Biography - Liu Yifei

Who is Liu Yifei?

Liu Yifei is a professional actress, singer, model, and American national. She is best known for playing the title role of Mulan in Walt Disney’s live-action film Mulan.

Liu Yifei – Age, Parents, Siblings

Liu Yifei’s birth took place on August 25, 1987, in Wuhan, Hubei, China. Nicknamed Crystal Liu, she was born An Feng. Her father An Shaokang is the 1st Secretary of the Chinese Embassy in France and a French-language university professor while her mother Liu Xiaol is a dancer. She is not the only child of her parents and has a younger sibling.

When Liu Yifei was 10 years old, her parents divorced. With her mother she moved to New York City the same year and also adopted her mother's family name, changing her name to Liu Ximeizi.

Education, Ethnicity

For education, Liu Yifei attended Louis Pasteur Middle School 67 and later was accepted into the Performance Institute of Beijing Film Academy at the age of 15. She graduated from the same in 2006.  

Her ethnicity is Chinese.

Liu Yifei – Boyfriend, Husband, Children

She met South Korean actor Song Seung-heon in 2013 and the pair started dating in 2015. After years of relationship, Liu Yifei and her boyfriend broke up, which was confirmed in January 2018. The reports stated that both of them “had been very busy and they naturally grew apart.”

Currently, she is single, sans a husband and children.

Liu Yifei – Career

Early Days

Yifei had begun modeling and training in singing, dancing, and playing the piano at a very young age. She moved back to China in 2002 to pursue her career in acting while changing her name to Liu Yifei.

Her first roles were in the Chinese TV series The Story of a Noble Family (2003), Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (2003), and in the films Love of May (2004), The Love Winner (2004).

Movies, Films, Music

Over the years Liu Yifei has starred in the Chinese films The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), White Vengeance (2011), For Love or Money (2014), Night Peacock (2016), Once Upon a Time (2017), to name a few. Finally, in 2020 she entered Hollywood as she was cast in the title role in Disney’s live-action film Mulan.

Yifei has also portrayed characters in the TV series Chinese Paladin (2005), The Return of the Condor Heroes (2006), and The Love of Hypnosis (2019).

As a singer, Liu Yifei has released two albums Liu Yifei (2006), and All My Words (2006), and has also worked on numerous theme songs.

Co-stars

On the set of Mulan, Liu Yifei has worked alongside Gong Li, Donnie Yen, Jason Scott Lee, Yoson An, and Susana Tang.

Liu Yifei – Awards, Nominations

Yifei has been nominated for awards at the Montreal World Film Festival (2016), Shanghai International Film Festival (2017), etc.

Liu Yifei – Controversy

In August 2019 Yifei reshared an image posted by the Chinese newspaper People's Daily which contained a quote from Chinese reporter Fu Guohao "I support Hong Kong police. You can beat me now. What a shame for Hong Kong.". He had been assaulted by protesters during the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests. This sparked international controversy with accusations of supporting police brutality. As a result, the hashtag #BoycottMulan trended and she was absent at the 2019 D23 Expo.

Also in a March 2020 interview with Variety magazine, Liu Yifei described herself as "Asian" instead of “Chinese”. She was accused of forgetting her roots and threatening to boycott the film trend.

Liu Yifei – Net Worth, Salary

The net worth of Yifei is estimated to be around $10 million while the figure for her annual salary is not known.

Liu Yifei – Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

On social media handles such as Instagram, and Twitter, Liu Yifei is followed by several hundred thousand followers but seems to be absent from Facebook.