playing a boy.)
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