Fan Bingbing tax scandal has Hong Kong, China filmmakers on edge

Oct. 5 (UPI) -- China and Hong Kong's entertainment industry is watching and waiting for next moves from the Chinese government, following a confession from top-billed actress Fan Bingbing regarding tax evasion.

Film directors and producers are worried the crackdown on the tax affairs of celebrities will haunt locally produced media, the South China Morning Post reported Friday.

Tenky Tin Kai-man, head of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, told the newspaper most production on movies and TV is being put on hold.

Hong Kong is governed separately as a special administrative region, but a trade pact between the city and China means Hong Kong productions are not counted as foreign imports.

Hong Kong filmmakers also work on the mainland in "large numbers," according to Tin.

Fan apologized during a "reappearance" on Wednesday and agreed to pay $129 million in fines and unpaid taxes.

"I was in pain and agony," Fan had said after being secretly detained by Chinese authorities.

The actress had disappeared from the public eye on July 2, after she visited a children's hospital in Tibet, The Guardian reported Thursday.

She was most likely detained at a "holiday resort" in Wuxi, under a 2013 law that can allow the state to monitor suspects and keep them under "residential surveillance at a designated location."

Human rights advocate Michael Caster said that "in practice, it often means someone is held in secret, and denied all contact with the outside world."

Caster said subjects could be the target of "one form of torture or another, from prolonged sleep deprivation to physical pain, beatings, stress positions, mental abuse and threatening family members."

Forced confessions are the result of the detentions, he said.

Fan said on Weibo this week that "For a long time, I did not distinguish between national, social and personal interests...As a public figure, I should abide by the law, and play a leading role in society and industry...Without the good policies of the party and the state, and without the love of the people, there would be no Fan Bingbing."

Fan is suspected of being paid under a "yin yang contract" or two payments for the same job, most recently for her work in the new movie Air Strike starring Bruce Willis.