Who was Li Bolun? Disgraced Citic media mogul’s death leaves legacy of litigation at Chinese Canadian newspaper
The rise, precipitous fall and mysterious death of the former Citic darling has left a legacy of legal wrangling over the ownership of Global Chinese Press, a media company in Canada
The state-run People’s Daily likened Li, then 50, to media moguls Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone, saying Li had Wang’s “full support” to pour money into movies, television shows, modelling, magazines, sports teams and talent shows.
“What I’m going to do has to be related to human emotions, related to beautiful things and related to the creation of wisdom,” Li told China’s flagship newspaper in a 4,000-word profile in June 2004. “So as long as you are surrounded with those things, even if you don’t get any glory or applause, you’re just experiencing temporary disappointment and not failure.”
People’s Daily reported that Li invested a billion yuan on behalf of Citic Culture and Media in its first three years. In 2002, the first film produced by its movie finance vehicle, Century Hero, was the acclaimed Together, directed by Chen Kaige, a giant of Chinese cinema.
In rapid order, the state-backed production house was bankrolling films starring a procession of big-name actors – Zhang Ziyi, Joan Chen, Zhao Wei and Nicholas Tse Ting-fung, among others – as well as hundreds of episodes of Chinese TV drama.
So when Li and the owners of a family-run Canadian newspaper signed a major deal in 2004, who could blame his new associates for feeling flattered?
