Yao Yao Jiang: Banned for 8 years, how did she make a comeback in Nanyang?
This article recounts the journey of Chinese actress Fan Bingbing after she was completely banned in mainland China in 2018 due to tax issues, detailing how she made a comeback in Southeast Asia by pursuing overseas development, starring in Malaysian director Chong Keat Aun's film "Mother Bhumi," winning Best Leading Actress at the Golden Horse Awards, and expanding her beauty business empire across Southeast Asia.
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Hello everyone, I am Yaoyao Jiang, someone who loves to think and values logic. In less than twenty-four hours after a single remark by Mbappé, CCTV suspended broadcasts of all La Liga and his matches. Words and actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people will naturally face joint boycotts from all sectors of Chinese society. Dongpeng, Mengniu, and Milkground terminated their contracts with him one after another. The very next day, he issued an apology statement in three languages. Banning and cutting off your mainland market—this is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s trump card for dealing with entertainment and sports celebrities, and it almost never fails. Fan Bingbing probably knows better than anyone just how brutal this move is. During that very same week, an interview of hers circulated online. She recounted that after her incident in 2018, she had over 100 advertising clients ranging from domestic brands to luxury labels. She took her team from door to door to negotiate deferrals, compensation, trade-offs, and replacements, spending a full three to four months doing so. She described that period: "There wasn't even time for you to feel pain, because you immediately had to figure out how to solve it." I believe sincerity is the ultimate weapon. Fan Bingbing also bowed her head; she released a letter of apology and paid roughly 884 million yuan. Yet the CCP never allowed her to return to mainland screens. Eight years later, this banned A-list star won Best Leading Actress at the Golden Horse Awards, served as a juror at the Berlin International Film Festival, and was even conferred the title of Datuk by the Governor of Melaka, Malaysia, an honor equivalent to a British knighthood. How did she carve out a new path outside the mainland and bring herself back to life? Today, let's talk about Fan Bingbing's story.
In late May 2018, Cui Yongyuan posted a performing contract on Weibo. Overnight, the four words "yin-yang contracts" spread across the entire country. The full context of this showdown between Cui Yongyuan, Feng Xiaogang, and Fan Bingbing was covered in our previous program, "A Rise to Fame: Why the CCP Fears Cui Yongyuan." For those who haven't watched it, please click the program link in the pinned comment. Today, we will only focus on what happened to Fan Bingbing afterward.
On June 2, 2018, Fan Bingbing reposted a message about a charity campaign on Weibo. Prior to this, she had shared new content on Weibo almost every single day, but after this post, her account fell completely silent for 123 days. She vanished, while speculation from the outside world only intensified. Some said she had been taken away by the Wuxi Procuratorate; others said she was placed under police (Public Security) custody in Beijing and was stripped of her freedom of movement. None of these claims were confirmed. Meanwhile, the films she was involved in encountered trouble one after another. On June 27, "L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties 2," originally scheduled for release on July 6, announced a postponement. On July 3, the movie "Air Strike" released a new poster, and her name vanished from the cast list. The businesses under her name were also dragged down. Fan Bingbing was the ninth-largest shareholder of Talent Television & Film. On the day the contract was exposed, Talent's market capitalization closed at 6.8 billion yuan. By early September, its stock price had plunged to a near three-year low, and its market value had shrunk by more than half.
On the morning of October 3, the investigation results released by the State Taxation Administration and the Jiangsu Provincial Taxation Bureau showed that the actual fee given to her by the *Air Strike* film crew was 30 million yuan, while she had only declared 10 million yuan, and the remaining 20 million yuan was concealed by splitting contracts. The tax authorities also found that she personally and the enterprises of which she served as the legal representative evaded a total of 248 million yuan in taxes. The recovered taxes, late payment surcharges, and various fines totaled approximately 884 million yuan. The official announcement stated that because it was her first offense subject to administrative tax punishment, as long as she paid the full amount on time, she would not be held criminally liable. However, her agent Mu Xiaotang was not so fortunate. The announcement noted that during the tax authority's investigation, Mu Yanxiao instructed company employees to hide and destroy accounting vouchers and account books, and had already been subjected to coercive measures by the public security organ.
On the same day, her Weibo account, which had been silent for 123 days, was updated. Fan Bingbing posted a apology letter of over 600 words, saying she had experienced unprecedented pain and torment, felt deeply guilty about her actions, fully accepted the punishment, and would do her utmost to raise funds to pay the back taxes and fines. A few hours later, Cui Yongyuan also posted a Weibo message, stating that *Air Strike* was actually a massive fraud, and that currently only one person involved in the fraud had been punished.
