Fan Bingbing
Fan Bingbing is a Chinese actress. After gaining recognition for the costume drama My Fair Princess, Fan's breakthrough came with Feng Xiaogang's film Cell Phone, which won her the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress. She followed with television series such as The Proud Twins, Eight Heroes, and The Empress of China while collaborating with Li Yu on art-house films such as Lost in Beijing, Buddha Mountain, Double Xposure, and Ever Since We Love. She reunited with Feng in I Am Not Madame Bovary, which won her the Silver Shell for Best Actress and the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress. Fan's international credits include My Way, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The 355, Ice Road: Vengeance, and Mother Bhumi, for which she won the Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actress.
From 2013 to 2017, Fan was the highest-paid celebrity in the Forbes China Celebrity 100 list after ranking in the top 10 every year since 2006. She appeared on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in 2017. In 2018, Fan was involved in a [|tax evasion] case, resulting in a tax liability and fine, as well as her blacklisting in mainland China. She has since shifted her focus in China to her brand Fan Beauty, while pursuing an acting career overseas.
Early life
Fan was born in the coastal city of Qingdao, and moved to Yantai at 6 with her parents. Her paternal grandfather was a senior officer in the naval air force from Qingdao, stationed at the Yantai Laishan Airport division, while her grandmother gave her the Chinese character bing, or “ice,” to honor the family’s ties to the sea. Her father, Fan Tao, a former naval serviceman, was assigned to the Yantai Radio Factory after demobilization. After marrying Zhang Chuanmei, one of eight sisters from a large family in Yantai, the couple were transferred to the Yantai Port Authority, where both worked as cadres in the cultural division. Following Zhang’s layoff, Fan resigned, and the couple started a clothing business together. During Fan’s childhood, her maternal grandfather, a carpenter, often cared for her while her parents were occupied with their business. Fan has a younger brother nineteen years her junior, Fan Chengcheng. Her parents were fined for violating China’s one-child policy when he was born in 1999. He was a member of boy groups Nine Percent and NEXT before pursuing a solo career mainly as an actor.Fan grew up watching her father sing at local competitions and cultural events, sometimes in bars to supplement the family income. Her mother, passionate about dance since childhood and a former member of the Red Guards propaganda troupe, was devoted to Fan’s artistic education and arranged piano and flute lessons for her. Despite academic underperformance, Fan skipped a grade in her second year of middle school and was admitted to the music talent class of Yantai No. 1 High School for her outstanding musical performance, though some sources suggested that her admission was aided by her mother’s connections with the school's staff. While in middle school, Fan lived for several years in the home of her flute teacher Zhang Chunqian, a close friend of her mother from their time in the Red Guards, as her parents were occupied with their clothing business. Zhang, who also served as the high school's wind-orchestra director, encouraged Fan's artistic talent and appointed her as the orchestra’s conductor.
As a young girl, Fan was captivated by the Taiwanese television drama The Empress of the Dynasty, starring Angela Pan as Wu Zetian, which gave her the early dream of, if not becoming an actress, at least being like the star. In 1995, during her second year of high school, Fan was involved in a car accident. Her parents took her to Shanghai for surgery, and she spent three months recuperating in a hospital. Back to Yantai, she learned about Shanghai Xie Jin-Hengtong School of Arts in the local newspaper. Unable to advance to her senior year for the college entrance exam due to the accident, and unwilling to repeat her second year of high school, Fan applied to the performance school, and on the day of the entrance interviews, she was noticed in the crowd by the founder and director, Xie Jin, who advanced her past the preliminary and secondary auditions straight to the final round. At 15, she joined the school’s third cohort as one of its youngest students.
