NZ has starring role in Disney's Mulan remake

Walt Disney Studios has dropped the trailer for its nearly $300 million live-action remake of Mulan — and it includes some "pretty fantastic scenery".

The impressive trailer for the film, directed by New Zealand's Niki Caro, features an epic battle scene in the Ahuriri Valley, but whether it would have flow-on effects for tourism operators had yet to be seen, Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said.

"It's really difficult to know quite how that's going to go," he said.

Yifei Liu in the Disney film Mulan.

"The next big challenge is just how successful the movie is, what sort of following it has, and where that following comes from. Being a Chinese folk story there's definitely very good potential for — if it's very successful — those people who really enjoy to potentially look out the sites where it was filmed."

Late last year up to 900 crew members were in the Mackenzie Basin for a month for filming. Waitaki District Council chief executive Fergus Power said — when lodging the land-use consent — that the film company estimated spending in the area would be about $13 million, "with additional wider flow-on financial impacts expected to be significant but not calculated into this figure".

Filming was understood to have occurred in China as well as the Ahuriri Valley, Omarama's Clay Cliffs and Poolburn.

Disney remake of their modern classic animation Mulan, with live action shot in Otago and Waitaki.

Chinese-American Yifei Liu stars as Mulan in the adaptation of the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, who breaks away from her expected role as a wife to fight in her ailing father's place.

Mulan is expected in theatres in March 2020.