While the punishment was determined, the matter was far from over. On October 17, Xiao Feng, the director of *Air Strike*, announced the cancellation of the film's domestic release plan in China. On October 26, the film was released in North America, 35 minutes shorter than the original domestic version, and Fan Bingbing's screen time was cut to just nine seconds. Tangde Film and Media had long finished filming the television drama *The Legend of Ba Qing* starring her, but it was repeatedly blocked from broadcasting. Tangde later recognized 496 million yuan in bad debt provisions out of 599 million yuan in receivables for this show in its 2018 annual report, making this investment almost unrecoverable. Then there were the endorsements; before the incident, Fan Bingbing held more than 100 brand endorsements, ranging from cosmetics and clothing to home appliances and electric vehicles, as well as luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon, Champagne, and Chopard. She said in an interview that those three or four months were spent sorting through this mountain of contracts. Once the fines were paid and contracts settled, Fan Bingbing was left with one final question: could she still return to acting?
Five years without acting is actually quite cruel for an actor. Less than four months after the initial announcements, on February 4, 2019, the American fashion magazine W announced on social media that Fan Bingbing was making an official comeback. When the news reached China, the comment section was filled with opposition, with many netizens posting messages declaring a resolute boycott of tainted artists. Yet she did not stop. In March, her beauty salon opened, with her boyfriend Li Chen and her younger brother Fan Chengcheng attending the opening ceremony. On April 22, she attended the iQIYI 9th Anniversary appreciation event, posing for photos in front of the message board. The outside world viewed this as her first trial balloon for a comeback; the topic quickly trended on Weibo search lists, and the comment section erupted in another wave of backlash. The people and businesses tied to her also began to drift away one by one. As early as January of that year, the legal representative of her company Aimeishen Film and Television was changed; Li Chen withdrew from the partner list, while her mother Zhang Chuanmei bought shares. In May, Tangde Film and Media announced it would spend no less than 60 million yuan collaborating with Tmall's technical team to replace her face in *The Legend of Ba Qing* using artificial intelligence. A film she starred in alongside Huang Xuan and directed by Cao Baoping had long been completed, but its release could never be finalized. On the night of June 27, Fan Bingbing and Li Chen each announced their breakup on Weibo. The couple had gotten engaged in 2017 and originally planned to marry in the second half of 2018. A year and a half later, she revealed the reason for the breakup for the first time, saying that after her incident, Li Chen suffered a lot of collateral damage, with many of his projects halted, and the only thing she could do was let him leave her.
Throughout 2019, she tried every possible path she could think of. In November, she served as the image ambassador for a public welfare project in Zhengzhou, Henan, and People’s Daily referred to her as "actor Fan Bingbing" in its coverage. At the end of the year, she was invited twice to attend award ceremonies, where she received public welfare awards without walking the red carpet. It was also in the autumn of that year that the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton announced Fan Bingbing as its brand ambassador on social media; amid a torrent of backlash, the post was deleted roughly three hours later.
In early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, Fan Bingbing donated money to Wuhan again. In March, she participated in an epidemic prevention handwashing dance video jointly produced by several official agencies, and tagged official accounts such as China Advertising Association and People's Video one by one on Weibo. In May, French brand Guerlain, which belongs to LVMH along with Louis Vuitton, publicly named her as its global spokesperson on Xiaohongshu (RedNote). Under the same conglomerate, one brand deleted the post within three hours, while another brand rushed to bring her back. On October 14, she walked the red carpet as the finale special guest at the 27th Huading Awards. Some media reported that she had officially announced her comeback, but this award ceremony took place in Macau, not in mainland China. These efforts did not yield the slightest leeway from the authorities. By 2021, the CCP officially slammed the door shut in mainland China. In August that year, actress Zheng Shuang was ordered to pay back taxes, late fees, and fines totaling 299 million yuan due to tax evasion via contract manipulation. In September, the National Radio and Television Administration issued a notice requiring broadcasting institutions and online audio-visual platforms to resolutely refrain from employing law-breaking and immoral artists, with tax evasion falling under law-breaking. September 16 was Fan Bingbing's 40th birthday. Yang Tianzhen, a manager who used to work at her studio, posted six photos to celebrate her birthday. The top-liked comment under this Weibo post received 12,000 likes, sarcastically asking whether Yang Tianzhen should help pay taxes on Fan Bingbing's behalf.
