The 62nd Golden Horse Awards — considered a leading festival and awards ceremony for Chinese-language films — was host to a realist drama of its own this year. Chinese actress and once mega-star Fan Bingbing (范冰冰) won the title of best actress for her uncharacteristically gritty role in the Malaysian film Mother Bhumi (地母). It was hailed as a powerful comeback, but across the Taiwan Strait, her win was met with censored silence. The news was absent from Chinese social media, and mainstream media made no mention of it, and Fan’s personal posts were quietly removed.
The gap between material and digital realities here exhibits, once again, the sweeping ability of the Chinese system to engineer collective amnesia, and wipe out the continued existence, career and achievements of those who cross it. Since a 2018 tax evasion scandal involving the star’s suspected use of so-called “yin-and-yang contracts” — dual contracts, one of which states an actor’s real earnings and the other a lower figure to be given to tax authorities — Fan has been locked out of China’s entertainment industry. The same year also saw the beginning of China’s boycott of the awards, which followed a Taiwanese documentary filmmaker’s remarks on Taiwanese independence during her acceptance speech.
Seven years later, the consequences of these divisions are still palpable. Fan is carving a career path outside the Chinese market and proving her worth at one of Chinese-language cinema’s most prestigious award shows. Of even greater significance is that political pressure is driving the creative energy behind Chinese-language filmmaking south. As China fortifies its wall, the split between it and the entire ecosystem of Chinese-language cinema blossoming on the outside grows ever more striking.
Fan’s win represents more than her skills as an actress, but a victory for the wider world of Chinese-language filmmaking as she circumvents the barricades of authoritarianism. In the past, China’s near-monopoly made it virtually the only option for emerging stars. However, with its tightening political grip and multiplying red lines this position has grown increasingly precarious.
Nicknamed Fan Ye (范爺) — a title meaning “Master Fan” that is usually reserved for men — the actress’ decision to star in director Chong Keat-aun’s (張吉安) Mother Bhumi took her deep into the rice fields of Malaysia’s Kedah state. It comes as a striking departure from her past of red carpet glamor; Fan portrays the ruin and resolve of Hong Im, a widowed farmer and ritual healer in a village on the Thai-Malaysian border. Described as unrecognizable in the role, her transformation was also a strategic professional shift. Despite losing a 1.4 billion-strong Chinese audience, Fan has, through returning to the essence of filmmaking and in collaboration with Chong, an artist of true humanistic depth, once again won international acclaim through the Golden Horse Awards.
There is a lesson here for all Chinese artists and creators at the mercy of political constraints: For those condemned to “social death,” there remains recourse for a real comeback through international collaboration and artistic engagement. Fan’s success is a sleek yet forceful answer to China’s political blacklisting.
Amid silence from China after her win, Fan in an Instagram post more than 500 characters long shared with her fans her experience through hardships over the past years and her resolve to continue. Her choice of a social media platform blocked in China and the closing line that “each hurdle is hard, but each will be passed — the rainbow shall come after rain,” are undoubtedly messages to her fans, but also speak to her personal situation. She thanked her Malaysian costars for their warmth, and praised Chong as a kind and inspired director. Her words stood in stark and implicit contrast to the coldness Fan has faced from her home country.
The “rainbow in Kedah’s skies” she closes with is about an artist, after seven years in the dark, finding her place and a haven for her art on foreign soil. China’s censorship system might be able to block information and remove posts, but it alone cannot obstruct the flow of talent — or indeed the reach and resonance of projects they might go on to work on. In fact, Fan’s disappearance and re-emergence only attracted more eyes and even extra weight to this year’s Golden Horse Awards. We are reminded of the power of artistic achievement to overcome political iron curtains and leave a mark on the long arc of history.
Eason Chen is an engineer.
Translated by Gilda Knox Streader
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