Fan Bingbing at 38: five films that made Chinese actress a household name

It’s Fan’s birthday on Monday, and what a year to forget it has been. Over the past 12 months she has hit the headlines for tax evasion, rather than her films

Here is a reminder that, whatever mistakes she made in her personal life, professionally she has made some great choices

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Chinese actress Fan Bingbing arrives for the opening ceremony of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival in southern France. One of China’s highest paid celebrities, Fan’s involvement in a massive tax-evasion scandal subsequently tainted her image. Photo: AP

Published: 12:30pm, 15 Sep 2019Updated: 8:08pm, 15 Sep 2019

Fan Bingbing, who turns 38 on Monday, is one of the highest-paid actresses in the world, but has hit the headlines for the wrong reasons since her massive tax evasion became public news a year ago.

The Chinese actress is best known in the West for her appearance in the Hollywood movie X-Men: Days of Future Past, and for being a leading fashion icon – associated with brands such as Adidas, Louis Vuitton, and Moët Chandon.

However, her acting achievements have lately been overshadowed. She disappeared from public view for more than three months last summer, and spent her 37th birthday under “residential surveillance”. She broke her silence in October 2018, when she issued a grovelling apology on Chinese social media platform Weibo for her failure to pay tax on time, and said she would pay fines of around 883 million yuan (US$129 million) for tax evasion and other offences.

She made a rare public appearance in July this year in Shanghai for the first anniversary of Fan Beauty, her make-up line.

We take a look at five of Fan’s most famous and award-winning movies that made her a household name in China.

Fan (right) in a still from Cell Phone (2003).

Fan Bingbing at 38: five films that made Chinese actress a household name

It’s Fan’s birthday on Monday, and what a year to forget it has been. Over the past 12 months she has hit the headlines for tax evasion, rather than her films Here is a reminder that, whatever mistakes she made in her personal life, professionally she has made some great choices

It’s Fan’s birthday on Monday, and what a year to forget it has been. Over the past 12 months she has hit the headlines for tax evasion, rather than her films

Here is a reminder that, whatever mistakes she made in her personal life, professionally she has made some great choices