Up until a few months ago, the future looked bright for Fan Bingbing (范冰冰). As one of China’s biggest movie stars, she had featured in a couple of Hollywood superhero blockbusters and scores of local films, with many other projects in the pipeline.
Then in June, she became embroiled in a scandal about movie stars under-reporting their earnings, resulting in Chinese tax authorities investigating the industry — including Fan — for possible evasion.
The 36-year-old actress, who has 63 million followers on Sina Weibo, has since vanished from public view — no more social media updates, no more paparazzi photographs and no more public appearances.
Photo: AFP
Fan has denied wrongdoing and a representative for her studio could not be reached for comment.
For film executives, Fan’s disappearance is a reminder of the perils of show business in the most-regulated major entertainment market in the world, where the Chinese Communist Party weighs in on everything from the appropriateness of costumes to the salaries of movie stars.
The episode is also prompting Chinese studios to wean off a reliance on A-list stars to drive big hits, a shift Hollywood made years ago.
“The crackdown will force studios to focus on making quality content rather than simply relying on the star-driven formula,” said Leiger Yang (楊永民), founding partner at Beijing-based Landmark Capital, which invests in entertainment start-ups and studios.
A shift away from star-driven fare would come just as China’s movie boom is regaining momentum, fueled by local hits steadily displacing Hollywood blockbusters.
However, underneath that healthy gloss, top Chinese studios including Huayi Brothers Media Corp and Zhejiang Huace Film & TV Co said in annual reports that higher celebrity pay is threatening profit margins.
Fan vanished from public view one day before the Chinese State Administration of Taxation on June 3 announced a probe into her tax filings after a former China Central Television host posted what appeared to be partially redacted contracts that allegedly disguised compensation Fan received from a studio for a film.
Weeks later, the host said the contracts were not related to the star.
Fan’s silence and the crackdown are also intended to make a political point, said Stanley Rosen, a University of Southern California political science professor who studies China and its film industry.
“Social media and public opinion, as you know, are important drivers of policies in this area, particularly when it comes to perceived inequalities, the super-rich, and cheating,” Rosen said.
Still, he predicts the government would not deepen its crackdown in a way that harms the industry longer term.
Authorities still want the industry to grow fast enough to surpass North American box office, he said.
While authorities may not directly undermine bankable stars, industry trends show stellar casts are no longer sure bets.
Just before Hello, Mr. Billionaire (西虹市首富), a low-budget Chinese comedy-drama without big stars became a summer hit, Asura (阿修羅), the big-budget, star-studded epic on mythology bombed at the box office and was withdrawn immediately after its opening weekend.
Trade magazine Variety called it “the most expensive flop in Chinese history.”
Television streaming is also drawing fans to dramas without big stars.
Story of Yanxi Palace (延禧攻略), a 70-episode drama coproduced by and streamed on iQiyi, emerged as a surprising summer hit with a mostly young, lesser-known cast.
A Qing dynasty tale of scheming concubines, the drama has been streamed more than 15 billion times, according to iQiyi.
The success of the drama “brings a new turning point and new opportunities to the industry that has been pressured by excessive compensation for celebrities,” iQiyi chief executive Gong Yu (龔宇) said in Beijing on Aug. 26 at an event to celebrate the drama’s conclusion.
“The industry should stop overcompensating celebrities in low-quality productions just because they have huge fan bases,” he said.
Gong’s streaming platform was among a group of film and TV companies that issued a joint statement on Aug. 10 saying they would work together to resist overpaying top talent and devote more resources to better productions.
Over time, this will lead to a reduction in shoddy productions and give the industry an opportunity to focus on quality, said Yin Hong (尹鴻), a professor of TV and film studies at Tsinghua University.
Only about half of the 800 or so films made by Chinese studios last year made it to a movie theater and among those 400, fewer than a quarter sold at least 100 million yuan (US$14.5 million) in tickets.
That is in a market where the threshold for a hit is considered about 1 billion yuan in sales.
“The industry is undergoing a lot of pain right now,” Yin said. “But if dealt properly, it will be a good opportunity.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not