Career
1996–2006: Early work and breakthrough
Fan debuted in the television series Powerful Woman '', where she met the lead actress Leanne Liu, who recommended her for the television series My Fair Princess. The two seasons of costume drama, in which she plays a supporting role as a princess's handmaiden, became a runaway success and brought her recognition across the Chinese-speaking world.''On the eve of the shooting of My Fair Princess in 1997, at the age of 16, Fan signed with Chiung Yao, the Taiwanese writer and showrunner. After Fan rose to fame with the costume drama, her parents closed their clothing business and moved to Beijing to support her acting career, becoming her early agents. Fan broke up with Chiung Yao in 1999, following a high-profile contractual dispute that arose after she signed on to Jia Yun’s productions without going through her agency. Fan and her mother filed for termination with the agency, which countersued Fan for unilaterally terminating the contract and demanded a compensation fee of. Through court mediation, Fan settled the contract termination with the agency by paying in compensation, reportedly the life savings of her parents at the time, who had just bought a house in Beijing.
In the same year, she was promised with five TV series in three years by Jia Yun, a family friend and founder of Zhejiang Pi Ka Wang Group, a leather and furniture manufacturer which later gained prominence in entertainment business. Jia became a key supporter during the early stage of Fan’s career, though her slate of television projects under his company failed to gain traction. Their relationship apparently soured after rumors circulated about a romantic or “kept” relationship between them. When Fan’s contract with him expired, her family publicly accused Jia of exploiting her for self-promotion. Jia was placed on a wanted list in 2007 for “illegally absorbing public deposits,” and he turned himself in in 2015.
In 1999, while shooting TV series Qingchun Chudong produced by Jia, Fan was introduced by co-actors Li Bingbing and Ren Quan to their manager Wang Jinghua, one of China's earliest and most powerful managers. In June 2000, Fan signed with Wang, and followed her next year to join in Huayi Brothers, where Wang became the head of its talent management. In 2002, Fan established Huairou Fanbingbing Film & Television Art Training School and a production and publicity company, both in the charge of her mother. In 2003, Fan starred in Feng Xiaogang's Cell Phone, which became China's highest-grossing film of the year and earned her the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress. Fan also appeared in films such as The Lion Roars, The Twins Effect II, A Chinese Tall Story, and A Battle of Wits, for which she received a nomination for Best Actress at the 12th Golden Bauhinia Awards. In 2006, Forbes China awarded her the Star of the Year.
Fan’s tenure at Huayi Brothers, China’s leading entertainment conglomerate in the 2000s, was marked by tensions between her rapidly rising stardom and the corporate machinery. Although she benefited from Huayi’s strong film production network, the company’s lack of adequate public-relations support and personal attention left her frustrated, particularly after her role as a mistress in Cell Phone drew increasingly negative and often salacious publicity. In 2004, she faced her first public-relations crisis when Chongqing Business Daily published an article implying her “casting-couch” transaction. Fan urged Huayi to issue an immediate statement, but the company responded only days later, leading to a newspaper retraction that came well past the news cycle. In 2006, a viral post making similar allegations appeared on Tianya. This time Fan took the initiative with the help of Mu Xiaoguang, a Taiwanese businessman with reputed ties with the Four Seas Gang, who befriended Fan when he was producer of the TV series The Legend and the Hero. Mu identified the posters as two middle-school students in Shaanxi Province by tracing the IP address and registration data. The two teenagers admitted to acting on instructions from another actress and issued a public apology to Fan. Fan later stated that she had identified the actress involved but chose not to disclose her name.
In 2005, Fan’s powerful manager Wang Jinghua left Huayi to co-found Chengtian Entertainment, triggering an exodus of talent and a shake-up across the industry. Fan chose to remain with Huayi, reportedly persuaded by the company’s promise to cast her opposite Chow Yun-fat in the historical epic A Battle of Wits, though the lead role ultimately went to Andy Lau. After Wang’s departure, her protégé Li Xue, sister of Li Bingbing, who also remained with Huayi, took over as the head of talent management. The unfavorable internal competition intensified as Zhou Xun joined Huayi. Amid rumors that her contractual negotiations had broken down, Fan largely skipped the promotion of her final project with Huayi, The Matrimony, which was released around the same time her contract expired.
