Once again, the “Yin-Yang Contract”

Fan Bingbing, the most famous Chinese female star, finally resurfaced from forced secret detention during the long break of China’s National Day. It is quite hard/unimaginable for a person in a normal society to understand why a public figure could simply “disappear” for more than 100 days without a trace. Everyone was wondering where Fan was, but the whole Chinese “media” just kept its mouth shut and pretended everything was just fine and usual and normal. This is China in the 21st century, hahaha.  Now, after so many days of disappearance, we learned from the Chinese media that she felt “ashamed,” she was apologetic, and she is going to pay more than $130 million (US dollars!) fines plus back tax in order not to be imprisoned. Fan’s “crime” of massive tax evasion was first made public through TV anchor Cui Yongyuan’s social media account, in which he claimed celebrities in entertainment often used the so-called “Yin-Yang Contract” method to evade heavy tax (sometimes close to 50%). When in Los Angeles, I was interviewed on the impact of this recent crackdown on the booming Chinese film market, and here is my take (in mandarin) on the Yin-Yang Contract and its related issues, aired on LA 18, a local mandarin channel:

The First Global University Students FF, Hong Kong

Organized by the School of Communication and the Academy of Film, Hong Kong Baptist University, the First Global University Students Film Festival (GUSFF), with its dedication to encourage and recognize university student films on an international level, will be held between Nov. 7 and 9, 2018 in Hong Kong.

GUSFF is formerly known as the Global Chinese Universities Student Film and Television Festival (GCU), which was initiated by the Academy of Film, School of Communication of Hong Kong Baptist University in 2002. GCU is considered as a flagship event of its kind and is positioned as one of the most successful gateways in building a collaborative relationship among the professionals, scholars and students in Hong Kong and those in the Greater China region. Since 2002, GCU has steadily gained recognition from tertiary institutions from home and abroad. Last year, 56 institutions in Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Mainland China, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, the UK and the US participated to compete for 17 awards.

In 2016, GCU introduced the Foreign Category to its short film competition in view of the Festival’s growing popularity among the overseas film schools, and foreign entries were invited to compete for three Foreign Awards;

Over the years, the Festival’s star-stunned award ceremonies have been broadcasted by major Hong Kong television stations, including TVB, ATV, RTHK and ViuTV, and online platforms. To ride on its success, in 2018, GCU refreshes its brand and the GUSFF is launched with a global focus as a continuation and expansion of the successful initiative to support university student film projects. For details and its progress, please visit the GUSFF official site.

LA Times’ Article on the Yin-Yang Contracts in the Chinese Film Industry

The “Yin-Yang Contracts,” viewed as a common practice in Chinese economy, has turned into a hot topic in the ever-growing film industry of China in recent days, thanks to the “whistleblower” Cui Yongyuan, an outspoken former TV presenter and adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Communication. The whole story was well covered by the LA Times reporter Don Lee on July 9, 2018 in an article titled “China Targeting its Movie Stars’ Sky-High Salaries” (A1 and A9). My former advisor Stanley Rosen of USC and I were interviewed and quoted in the article. For the complete article, please download the paper HERE.