With domestic avenues completely blocked, Fan Bingbing had no choice but to head abroad. In January 2022, the Hollywood film *The 355*, in which she starred, was released—her first new film to be released nearly four years after her tax incident. In February, Korean TV station GBC reported that she had just wrapped up a cameo appearance in the Korean drama *Insider*, after which she went to South Korea to star in director Han Shuai's film *Green Night*, playing a Chinese woman working as a security inspector at Incheon Airport. In February 2023, *Green Night* was selected for the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival. In November, she attended the Singapore International Film Festival and received a Cinema Icon Award. It was also at this edition of the Singapore Film Festival that she met a Malaysian director... it is not a horror element; it is actually a tool projecting distrust and hatred between people. This director is Chong Keat Aun, a native of Kedah State in northern Malaysia who grew up beside rice paddies. He directed a film called *Snow in Mid-Summer*, which tells the story of the racial riots in Malaysia on May 13, 1969, in which many ethnic Chinese lost their lives. For decades, Malaysian society has been reluctant to discuss it publicly. *Snow in Mid-Summer* was selected for the Giornate degli Autori section at the Venice Film Festival and received nine Golden Horse Award nominations, but large portions of content were cut when it returned to Malaysia for screening.
At the 2023 Singapore International Film Festival, *Snow in Midsummer* was screened. After watching it, Fan Bingbing took the initiative to approach Chong Keat Aun, expressing her desire to star in his next film. Chong Keat Aun’s upcoming movie was titled *Mother Bhumi*. Set in 1998 in a village in Kedah near the Thai border, inhabited by both Chinese and Malays, the story follows the female protagonist, Feng Yin, a farm woman who has just lost her husband. Raising a son and a daughter on her own, she works the fields by day and serves as a local healer (*bomoh*) by night, treating illnesses and dispelling evil spirits for the village women. The village becomes entangled in a land dispute, and her husband's cause of death grows increasingly suspicious. For such a role, Chong Keat Aun had originally intended to cast a non-professional who had never acted before. When Fan Bingbing came knocking, he rejected her, citing that she was simply too beautiful. Fan approached him a second time, but he still refused. On the third attempt, Fan told him, "You can ruin my face." Only then did Chong Keat Aun relent, though he laid down conditions: before shooting began, she had to live in the village for three months, learn the local dialect, learn how to farm, wash cows, cook, and clean cow dung. Fan agreed to all of it without hesitation. Chong Keat Aun later recalled that she did not even ask about her acting fee and arrived with funding for the crew. The most difficult aspect of playing Feng Yin was actually the language: the film required Malay, Thai, Hokkien, and Mandarin. Fan said that for this shoot, she had to speak six different languages and dialects, entirely unlike the standard Mandarin she had spoken since childhood. For three months prior to shooting, she listened every day to audio recordings sent by the director, video calling him every few days so he could check her progress. By the time filming officially began, she no longer needed a script; every single line was committed to memory. How was she to play a folk healer? She found a real master: director Chong Keat Aun’s own father, a local folk healer in Kedah, upon whom the character of Feng Yin was actually modeled. Fan filmed the rituals performed by the elderly man and watched the footage over and over again, studying his intonation, the rhythm of his chants, his breathing patterns, and even mimicking how his emotions shifted during spirit possessions step by step. Visually, she also transformed herself completely. According to Malaysia's *The Star*, for this role she gained 10 kilograms and wore a prosthetic nose. To make her skin look weathered by a lifetime under the sun, she applied a black facial mask every day. When filming in the paddy fields, she went seven days without washing her feet, stepping barefoot into cow dung without minding at all. In the film, she was covered in sweat and mud in nearly every shot. In one scene, Fan asked the director how the snot should run—did it need to look uglier? Chong Keat Aun later told reporters that watching the snot dangling from Fan’s face on the monitor left him completely stunned. The crew also quickly realized that this superstar had no air of arrogance. Natalie Hsu, who played her daughter in the movie, said Fan was the first to arrive on set and the last to leave every day; when everyone was exhausted late into the night, she was the only one still full of energy. Fan brought roughly 1,000 sheet masks to the set and gifted a whole box to the director. The Taiwanese child star Bai Renying, who played her son, continued to call her "Mom" even off-camera. Filming for *Mother Bhumi* began in February 2024 and wrapped in October, shot entirely on location in Kedah. It was financed by companies from Malaysia, Hong Kong, Italy, and Saudi Arabia, with the Saudi funds coming from the Red Sea Film Fund. Not a single cent of the film's budget came from mainland China, a fact that later proved crucial. A film with no mainland investment did not have to undergo censorship in mainland China or heed the whims of China's Film Bureau; it could go to Tokyo, and it could go to Taipei.
