Disney has struck gold by turning its popular animated films into equally popular live-action movies. One of the projects currently in development is Mulan. The upcoming feature has been slowly building its cast, and now the project has added a new villain. Jason Scott Lee is now on board to play the role of a baddie named Bori Khan.
The name Bori Khan is nearly the only thing about the character revealed by The Hollywood Reporter. He's described as being a warrior leader who is trying to avenge the death of his father, but that's it. There's no bad guy that goes by that name in the animated film -- in fact, Khan is the name of Mulan's horse in the animated version -- and no character with that sort of motivation, so there's no way to guess who the character really is or how he will fit in the story. However, that fits with everything we've heard about the rest of the cast, as it does appear the live-action Mulan will be quite different from the animated classic when it comes to story structure. Instead of the Hun leader Shan Yu being the primary villain of the story, a witch played Gong Li will have that honor. Exactly how these two villains will be working together, or even if they are working together, is not clear.
We're also seeing some significant changes of the hero side of things. Instead of Li Shang being both love interest and the leader of Mulan's band of soldiers, we'll see Donnie Yen in the role of General Tung and Yoson An play Li Shang as a soldier alongside Mulan in that army.
Jason Scott Lee has worked with Disney before as back in 1994 he played Mowgli in the live-action version of The Jungle Book that came out before the more recent live-action version of The Jungle Book. He's probably best known for playing Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.
With Liu Yifei cast in the lead role as Mulan herself, it would seem that most of the key parts have been set. Although, since this story is going to be so clearly different from Disney's previous version of the classic Chinese tale, it's possible there could be many more important roles left to cast. Mulan has clearly been a somewhat difficult film to bring to the screen. Originally, Mulan was going to debut this November, but it has since been pushed back about a year a half and is currently slated for a March 2020 release. Mulan is being helmed by Whale Rider director Niki Caro.
As the Disney Princess most in charge of her own destiny, and who kicks the most ass, Mulan is a favorite of many, which makes this an important movie for those fans. In general Disney has done well, both with fans as well as the box office, with these live-action adaptations and hopefully, Mulan will be no exception.
