MULAN
Disney+, 3:00 a.m. ET
MOVIE PREMIERE: This live-action Disney film was supposed to be released in March, but was pulled from theaters just as the coronavirus started to force shutdowns of many social activities across the country, and the world. It’s being released today as a streaming offering today, but at a hefty price: It’s available to Disney+ subscribers, but at an additional a la carte price of $29.99. The promos, though, are exciting enough to make that expensive option worth considering, especially to parents who are seeking strong positive role models for their daughters (and hey, for their sons, too). Mulan is taken from a Chinese fable about a young girl who seeks to protect her ailing father from being called up to war because he has no sons to send to battle. The young woman, Mulan, takes his place by disguising herself as a young man, and becoming a distinguished soldier and, eventually, an inspirational female warrior. In the 1999 Disney animated version, Mulan’s voice was provided by Ming-Na Wen, who played all three dimensions of a female warrior as the fierce Melinda May on ABC’s recently concluded Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (she also co-starred, as far back as 1995, on NBC’s ER.) In this new version, which not only is expensive to watch but looks lavishly expensive on screen, Mulan is played by Yifei Liu, with such familiar and popular Asian co-stars as Jason Scott Lee, Rosalind Chao, and Jet Li.