So why did Fan Bingbing push herself so hard? She answered this herself. In February 2025, while serving as a jury member at the Berlin International Film Festival, reporters asked her about her experiences over the past few years. She said her greatest challenge had been not acting for five years. Throughout those five years, she had constantly searched for a story, a script, and a role that could resonate with her state of mind. Once she found it, she was determined to give 120% of her effort to do it justice—for herself, for the director's trust, and for everyone who had been waiting for her. On October 27, 2025, the opening day of the 38th Tokyo International Film Festival, *Mother Bhumi* held its world premiere in Tokyo and was selected for the Main Competition, representing Malaysia. Fifteen years prior, Fan had won the Best Actress award at the Tokyo International Film Festival for *Buddha Mountain*. After the screening, Fan and Chong Keat Aun took the stage together to interact with the audience. A film review from the British magazine *Screen Daily* remarked that Feng Yin on screen was practically unrecognizable, and that the entire film was carried by her. In an interview with the Malaysian national news agency Bernama, Chong Keat Aun said that the movie tells a story completely of Malaysians themselves; when foreign actors come to Malaysia to act, they usually portray foreigners, whereas Fan Bingbing played a homegrown, local woman.
During the year she filmed *Mother Land*, Fan Bingbing had another identity in Malaysia. In fact, shortly after filming began for *Mother Land*, Fan Bingbing had already started making frequent public appearances across Southeast Asia. On April 11, 2024, during the Songkran opening parade in Bangkok, Thailand, among the special guests invited by the Tourism Authority of Thailand was a Chinese female celebrity dressed in full Thai traditional attire—Fan Bingbing. Chinese tourists along the street chased after her to take photos, shouting "I love you" in Chinese. The parade ended late at night. At 1:00 AM, she walked into a Thai restaurant in the Ari district of Bangkok and ate two plates of sound shrimp by herself. Afterward, the restaurant owner was even interviewed by Thai media. This parade was also watched by people in China. Some mainland self-media picked up on a detail reported by Thai media, claiming that the parade float Fan Bingbing rode in was unfit for a superstar's status. Under the self-media's narrative, this vehicle turned into an electric tricycle, with titles declaring that "the former Lord Fan has become an international laughingstock."
Two months later, Fan Bingbing went to Melaka, Malaysia. Melaka is located on the southwestern coast of Malaysia, a port city with over 600 years of history. Zheng He docked here multiple times during his voyages to the Western Ocean. Early Chinese migrants who went to Nanyang settled here, and many married local women. Their male descendants were called Baba and females Nyonya. These people spoke a mix of Hokkien and Malay, and their food, clothing, and traditional festivals combined Chinese and Malay customs—this is the cultural essence of the Peranakan (Nyonya) culture. Women often wore an embroidered short jacket called a kebaya. In 2024, during the Visit Melaka Year, the Melaka state government wanted to find someone who could attract Chinese tourists, and they thought of Fan Bingbing. On June 14, Fan Bingbing went to the office of Ab Rauf, the Chief Minister of Melaka, to sign a contract appointing her as the Melaka Tourism Goodwill Ambassador. At 11:00 AM, wearing a pink Nyonya kebaya top and a blue sarong, she appeared at Dutch Square (Stadthuys), where hundreds of people gathered around shouting her name. At noon, she changed into a white lace kebaya and visited a local heritage souvenir shop to eat. For this three-day visit, the Melaka state government spent 498,346 ringgit, equivalent to over 700,000 RMB. After the news broke, some people in Malaysia questioned whether spending so much money to invite a foreign celebrity for a three-day trip was worth it. Later, the Melaka state government did the math, stating that Fan Bingbing's stay in Melaka and subsequent promotions generated over 1.5 billion impressions on WeChat (微信). In 2023, the number of Chinese tourist visits to Melaka was 204,818, while in 2024, this figure jumped to 664,687, more than tripling, with local travel agencies reporting a 20% to 30% surge in business. Of course, some Melaka locals were unimpressed; the head of the local tour guide association remarked that relying solely on tourists from a single country and using a celebrity to drive traffic was an unsustainable strategy. In November, Fan Bingbing joined the Chief Minister of Melaka on a cruise ship, recommending Melaka's attractions and snacks to guests onboard, with Malaysian media praising her as a competent Tourism Goodwill Ambassador.