2007–2017: Heyday
Fan left Huayi Brothers in February 2007 to establish her own Fan Bingbing Studio, a pioneering example of the one-person agency model in the Chinese entertainment industry, with Mu Xiaoguang as her manager and Yang Tianzhen as head of public relations. Fan starred in eight films in 2007, including Shinjuku Incident and Bodyguards and Assassins, the latter of which earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 29th Hong Kong Film Awards.Notably, Fan collaborated with director Li Yu for the first time in Lost in Beijing, beginning a long-term artistic partnership and close friendship. The film, one of the most high-profile cases challenging Chinese film censorship, was selected for the main competition of the 57th Berlin International Film Festival. In response to the submission of its uncensored version to the festival without prior approval, Chinese authorities blocked its domestic release, which had originally been scheduled for May 2007. It was also submitted for consideration at the 44th Golden Horse Awards, but later withdrawn under pressure from Beijing, which that year barred films solely financed by mainland Chinese companies from competing for the Taiwanese awards. According to that year’s Golden Horse chair, Peggy Chiao, Lost in Beijing would have received seven nominations had it not been withdrawn. Fan was still nominated for and won Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Matrimony, though she did not attend the ceremony. In late 2007, a censored version of Lost in Beijing was finally cleared for release in China, but it had only a brief theatrical run before being pulled from cinemas and banned in early 2008.
One of the prominent shifts in Fan’s independent era was her team’s painstaking effort to rebuild relations with the media, transforming her from one of China’s most reviled—and often misogynistically targeted—celebrities into one of its most media-savvy figures. Mu Xiaoguang, known for his fiercely protective attitude toward Fan, financed two television dramas to repair her public image: Rouge Snow, written by Yu Zheng, and Jintai-Pan, adapted from Pai Hsien-yung’s novel of the same name. Both were female-led stories centered on virtuous, resilient women. In Jintai-Pan, the morally complex nightclub dancer, one of Pai’s best-known characters, was rewritten into a traditionally “positive” figure embodying chastity and perseverance. Though the change drew mixed reviews, it reflected Mu’s determination to “set Fan straight.” The two projects also marked the beginning of Fan’s long-term collaboration with co-producer Talent Television & Film Co., Ltd., of which Zhao Wei was a founding member.
The year 2010 marked a leap forward in Fan’s career. She earned the Best Actress Award for her performance in Buddha Mountain at the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival. But most memorably, the year was defined by her appearance at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival, where she created a sensation in China with her red carpet gown inspired by a dragon robe, historically worn by Chinese emperors. The now-iconic ensemble not only cemented her image as an unapologetically ambitious and self-assured woman, but also heralded a new phase in her career, when she fully embraced the power of publicity and image-making. Throughout the 2010s, Fan maintained one of the highest public profiles in China, owing largely to her striking, fashion-forward appearances at international film festivals, often as a brand ambassador rather than for a competing film. Her unconventional path to success attracted both admiration and derision, with critics dubbing her a “carpet star” for a career built more on glamour than on work.
In 2011, Fan starred in the martial arts film Shaolin alongside Andy Lau and Jackie Chan and The Founding of a Party, which was released to mark the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. In May, she appeared at the 64th Cannes Film Festival to promote My Way together with director Kang Je-gyu and actors Jang Dong-gun and Joe Odagiri. In October, she became a member of the International Competition Jury of 24th Tokyo International Film Festival. That same year, Fan signed a four-year artist representation agreement with Talent Film and Television. Under the deal, Talent acted as Fan’s exclusive agent for television projects, taking a commission on her drama earnings and advertising performances handled through the company. To strengthen the partnership, Fan became a major shareholder of Talent.
