ASIA / PACIFIC
October 1, 2018
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 3
Mystery around disappearance of Chinese star Fan Bingbing
By Christopher Bodeen
The Associated Press
EIJING — X-Men star Fan
Bingbing’s Beijing management
office is dark and abandoned. Her
birthday passed almost unremarked in
China’s hyper-adrenalized social-media
environment.
For one of China’s best known stars and
a rising Hollywood actress, Fan’s
vanishing is stunning, coming amid vague
allegations of tax fraud and possibly other
infractions that could have put her at odds
with Chinese authorities.
Fan has starred in dozens of movies and
TV series in China and is best known
internationally for her role as Blink in
2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, a
cameo in the Chinese version of Iron Man
3, and star turns on the red carpet at
Cannes as recently as May. She was
booked to star with Penelope Cruz in the
Hollywood film 355 and has a role in the
upcoming Bruce Willis-Adrien Brody
feature Air Strike.
Yet for nearly three months, Fan hasn’t
been seen or heard from in public in any
verifiable way.
One of China’s wealthiest entertainers,
Fan pulled down tens of millions of dollars
for her roles, along with handsome sums in
appearance fees and product endorse-
ments. Some of those contracts may have
landed her in hot water with the
authorities.
Fan’s name has been mentioned in
reports about a reportedly common
entertainment industry practice — an
actor having a public contract stating an
official salary and a private contract
detailing the true, much higher payday. A
talk show host, Cui Yongyuan, had said in
May that Fan had such an arrangement —
which allegedly helps facilitate tax evasion
— and revealed details that sparked a
public outcry. Cui later apologized.
At Fan’s management office in Beijing’s
Dongcheng district, the doors are locked,
the lights are out, and a calendar hanging
alongside posters advertising Fan’s film
appearances is still turned to July. A
worker at an office across the hall said she
couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen
anyone enter the company premises.
Fan turned 37 on September 16, but only
B
a handful of entertainment notables sent
greetings online, a stark break from the
past when her birthday celebrations were
lavish, well-attended affairs, marked last
year by a public marriage proposal from
boyfriend Li Chen.
An automatic birthday greeting on her
once-active account on Weibo, China’s
main
microblogging
service,
was
apparently deleted by persons unknown.
Shi Shusi, a columnist and commentator
on Chinese popular culture, suggests
Fan’s high profile was her undoing, having
made her a target for officials wishing to
set an example for would-be tax cheats
amid China’s slowing economy.
“Such a famous actress and no one
knows her whereabouts. And no
authorities have made any clarifications.
This is the real suspense,” Shi said.
Fan’s disappearance even brought a
message of concern from Hu Xijin, editor of
the Global Times tabloid known for its
hardline pro-Communist Party nationalist
opinions.
“A timely clarification and public
notification of Fan Bingbing’s status
would also be beneficial to setting the
record straight internationally,” Hu wrote
on his Weibo account on September 15.
Back in June, Fan’s production company
denied Fan had ever signed a “yinyang”
contract, so named because of its dual
natures. Fan, her production company,
and her agent could not be reached for
more recent comment. Police rarely
acknowledge such investigations are
taking place until a conclusion has been
reached.
Her disappearance had come as Chinese
authorities seek to rein in high salaries for
actors that can eat up much of the cost of a
production. In June, regulators capped
star pay at 40 percent of a TV show’s entire
production budget and 70 percent of the
total paid to all the actors in a film.
Though China has become the world’s
second-largest film market, authorities
keep tight control on local productions,
exercising final say over choice of cast,
director, and script. If Fan had stepped on
official toes, it would be a simple task to
retaliate by destroying her career, with
Chinese authorities wielding broad
powers to detain, interrogate, and accuse
citizens out of the public eye.
Other celebrities have run afoul of
TAX TROUBLES. The management office of
actor Fan Bingbing is seen in Beijing. Fan, one of
China’s best known stars and a rising Hollywood star,
appears to have truly fallen off the map amid vague
allegations of tax shenanigans and possibly other in-
fractions that have put her at odds with China’s Com-
munist Party-appointed culture czars. (AP Photo/Mark
Schiefelbein)
authorities over drug use, excessive pay, or
tax issues, said Shaun Rein, managing
director of China Market Research Group
based in Shanghai.
“Then the government really cracks
down hard and pretty much destroys their
careers for several years if not forever,”
Rein said. Companies that bet big on A-list
Chinese celebrities incur a “huge political
risk,” he said.
Known as a classical Chinese beauty
with almond eyes and porcelain skin, Fan
usually maintains a prominent presence
on Weibo, where she has more than 62
million followers. Her account has been
largely dormant for weeks, however, with
a July 26 “like” about a posting on her
charitable foundation being the last
activity prior to the deletion of her
birthday notice. Photos on social media
also appear to show her visiting a pediatric
cardiac ward at a Shanghai hospital for a
charity event on July 1.
The strongest clue to Fan’s status may
have been a September 6 notice posted on
the website of the Securities Daily, a
newspaper published by the official
Economic Daily. It stated that the local tax
bureau had sent a notice to Fan’s studio
that she had been “placed under control” —
a legal term for being held under
investigation. The article was later deleted
from the website.
Fan’s disappearance has already taken
Continued on page 4
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