When the news reached the comment sections back in China, it was met with another wave of mockery. On August 24, 2025, during the 76th birthday celebration of the Governor of Melaka, Tun Mohd Ali, a conferment ceremony was held according to tradition. A total of 473 people were honored that day, among whom was a foreign face—Fan Bingbing once again. She received a state honor from Melaka along with the title of Datuk. The night before the conferment, she was still attending a product launch in Kuala Lumpur, and after finishing her work, she rushed to Melaka, arriving at 2:00 AM. At 5:00 AM, she got up to prepare. At the ceremony, dressed in a dark green traditional Malay long dress, she received the medal from the Governor and leaned down to kiss it. Afterward, she wrote on Xiaohongshu (RedNote): "Thank you Malaysia, thank you Melaka, this place is truly my blessed land, no path in life is ever walked in vain."
Just how much weight does the Datuk title carry? In Malaysia, Datuk is an honorary title conferred by the federal government or individual states, often compared to a British knighthood. However, fewer than 100 people are knighted in the UK each year, while Malaysia adds 700 to 1,200 new Datuks every year. Former Prime Minister Mahathir warned as early as 2004 that when too many titles are handed out, no one cherishes them anymore. As for foreign celebrities receiving the Datuk title, Fan Bingbing is not the first. Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan received it from Malacca in 2008, and Jackie Chan was conferred the title in 2015 by Malaysia's Federal Territories. Thus, the Datuk title itself is not particularly rare. What is notable this time is that it was given to an actress banned in her home country, and the honor was conferred personally by the state governor. Malaysian netizens were not entirely pleased. Some asked online what contribution this foreigner had made to Malaysia. Some said she diluted the prestige of the Datuk title, while others asked bluntly how much money was spent to buy it. Some media even rumored that she obtained this Datuk title through connections brokered by Hong Kong tycoon Cecil Chao, though Fan Bingbing's side denied this claim. The reaction on the mainland internet was even harsher. In the eyes of Little Pink netizens who call China "the Great Eastern Power" and routinely look down on Southeast Asian countries, going to Malaysia to become a Datuk is a joke in itself. Someone left a comment asking, "Is she trying to fully break into the South Asian market now?" Some self-media headlines simply read: "Fan Bingbing has truly fallen on hard times."
Yet on the mainland internet, which voices can remain, and which get deleted? Platforms filter content strictly according to official lines. In the very week of the Mbappé incident, mainland sports platforms were not even willing to translate his original words. Hurling abuse at a banned celebrity carries no risk, while posts defending them could disappear at any moment. The noise filtered out this way may look lively, but it cannot reflect what ordinary people on the mainland truly think. To know what the common people really think, we still need to look at where they spend their money. The extra 400,000-plus Chinese tourists in 2024 bought their own plane tickets to Malacca. A Malaysian journalist interviewed a Chinese tourist locally, who said she had seen photos of Fan Bingbing in Malacca, where Fan was wearing traditional Nyonya attire. That was precisely the calculation of the Malacca state government. The CCP banned her from mainland screens, yet mainland tourists followed her photos all the way to Malacca.
