Disney Under Fire for Filming "Mulan" Scenes in Xinjiang

HONG KONG, KOMPAS.com – Disney faces a second round of boycotts for its “Mulan” blockbuster after viewers noticed links with China’s Xinjiang Province.

Some of the scenes of the $200 million movie were filmed in Xinjiang, where widespread rights abuses against the region's Muslim population have been widely documented.

The “Mulan” remake first found itself entangled in political controversy after its main star, Liu Yifei, voiced support for the police crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong last year.

Read also: Pro-Democracy Activists in Hong Kong To Keep Fighting On

Lie Yifei lends her voice to the legendary female Chinese warrior, “Mulan”.

But the latest furor exploded as soon as the credits stopped rolling after the movie began showing on the Disney+ channel last week.

Read also: “Mulan” Premiere on Disney+ a Possible Game-Changer for Hollywood

Viewers spotted that Disney included "special thanks" to eight government entities in Xinjiang — including the public security bureau in Turpan, a city in eastern Xinjiang where multiple internment camps have been documented.

Another entity thanked was the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda department in Xinjiang.

The revelation has sparked renewed anger at a time of heightened scrutiny over Hollywood's willingness to bow to authoritarian China.

Rights groups, academics, and journalists have exposed a harsh crackdown against Uighur and Kazakh Muslims in Xinjiang, including mass internments, enforced sterilizations, forced labor as well as intense religious and movement restrictions.

Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at the Asia Society, said the film was now "arguably Disney's most problematic movie" since "Song of the South" — a 1946 glorification of antebellum plantation life that the company has since pulled.

"It's sufficiently astonishing that it bears repeating," he wrote in a Washington Post column.

"Disney has thanked four propaganda departments and a public security bureau in Xinjiang, a region in northwest China that is the site of one of the world's worst human rights abuses happening today."

Read also: US Imposes Trade Sanctions on Chinese Companies as Muslim Abuse Complaints Heat Up