Do we like them?Do we like Liu Yifei?
Our score: 6 out of 10. A decent, quiet record with one contested political post and a thin file, so a middle-of-the-road score rather than a cheer.
Liu Yifei is one of China's biggest actresses, and the world knows her as Disney's Mulan. The 2020 live-action remake was filmed in New Zealand in 2018, and she did three months of training for the role. Producer Jason Reed called her a “great discovery” of the film. She told The Star the spirit of Mulan is about being yourself.
The big stoush came in August 2019, before the film even opened. She reposted a message on Weibo backing Hong Kong's police during the protests, reported as “I also support Hong Kong police. You can beat me up now.” Critics, many of them on Twitter, accused her of backing police brutality, noting she is a US citizen who enjoys freedoms some in Hong Kong lack, and #BoycottMulan trended. On Weibo she got plenty of praise.
Then came the credits. When Mulan hit Disney+ in September 2020, viewers noticed it thanked the Turpan public security bureau in Xinjiang, which critics link to the detention of Muslims there. That was Disney's credits, not her choice, and TheWrap carried no comment from her. Disney did not respond to its request for comment either.
On the harm check, the record is honestly short. We found nothing from her on trans people, gay people, women's rights, vaccines or climate, and no pattern of campaigning against any group. The Hong Kong post is the one mark, and where you land depends on whether you read it as backing a government crackdown or as a patriotic comment from a celebrity in a tightly controlled media environment.
Lately it's been gossip-page stuff. In September 2026 a Vietnamese star posted the full photo from a Shanghai dinner hosted by a jewellery brand Liu fronts. Liu's cropped version had left her out, and some commentators called it arrogance. Others thought it was a promo handling error. Her team had not formally responded, so that's one to watch, not one to convict on.