Last year, Malaysian director Zhang Jian, who collaborated with Fan Bingbing on a new film, attended an event in Taiwan on September 12th with another movie. When asked if “Mother Earth,” starring Fan Bingbing last year, would be submitted for the Golden Horse Awards this year, Zhang Jian revealed that the company will announce at the end of the month. He mentioned that a lot of the funding for the film came from Fan Bingbing, who had previously won the Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actress and hoped to one day win the Best Actress award.
Zhang Jian’s film “Cradle of the World” will premiere in Taiwan on September 19th. Regarding whether “Mother Earth,” the film he collaborated on with Fan Bingbing, will be submitted for this year’s Golden Horse Awards, Zhang Jian disclosed that the film is still in the post-production stage, and a decision has been made by the film company but will only be announced at the end of the month. He refrained from elaborating further.
However, Zhang Jian also mentioned that much of the funding for “Mother Earth” was brought in for Fan Bingbing. He shared that if the film does not make it in time for this year, they will aim for next year’s Golden Horse Awards. He had discussed with Fan Bingbing, who expressed her desire for the film to be screened in Taiwan, saying she hadn’t been in Taiwan for a long time. He added that when Fan Bingbing approached him for collaboration, she had expressed her ambition to win the Best Actress Golden Horse award someday.
At the 44th Golden Horse Awards in 2007, Fan Bingbing won the Best Supporting Actress award for her role as “Xu Manli” in the film “Shinjuku Incident,” which she shared with Leon Lai and Rene Liu, but she was unable to attend the ceremony. Nine years later, at the 53rd Golden Horse Awards ceremony, Fan Bingbing served as a presenter.
Fan Bingbing faced a career downfall in 2018 after being involved in a tax evasion scandal linked to signing “Yin Yang contracts.” Despite paying over 880 million yuan in due taxes and fines within the stipulated time frame as per the Chinese officials’ instructions, she disappeared from the Chinese entertainment industry since then.
Fan Bingbing, who currently serves as a tourism ambassador for Malaysia, played a widow and witch in “Mother Earth” directed by Zhang Jian last year. To embody the character, she learned Malay, Hokkien, Malaysian Mandarin accent, Siamese script, and Pali, and gained 6 kilograms, completely transforming her appearance.
Interestingly, after news of Fan Bingbing filming in Malaysia surfaced, a large number of local residents gathered to watch. One passerby even looked at a photo of Fan Bingbing on their phone but couldn’t find her at the scene until they asked a staff member and couldn’t believe it, saying, “She doesn’t look anything like that in real life!”
As a former A-list celebrity in China, Fan Bingbing was asked if she acted in “Mother Earth” for a “friendship price.” She revealed that in the past, she had accepted lower pay for art films, emphasizing that the most important thing in her acting career is not the salary but the memorable roles that leave an impact on the audience. Fan Bingbing also disclosed a secret of the Chinese entertainment industry, stating, “Characters with high pay are usually lousy roles because when you don’t want to take on the role, the production team will offer more money to convince you.”