Fa Mulan is the strong-willed and tenacious daughter of a war veteran named Fa Zhou, who strives to uphold her family's honor. When her father is called back into battle to defend China from Shan Yu, Mulan opts to protect him by taking his place under the disguise of a male soldier named Ping.

Mulan resides in a small Chinese village with her father, her mother, and her wisecracking grandmother (after whom Mulan takes). She also has a dog named Little Brother. As the standard of the period, Mulan is urged to uphold her family honor by adhering to the status quo set for women of the time. However, she is presented as an outcast. She is clumsy and seeks to finish her household chores by inventing contraptions to do the work in her place (much to the disapproval of her father).

As a member of the Fa family, Mulan is under the protection of the Fa Family ancestors and the family guardians (which are represented by animals of the Chinese zodiac). Mulan's personal guardian is that of Mushu, a diminutive dragon.

Mulan is a young Chinese woman. She is a natural beauty, with a slender rectangular figure, dark brown monolid almond eyes, salmon pink lips, straight nose, rosy cheeks, and straight, black hair that used to be long and waist-length. Later when she leaves to join the army in disguise, she cuts her hair with her father's sword into shoulder-length and ties it up in a bun. This helps her blend into the army so that the other soldiers don't know that she's really a woman.

Mulan wears a range of outfits, from a beautiful Hanfu (Chinese dresses) to her soldier's getup, though her most notable outfit is a simple Hanfu, which consisted of either a creamy green-yellow dress, with blue overshirt, which has green sleeves and a red band around her waist. She also wore during her time in the Imperial Army a Kung fu-styled soldier's outfit, as well as her pink matchmaker's Hanfu and her father's armor. She always wore her black flats with her Hanfus. After her return home she wears an outfit similar to her training outfit but entirely green with a brown belt and then a variant of her promotional Hanfu whose colors are variants of purple with a red belt.

She wears a light blue tank top, short blue shorts, and is barefoot when she sleeps. She also wears a dress consisting of a green long-sleeved shirt with olive brims and both a yellow skirt and inside shirt with a low-cut neckline, blue wrap, red waistband, and black ballerina flats with gray soles, but also has been seen barefoot as well. She briefly wore her hair in a ponytail tied in a knot during the war. When she arrived in the town, her hair is loose, and she had bits of hay stuck in her hair. To impress the matchmaker, she had her face painted in white, red lipstick, pink cheeks, purple eyeliner, thin black eyebrows, hair tied in a loose bun covering her right ear with a red hair ribbon with hair strands hanging between her eyes, and she wears a narrow crimson and pale pink Chinese skirt, a pink jacket with long, flowing sleeves, an aqua and plum collar, a blue wrap with a red ribbon to fasten it, a sheer light purple scarf, same color shoes, a jade bead necklace, gold dangling earrings, and a special lotus flower hair pick. When she returns home from her failed meeting with the Matchmaker, she wears the same dress. During Reflection, she removes her earrings and necklace, wipes away her make-up and lets her hair down when she removed her hair ribbon and lotus hair pick. Her father later folds back one side of her hair and places the lotus hair pick back in her hair to cheer her up. While serving her family tea, she wore her hair in a ponytail tied with a red hair tie. When she was sitting on the Great Stone Dragon statue, she was still wearing her pink and white hanfu, but she is barefoot, and her hair is wet and messy with long loose strands hanging in front of her face. When she was disguised as "Ping", she has her hair tied in a bun with a teal ribbon to look like a man (when she cuts her long, beautiful hair with her father's sword into a shoulder-length), and dark green soldier armor. In the Martial Arts sequence, she had a cream suit. In the Shan Yu battle, she wore a blue shirt, a long navy vest with red brimmings, a red wrap with a light pink sash, and a pale blue dress underneath with same color flats.

Her abilities include:

Martial Arts: As a part of her training, Mulan learned kung fu, eventually becoming proficient in hand-to-hand fighting.

Swordsmanship: Mulan honed her skill with her father's sword and became an expert swordswoman, easily holding her own against even the battle-hardened Shan Yu.

Marksmanship: Under Shang's tutelage, Mulan developed skill with ranged weaponry, from the bows and arrows to gunpowder cannons.

Horseback riding: Even before her time in the army, Mulan is an excellent equestrian, further enhanced by her bond with her loyal steed Khan.