The second part of the Chinese government crack down on celebrity earnings is now in effect. The first part was investigation and self-reporting of tax evasion with the biggest scapegoat being top actress Fan Bing Bing, you fly the highest then you’re the first to be shot down. The second part requires that stars and production companies cap salaries going forward, and will also retroactively apply for recent productions. Dramas and variety shows much cap salaries to 800,000 RMB per episode and 10 million RMB for a season. Top stars Zhao Wei and Shu Qi have reportedly returned 4/5th of their salary for recently participating in season 2 of hit show Chinese Restaurant. Salary inflation has gone insane in entertainment especially in China where it’s the center of growth and expansion so this will be a good moment keep things in check.
I’m more amazed that the ancient HK actors still have such salary demanding power ala Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat and Andy Lau. This can’t be true.
Andy Lau and Chow Yun Fat deserve it! And Jackie Chan, well he’s popular even outside China (and he loves the government) so he has that demanding power.
Why wouldn’t they? They are international stars for decades. Especially Jackie Chan.
Good thing they’re keeping their salaries in check. It can’t be that staff gets 1000th of what the actors get. Some of these starlings haven’t done anything special and their acting’s not even that good to begin with..
The ignorance expressed here regarding Chinese domestic politics is embarrassing.
If the shows are earning hundreds of millions, that means they can afford to pay the stars. Is it not fair to pay the stars that much if they make millions for the production companies? In the end, who really benefits from this salary cap?
The C general public is prone excessive exuberance stemming from flocking. This creates economic and industry bubbles that can have detrimental effects on the wider economy. (This is not just for the C public. The North American ones also have their local flocking favs).
Flocking examples include the nearly 1000 Mary Sue Cdramas by now. After the success of Zhen Huan Biography, we now have multiple palace dramas in 2018 alone.
For examples of why flocking can be bad, you only need to look at the overly crowded touristy cities in the world with trash strewn about, overcrowded transportation, insanely long queues for Chanel, LV stores in some places. It’s worse with an industry. It’s known to cause dramatic boom and bust cycles, causing a whole country to go into an economic recession. When Mary Sue drama formula ceases to work, many production companies may lose a lot of money at the same time. Some may go bust.
Then you also hear about how 30+ year old actresses like Yang Rong and others are having problems finding employment. This may be early hints of an overheated industry. Beneath a few bright spots of some current favorites like Zhao Liying, TF Boys, Ju Jingyi, Zheng Shuang, there may be industry problems not visible to the public.
C is still an emerging market, albeit the largest of the EM. While entertainment can indeed be enjoyable, it is ultimately not life-changing. So you see the C government invest in healthcare, artificial intelligence. The public loves to get more affluent, but a lot of the times people (especially youth) are drawn to a lot of the wrong signals. Like the flashy entertainment business. No matter how much Fan Bingbing makes, it’ll never rival the Wanda Dalian’s Wang Jianlin’s or Alibaba’s Jack Ma in wealth. Just like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt’s net worth pale in comparison to Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or the much younger Mark Zuckerberg.
Fan Bingbing’s net worth is around 100M. Zhang Xin (female CEO of SOHO, a Chinese real estate firm)’s net worth is valued at 3.3 billion. Quite a lot more than FBB’s. Tao Huabi, a lady who was born in the “boonies”, Guizhou. TH got rich selling chili paste and has a net worth of about 1 billion. Still 10 times FBB’s net worth.
The general public is not as wise as they think. The top prize in C entertainment is quite a lot less in monetary worth compared to many other industries, yet so many people are drawn to the entertainment industry vs all the others. The general public is not the best judge for quality and utility. At least an individual’s net worth is slightly more indicative of the intrinsic value in someone’s career endeavor.
However, the entertainment industry can help some individuals who have talent in that particular field get rich fast. The trouble is when popular stars with no talent earn lots of money such as Angelsbaby.
A good number of young guys have retired early after selling out their very popular app or spreadsheet programs too. They are just less visible than celebs.
Entertainment industry comes with a lot of risks and inconveniences. Have to invest a lot of time and money to look good. Get noticed by the right people. Avoid Weinstein problems. Deal with unending random public comments.
Angelababy has business and other talents outside of acting. Getting resources to back her up. Exploiting fan trends and connections. Some of us with her level of acting will never get nearly as far as she has. There are lots of fans for celebs like Tang Yan, DLRB, Zheng Shuang, Yang Mi, Li Yifeng. They don’t look like are favored for their superb acting skills. Inexplicable to us, but it makes these celebs millions.
I would be pissed if I had to pay back money that I worked for. Smh. Lol
Angelababy is overated, my opinion. She can’t act. Only a flower girl in RM China but saying she competes like any guy.