Beyond the Datuk title, Fan Bingbing had always kept another award in mind. On October 1, 2025, Taipei announced a list of nominations that included her name. "When I invited Fan Bingbing to act in this movie, she followed me back to my hometown, went down into the rice paddies, and then she fell. While taking a rest, I asked her: 'Why are you working so hard to fight for this role?' She told me, 'I want to start over.'" This list was the nominations for the 62nd Golden Horse Awards. Mother Bhumi received a total of eight nominations, with Fan Bingbing nominated for Best Leading Actress. The last time she was nominated for Golden Horse Best Actress was in 2016 for the film I Am Not Madame Bovary—a gap of 9 full years. On the night the list was announced, her studio posted on Weibo: "In 2025, Mother Bhumi returns to the Treasure Island once again." She herself also posted a late-night Weibo with a photo raising a glass, writing: "Just got off the plane, having a drink to toast this exhausting yet fulfilling journey. The road is long, let's walk it together." The location displayed on this Weibo post was Hong Kong. For a mainland actor, the words "returning to the Treasure Island" are by no means light. At the 2018 Golden Horse Awards ceremony, Taiwanese documentary director Fu Yue said when accepting her award that she hoped her country could be treated as a truly independent entity. In August of the following year, the China Film Administration announced the suspension of mainland films and filmmakers participating in the Golden Horse Awards. From then on, for six full years, not a single major star from the mainland traveled to Taipei to receive a Golden Horse Award. Mother Bhumi is a Malaysian production with no mainland company involved in the submission, so entering the Golden Horse was completely fine. Fan Bingbing herself also wanted to win this award. Chong Keat Aun said she had once told him in private: "I have won the Golden Horse for Best Supporting Actress, and I also hope that one day I can win the Golden Horse for Best Leading Actress." At the Tokyo International Film Festival, Mother Bhumi did not win an award. Fan Bingbing comforted the director, saying it didn't matter, they still had the Golden Horse. Before the ceremony, everyone was asking the same question: Is Fan Bingbing coming? Chong Keat Aun was asked so many times that he joked he was dreaming about Fan Bingbing every day and waking up startled. Taiwanese media found that the flight ticket booked for her by the Golden Horse Awards had not been claimed, yet her hotel room had not been canceled either. On the evening of November 22, the 62nd Golden Horse Awards ceremony was held at the Taipei Music Center. When Best Leading Actress was announced, the name called was Fan Bingbing, but she was not present. Chong Keat Aun went on stage to accept the award on her behalf and dialed her phone right on stage. On the other end of the line, Fan Bingbing was crying so hard she could not utter a complete sentence.
"You have won Best Actress. Do you have anything you would like to say to the audience here? I will hand the time over to you now." "I am especially happy. I have been filming in the mountains, and I have been watching the live stream. First of all, I want to thank the Golden Horse Awards organizing committee for giving me this recognition." She thanked Zhang Ji-an for his trust, thanked the Golden Horse Awards for consistently supporting the original aspirations of Chinese-language filmmakers, and finally wished for Chinese filmmakers to shine even more brilliantly in the world of cinema. "When the director discussed the role with me, he asked me, he said, 'Are you willing to let me blow up your face?' I remember I answered without hesitation, 'Fan Bingbing is with you all the way.' In fact, this was not just a commitment to the role, but also an act of unwavering belief." The role of Fengyi in *Mother Bhumi* was not just a transformation in appearance for me; it was a profound soul resonance between me and the character. During the time I was immersed in her, I felt as if I had truly walked into her world, and the character of Fengyi also guided my growth, allowing me to more deeply experience the resilient power within a woman. The jury later revealed that the award was a very tight race until the very end between Fan Bingbing and another nominee, Gao Yiling. So why didn't Fan Bingbing ultimately attend? Zhang Ji-an said at the celebration banquet that the visa had been obtained six days prior, but her filming schedule had long been set, and she couldn't get away, so she could only connect from the set. Zhang Ji-an also said that Fan Bingbing was crying so hard in the video call that her eyes were swollen. Director Ang Lee also arrived at the celebration banquet, took the phone, and told Fan Bingbing that he liked the film very much and was very happy for her. The visa was obtained, but the person did not come. Whether a mainland actor dares to step onto Taiwan to accept a Golden Horse Award has never been just a question of whether their filming schedule allows it. After the awards ceremony, Fan Bingbing's studio immediately posted a congratulatory message on Weibo. This post was written very carefully; the words "Taiwan" and "Golden Horse Awards" did not appear anywhere in the text. It only stated that she had won the Best Actress award from "the treasure island." However, even this post was deleted not long after. The topics that had originally surged onto the trending list also disappeared. In the early hours of the next day, Fan Bingbing posted a selfie on her Weibo, accompanied by a plate of leftover hairy crab shells, saying she had just finished replying to over 600 congratulatory messages and had eaten three hairy crabs, feeling a bit happy and a bit dazed at this moment. This Weibo post was later deleted as well, so she had to turn to overseas social media platforms, where she posted a photo of the trophy and wrote, "Difficulties passed, hurdles cleared." Mainland official media did not mention this matter at all. The accounts of netizens who reposted the Golden Horse Awards ceremony video were banned, with the platform citing the reason as "suspected of posting inappropriate social and political content." When a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council was asked by a reporter why Fan Bingbing's Weibo post about the Golden Horse Awards was deleted, the answer was that they were unaware of the matter. But the mouths of netizens cannot be completely silenced. Under Fan Bingbing's post before it was deleted, mainland netizens commented, "The Golden Horse is still the Golden Horse; it is the pinnacle of Chinese-language film awards." Others compared the Golden Horse to the mainland's official Golden Rooster Awards, saying that the Golden Rooster will never catch up to the inclusivity of the Golden Horse. In Taiwan, Fan Bingbing did not receive unanimous applause either. Senior media personality Clara Chou publicly criticized the choice, saying, "An internationally notorious tax evasion scandal protagonist actually became this year's Golden Horse Best Actress. Are the judges blind?" The mainland deleted her posts, and in Taiwan, some scolded her for not deserving the award. That Golden Horse trophy sat in Malaysia for over a month. At the end of 2025, Zhang Ji-an met her for a meal in Malaysia and personally handed the trophy to her.
