Killer Box Office Killer

Mulan Rouge (Disney publicity photo)

Movie companies (those who want their pictures to be profitable--a necessary qualifier when producers knowingly make money-losing "message" movies) aren't pleased when stars take a position on a controversial issue. It doesn't matter which side the actors take, there will be potential viewers who find the politics so repugnant that they will stay away from the film.

The phenomenon isn't confined to Americans. Liu Yifei, star of Disney's 2020 live-action remake of Mulan, has taken the side of the police (that is, mainland China) in the Hong Kong protests.

Liu unadorned; not unadored...yet

Liu, in her own post, added in Chinese, “I also support the Hong Kong police,” and included heart and strong-arm emojis. Liu has 65 million followers on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. The original post received over 2 million likes and an outpouring of support, and Liu’s post was liked 81,000 times.

Liu Yifei, also known as Crystal Liu, was cast as Mulan in 2017 after Disney saw nearly 1,000 candidates for the role, according to the Hollywood Reporter...

Although her sentiment received an outpouring of support, Liu also quickly faced backlash from many across the world who support the protests, with the hashtag #BoycottMulan emerging on Twitter. “She could be a powerful voice for justice but instead, she supports this brutality,” one Tweet said of Liu.

If Liu Yifei's political stance gets no more publicity, there's a good chance it will be forgotten when the film is released. So Disney, stay on the good size of Donald Trump; the last thing you want is for him to tweet about Mulan, reviving the controversy and potentially killing the American audience.

Despite the cliché, not all publicity is good publicity.