Chinese social media users were pleasantly surprised by the teaser trailer for Disney's upcoming live-action adaptation of the 1998 animated film Mulan, and not just because many found it to better correspond with the original Chinese tale, but also due to title character's make-up in one of the scenes, which many netizens saw as strikingly similar to the Huawei logo, according to the news website Abacus.
"With a chrysanthemum between her eyebrows, Liu Yifei is utterly patriotic", a user on the popular Chinese social network Weibo said.
In one of the teaser's scenes, Mulan is shown with a red chrysanthemum, a symbol used by the Chinese tech giant in its logo, drawn on her forehead as she is explained how to be a good wife for her future husband. Although the chrysanthemum on Mulan’s forehead and the one on the Huawei logo are slightly different, a line said by the heroine several scenes earlier only strengthened netizens' feeling that the make-up choice was not accidental.
Bring 'honor' to us all...#Mulan #Mulan2020 #Huawei #honor pic.twitter.com/bIc5lfyzGl
— โซ๊นาสซ่าาาาาาาาา~ (@WIN48__) July 7, 2019
"I will bring honour to us all", Mulan says in the trailer, which some social media users took as a reference to Huawei's mobile phone sub-brand called Honor.
China’s Huawei has been facing challenges since Washington banned the company's equipment from 5G network construction in the US and barred American firms from selling certain technologies to it. The latter has led to US chipmakers suspending their supplies to Huawei, with Google ending Android support for all future devices made by the company.
Huawei and the Chinese government have slammed the US move, with the tech giant initiating litigation in a bid to combat the White House's decision.
Following the latest talks between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, the former promised to partially reverse the decision, but media reports suggest that US officials are still applying the "presumption of denial" policy when it comes to giving a green light to the sale of American technology.