Making art films can win major awards, but it doesn't bring in big money. Over these past years, what has Fan Bingbing relied on to sustain herself and those around her? The answer lies in another business of hers. In 2018, right before the "yin-yang contract" scandal erupted, Fan Bingbing founded a beauty brand named Fan Beauty Diary. The brand initially made beauty devices, but shifted to sheet masks in 2019. Its first flagship product was called the Bodhi recovery mask, selling roughly 1.2 million sheets within a month of launch. The brand's business grew bigger year after year: total sales for the full year of 2021 surpassed ¥300 million; reached ¥850 million in 2022; exceeded ¥1.1 billion in 2023; hit ¥1.45 billion in revenue in 2024; and achieved ¥1.8 billion in sales in 2025, ranking 25th on the top 100 Chinese beauty brands list. So, where did the money primarily come from? The brand itself made it very clear: the Chinese market remains its foundational base. During the 618 shopping festival in 2025, influencer streamer Li Jiaqi sold her brand's whitening masks in his live stream—selling 100,000 boxes in ten seconds. At 198 yuan per box, that was nearly 20 million yuan. She has 18 million followers on Xiaozhou/Xiaohongshu (RedNote), and whenever a new product comes out, she can drive a huge wave of traffic all on her own. This marks the boundaries of the ban. TV stations and streaming platforms can no longer cast Fan Bingbing, and the works she acts in cannot make it onto mainland cinema screens, yet her sheet masks still entered Li Jiaqi's live-streaming room, and mainland consumers continued to pay for them. However, what is even more noteworthy is the business she built in Southeast Asia. In May 2024, the brand launched on the Malaysian sites of Lazada and Shopee, the two major e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia. During the Double 11 shopping festival in 2025, her brand went on sale in Malaysia, with online sales surpassing ¥1 million RMB within an hour, ranking among the top two on Lazada's skincare charts and among the top three on Shopee's skincare charts. In August 2025, the day before she was conferred the title of Datuk, Fan Bingbing held a product launch event at a major shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur. On January 1, 2026, she visited a Watsons store in Melaka to inspect her brand's counter, accompanied by the Chief Minister of Melaka, Ab Rauf. That same month, her brand expanded into Singapore, making its first stop at the Watsons store in Jewel Changi Airport. Fan Bingbing held a fan meeting there attended by around 220 people; the entry requirement was spending at least 499 Singapore dollars on products at Watsons. When a reporter asked her about the cost of living in Singapore, she smiled and remarked on how expensive it was, then added in English: "I am very real." The brand stated that within three days of entering Singapore, combined online and offline sales surpassed 12 million RMB. In the spring of 2026, her brand expanded into Thailand as well, with her appearing in person at the flagship store to endorse it. A vice president of the brand stated in an interview that Fan Bingbing has never been just an endorser; she was the brand's original product manager. This business allowed Fan Bingbing to live without relying on mainland acting fees during her banned years. And precisely because she had this financial confidence, she was able to spend three months in a rural village in Kedah learning how to plant rice, joining the film crew with money brought in, without even asking about an acting fee.