For the first half of 2012, Fan attended many fashion shows in Paris. On 16 May, she attended the opening ceremony of the 65th Cannes Film Festival as the only East Asian global spokesperson on behalf of L'Oréal Paris. In the film Double Xposure, which was released in China on 29 September, she portrays a girl who, after suffering trauma during childhood, experiences visual hallucinations after witnessing her father kill her mother. Most film critics praised Fan's performance, and she won Best Actress at the 2013 Huading Awards. The film was a financial success, with a domestic gross of more than, which broke the box office record for a domestic art film in China. On 12 December, Fan made an unpaid surprise cameo in Lost in Thailand in support her first-time filmmaker friend, Xu Zheng. The film broke the box office record for Chinese films in China.
File:Fan BingBing and Hugh Jackman - 2014 .jpg|thumb|Fan and Hugh Jackman at the premiere for X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2014|alt=|left
In 2013, Fan appeared as Dr. Wu's assistant, Wu Jiaqi, in the mainland Chinese version of Iron Man 3, which was released on 1 May. The same year, she starred alongside Aarif Rahman in the romantic comedy One Night Surprise, which aired on Chinese Valentine's Day. The low-budget film became a commercial success and received positive reviews. On 9 December 2013, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group's B2C business Taobao announced that Fan topped the list of the most valuable celebrities for boosting online business and said that Fan influenced approximately in sales on its ecommerce website. On 22 December, Fan received the Best Actress Award and the Hottest Figure Award at the Baidu Hot Ceremony. In 2014, Fan portrayed the mutant Blink in X-Men: Days of Future Past. She also announced that she has a four-film contract with 20th Century Fox, yet she has not appeared in another X-Men film since. On 31 May, Barbie announced the launch of the Fan Bingbing Celebrity Specialty doll in Shanghai. Louis Vuitton also chose Fan as the first Asian actress to be provided with a specially tailored dress for their red carpet.
The historical television drama The Empress of China marked the third time Fan served as both producer and lead actor. Across the 82-episode series, she plays the titular Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history, from her teenage years to old age. As a pet project of Fan, inspired by her childhood crush on Angela Pan’s Wu Zetian, the project took seven years to develop and eight months to film. It aired on Hunan Television from 21 December 2014 to 5 February 2015. The drama was briefly pulled off-air midway through its broadcast before being re-edited to remove cleavage-revealing costumes, though befitting of the Tang dynasty. It received mixed reviews but was a major commercial success. The same year, she starred in wuxia fantasy film The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom. In 2015, Fan joined the China Central Television variety show as a judge in Amazing Chinese and as a contestant in the reality television show Challenger's Alliance. She was ranked fourth on Forbes World's Highest-Paid Actresses list for 2015.
Following the success of The Empress of China, which was co-produced by Talent, the company was listed on the ChiNext board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2015. Fan’s 4-year representation contract with Talent ended in March 2015 without renewal, as part of a planned high-premium acquisition. She established a production company with a registered capital of, packaging her ten-year personal contract rights into the entity. Talent planned to acquire 51% of Fan's company for approximately in cash. However, after Chinese regulators tightened oversight of entertainment-industry mergers and acquisitions in 2016, Talent abandoned the purchase and instead co-founded a joint venture with Fan, with a total investment of from both, to jointly manage her ten-year representation business.
In 2016, Fan, along with her then partner Li Chen, was invited as the final guest on the popular Taiwanese talk show Kangsi Coming before its closure. She was featured in the action comedy Skiptrace alongside Jackie Chan and Johnny Knoxville, which won her Best Supporting Actress at the 1st Golden Screen Awards. Fan then starred in Guo Jingming's L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties. The all-star film, which was released on 30 September, is China's first computer-animated motion film, but performed poorly at the box office. Fan won the Silver Shell for Best Actress at the 64th San Sebastián International Film Festival and the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress for her performance in I Am Not Madame Bovary, directed by Feng Xiaogang.
Fan was honored at the 2017 Time 100 Gala in Manhattan, recognized on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people. In April 2017, Fan was announced to serve as a jury member at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. The same year, she starred in Sky Hunter, an aerial warfare film directed by her partner Li Chen. She also starred in the French film The Lady in the Portrait opposite Melvil Poupaud. In June 2017, Fan was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.