‘Everything’s fine now’: Fan Bingbing returns to acting after tax scandal

After a five-year hiatus from the big screen following a $70 million tax evasion scandal, Chinese mega star Fàn Bīngbīng 范冰冰 has returned to cinema, stepping back into the limelight at the 73rd Berlinale International Film Festival, where she posed on the red carpet and spoke to the press corps to promote her latest movie, Green Night.

Screening in the Berlinale’s Panorama section, which showcases independent and art house cinema, Green Night marks Fan’s first major film release since 2018, when she was caught dodging taxes and subsequently banned from the entertainment industry. For the premiere of the movie in Berlin last Thursday, Fan greeted fans on the red carpet while striking poses for the camera.

The actress also attended a press conference and took questions from the media. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, Fan was asked about the aftermath of her tax evasion charges. As the press conference moderator rushed to shut down any discussion of topics unrelated to the film, Fan brushed off the interruption and spoke up.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she said through a translator. “I’d like to thank all my fans worldwide for being concerned about me. I was doing well at home and dealing with some related things. But you know, everybody’s life has highs and lows, and when you reach a low, you steadily, gradually climb back up again.”

Seemingly composed and soft-spoken, Fan went on to say: “It’s a tough process, but you learn a lot of new things at the same time and a lot about the world and a lot about people. For me, it was a very good experience in retrospect. Everything’s fine with me now.”

“The biggest challenge is that I haven’t acted for five years,” she added. “I always wanted to find a story, a script, a character that would resonate with my state of mind.”

A precipitous fall from grace

Once China’s highest-earning actress, Fan made international headlines in the summer of 2018 due to an explosive tax evasion scandal, which resulted in her months-long disappearance from the public eye. It later emerged that Fan had been under investigation by Chinese regulators, who suspected that the actress had engaged in a tax fraud using a scheme called a split or “yin-yang” contract, a popular practice within the Chinese entertainment industry whereby one performance fee is reported to authorities and a much higher one is paid in secret.

In October that year, Fan emerged to issue a lengthy apology while agreeing to pay fines and back taxes totaling around $70 million. On Weibo, she wrote, “I failed my country which nurtured me; I failed the society which trusted me; I failed the fans who loved me.”

Fan’s downfall was commonly understood as part of a broader campaign initiated by the central government to rein in the entertainment sector, where excessive pay and fraudulent tax practices were prevalent. In the following months, Chinese authorities instituted new salary ceilings for film and TV, capping lead actors’ earnings at 70% of the entire cast’s pay. The State Tax Administration also warned that others in the entertainment industry could also face probes unless they stepped forward to declare untaxed income.

With a career spanning over two decades, and having appeared in numerous Chinese films and TV series, Fan is one of China’s most recognizable stars. Best known to Western audiences for her role as Blink in the X-Men franchise, the 41-year-old actress was a regular presence on film festival red carpets prior to the controversy. As much a fashion icon and mega influencer as an actress, Fan was also the go-to face for luxury endorsements in China, which helped propel her to the very top of China’s list of highest-paid celebrities.

According to Chinese state media, because it was Fan’s first offense, she was let off the hook for criminal charges. “At the time, she made all the right moves in China, effusively praising the CCP for her success and vowing to pay her fines,” Stanley Rosen, a professor of Chinese politics and film at the University of Southern California, told The China Project.

But the reputational damage appeared irreversible at the time. In the aftermath of the scandal, Fan was widely despised on Chinese social media. When she made a low-profile appearance at a private media event in 2019, the news was met with overwhelming criticism online, with one commenter raging, “Get the f**k outta here.”

What’s next for Fan Bingbing

Since the scandal, Fan essentially retreated from acting. In 2020, rumors circulated that period drama Win The World, which stars Fan and another male lead who was arrested on sexual assault charges in Australia in 2018, was going to be released on Alibaba-owned streaming platform Youku. Originally scheduled to air in 2018, the project was put on hold due to the scandals involving both leads. As of today, the show still has not been released.

As Fan’s comeback film, Green Night is Chinese director Hán Shuài’s 韩帅 second feature-length film. Set in the crime-infested underworld of Seoul, South Korea, the thriller tells the story of two “disparate lone female fighters who have learned to rely on no one but themselves,” according to the films’s official introduction. Fan plays the role of Jin Xia, a Chinese immigrant working as a security guard at Seoul airport. Acting opposite her is Korean actress Lee Joo-young, who was part of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker last year.

Rosen pointed out that Fan’s return to cinema was in tandem with China opening up to the world recently following the end of three-year isolation to guard against the COVID-19 pandemic. “Film is part of the outreach,” Rosen said. “Marvel films are being allowed back into China, with Ant Man and the Wasp and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever getting released. So Fan’s approval for travel is part of a larger initiative.”

In Berlin, China’s re-engagement with the global film community at large was on full display at this year’s first major international film festival, where six Chinese films premiered, including two in competition. Organizers of the event “believe it to be Berlin’s largest selection of Chinese films to date,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.

In the festival’s press notes, Green Night is billed as a China-Hong Kong co-production, which potentially means that China has relaxed restrictions on Fan’s acting career, said Rosen. “Based on Fan’s comments in Berlin, she is ready to get back to acting full time,” he added. “The fact that Fan gave a press conference at Berlin is a good indication that her past problems are now behind her, presumably after paying the large sum for tax evasion.”

However, it still might be too soon to tell if Fan is completely back in the good graces of Chinese authorities. In the Chinese media, there has been virtually no reporting on Green Night or Fan’s appearance in Berlin. It could be a result of the film’s queer themes, which censors consider sensitive. An article about the film in the South China Morning Post says that the movie includes “a sweaty and protracted sex scene that one would have never imagined Fan doing in her image-conscious, censorship-abiding days.” But it could also be due to Fan. “It does seem as if Chinese media has been told to downplay this story,” Rosen said.

Despite the scarcity of news coverage, the story still made its way to Chinese social media, and it seems like the Chinese public is ready to give the superstar a second chance. On Weibo, photos of Fan’s Berlin appearance are cloaked in enthusiasm and praise of her “unrivaled beauty.” When a naysayer questioned if the actress deserved a second chance, a fan clapped back, arguing that Fan had spent enough time under the radar and that she’s less heinous than other Chinese celebrities who have ventured into infamy. “Look at those accused of sexual assault or soliciting prostitutes or using drugs,” the person wrote. “Fan might have been a bit greedy, but she’s paid back her money. It’s time to move on!”