In April 2020, the Udine Far East Film Festival in Italy awarded Fan Bingbing a Golden Mulberry Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. Mother Bhumi was nominated in the main competition section here. Malaysian media wrote that at this film festival, Malaysia became the main focus for the first time. A reporter chatted with him after the screening, and he said Malaysia is truly a hidden treasure land. A month later, he returned to Malaysia. On May 10, 2016, the promotional tour for Mother Bhumi began in Malaysia, with the first stop at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur. Over the next five days, Zhang Ji'an took Fan Bingbing and several lead actors across five states: Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Malacca, Penang, and Kedah. Fan Bingbing had not done film promotions for many years. She later told the Malaysian media that seeing so many people waiting for her at the venue, as well as fans flying in from other countries to follow the tour stop by stop, filled her heart with gratitude. On May 12, the tour reached Johor. On this day, Sultan Ibrahim, the Supreme Head of State of Malaysia, received Fan Bingbing at the royal palace in Johor, along with the director, producer, and manager of Mother Bhumi. The Head of State posted a group photo on his Facebook page, in which Fan Bingbing held a framed poster of Mother Bhumi with both hands. The position of Malaysia's Head of State is held in turn by hereditary sultans from nine states, with each term lasting 5 years. In mainland film and television works, Fan Bingbing has disappeared for 8 years, but in Malaysia, she stepped into the royal palace of the Head of State. On May 13, Mother Bhumi was released in 60 cinemas across Malaysia. According to data published by the National Film Development Corporation Malaysia, the film's box office in Malaysia was 501,300 ringgit. In the Malaysian film market, this is a very small figure. An art film set in a rural area along the Malaysia-Thailand border, featuring multiple languages and a very slow pace, was never meant for box office performance in the first place, yet awards came one after another. On September 27, Mother Bhumi had its Thailand premiere at the Thailand International Film Festival. Fan Bingbing and Zhang Ji'an attended the screening together to interact with the audience, and in the end, she won the Best Lead Performance Award for this film. After receiving the award, she told Malaysian media that making movies has always been a dream she pursues. From meeting Zhang Ji'an in Singapore in 2023 to winning another award in Bangkok in 2026, over 3 years, Fan Bingbing traveled across Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand in Nanyang. Here she acted in movies, won awards, opened shops, served as a tourism ambassador, was conferred the title of Datuk, and was received by the Head of State. Not a single one of these things required Beijing's approval. Now look at Mbappé: he arrived the second day after his incident, bowed to the La Liga president, and even ran to see the Chinese ambassador. This is the most common choice for people who have been banned—bowing their heads, admitting fault, waiting for the other party to cool down, and hoping to return to the mainland market one day. Fan Bingbing also walked this path, only to end up waiting for that 2021 notice that shut the door completely. But she did not keep waiting. She went to Nanyang—a place looked down upon by many mainland Little Pinks—starting by playing a widow in a rural border port town, and found herself new audiences, awards, and business opportunities on other people's land. The CCP's ban can make a star disappear from mainland screens and can delete her Weibo account, but who the Governor of Malacca awards honors to, or whom the juries in Tokyo and Bangkok award prizes to—none of this is up to Beijing to decide. Nor did Fan Bingbing slam the door shut on returning to the mainland. At the end of 2025, she said in an interview with foreign media that if she were to make a Chinese movie again, the role must touch her deeply. She also mentioned that the topics of mainland films are becoming narrower and box office returns are much worse than before, which makes her very worried. But whether she can return has never been up to her to decide alone. Fan Bingbing going to Nanyang is itself a form of resistance against the ban. When the door in the mainland closed, she did not kneel at the doorway waiting; instead, she turned around, went elsewhere, and carved out her path as an actor once again.
The story is over, and I believe some viewers will say she is a tainted artist who committed tax evasion, asking why devote such a long segment to her story of going to Nanyang. When I was in school, I studied an English text titled "Once a thief, always a thief." This is an old English saying meaning once a thief, always a thief. Many societies take this attitude toward people who have made mistakes. Fan Bingbing made a mistake, and she acknowledged it. The tax authorities fined her, and she paid about 884 million yuan, equivalent to more than three times the back taxes. According to China's own laws, those penalized for the first time who pay in full on time shall not be held criminally liable; that is to say, legally speaking, this matter is closed. But outside the law, a label of "tainted artist" was placed on her head—a label not handed down by a court, with no expiration date and no way to remove it. Everyone makes mistakes. In a tolerant society, after someone confesses and accepts punishment, shouldn't they be given a chance to start anew, rather than having that mistake follow them for life? Zhang Ji'an said that when Fan Bingbing decided to star in Mother Bhumi, she said one sentence to him: "I want to start over." The mainland did not give her this chance, so she went to Nanyang to find this chance for herself. Well, that's all for today's chat. If these segments are valuable to you, please give a like.
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