What Happened to Fan Bingbing, China’s Most Famous Actress?

范冰冰可以说是中国最著名的女演员了，这位多产的影星凭借在《钢铁侠》和《X战警》系列中扮演的角色，成功地获得了国际名声。今年5月，她曾出现在嘎纳电影节上，与杰西卡·查斯坦、玛丽昂·歌迪亚、佩内洛普·克鲁兹和露皮塔·尼永奥一起，为一部即将上映的间谍大片做宣传。

She has more than 62 million followers on China’s equivalent of Twitter, Weibo, and appears in ads for products around the world — from vitamins in Australia to lipstick by Guerlain, the watches of Montblanc and the diamonds of De Beers.

她在中国类似推特的平台微博上拥有逾6200万粉丝，世界各地的产品广告上也常有她的面孔——从澳大利亚的维生素到娇兰唇膏、万宝龙服装以及戴比尔斯钻石。

Now she is missing.

而现在，她失踪了。

Ms. Fan, who turns 37 on Sunday, has dropped out of public view for more than three months — the victim of a sudden and precipitous fall from grace.

本周日即将满37岁的范冰冰已从公众视野中消失三个多月，遭受了一次骤然的名声大跌。

Her disappearance has been greeted with concern among fans and fear among her counterparts in the industry. It has fueled a flurry of rumors of personal rivalries and political intrigue, even at the pinnacles of power in Beijing, though few concrete facts.

她的失踪已在粉丝们中引起了担忧，在业内同行中引发了恐惧。这件事也引发了关于个人恩怨和政治阴谋的频繁传言，甚至涉及到北京的权力巅峰，但没有多少具体的事实。

That so little is known about someone so famous in China — even whether she is in detention, or in hiding — says much about the murky intersection of politics and business, entertainment and celebrity.

人们对一个在中国如此有名的人目前的状况——就连她是被拘押还是躲了起来——都知之甚少，这本身在很大程度上表明了中国政治、商业、娱乐和名人的模糊交集。

“She’s like collateral damage,” Hung Huang, a critic and publisher, said.

“她像是成了附带破坏的牺牲品，”评论人兼出版商洪晃说。

Ms. Fan’s disappearance appears to be related to a government investigation into tax evasion in the film business, but she has not been charged with any crime, and no officials have confirmed that she is even under investigation. Few who know her, or the industry, believe it is simply a matter of paying taxes, though. And the damage to her reputation — and perhaps her livelihood — has already been done.

范冰冰的失踪似乎与政府对影视行业逃税行为的调查有关，但她还没有被指控犯有任何罪名，也没有官员证实她是否正在接受调查。然而，在认识她的人中，或影视行业内，很少有人相信这只是个纳税的问题。对她的名誉——以及或许对她的生计——的损害已是既成事实。

Her name was abruptly removed from the posters for a Chinese production starring Bruce Willis, known in English as “Unbreakable Spirit,” about the Japanese bombing of China’s wartime capital, Chongqing, from 1938 to 1943.

她的名字突然从布鲁斯·威利斯(Bruce Willis)参演的国产影片《大轰炸》海报上消失了。这部电影讲的是1938年至1943年间日本轰炸中国战时首都重庆的故事。

The film’s release, originally scheduled for August, has also been delayed until October, though whether that is linked to her situation remains unclear. (The name in Chinese is “Da Hong Zha,” which, inauspiciously for any movie, can mean “The Big Bomb.”)

影片原定的8月上映日，也已被推迟到10月份，不过尚不清楚这是否与范冰冰目前的状况有关。（影片的中文名字《大轰炸》翻成英文可以是“The Big Bomb”，对任何电影都是不太吉利的。

Another film in which she had a role, a sequel of an animated motion-capture film, also was delayed in June and has not yet been rescheduled. Raymond Zhou, an independent film critic, claimed in an interview that Ms. Fan’s role had been edited out.

范冰冰参演的另一部电影——一个动作捕捉动画片的续集——6月的上映日也被推迟了，目前还没有安排新的日子。独立影评人周黎明在接受采访时声称，范冰冰在该片中的角色已在剪辑过程中被删掉。

Several of the brands she represents also have distanced themselves from her. They include Swisse Wellness, an Australian company, which announced it was suspending use of her name, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Wednesday. A duty free store in Thailand did the same.

她代言的几个品牌也在拉开与她的距离。其中包括澳大利亚保健品公司Swisse Wellness，据《悉尼先驱晨报》周三报道，该公司宣布暂停使用她的名字。泰国的一家免税店也做出了同样的表示。

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Beijing Normal University published a survey ranking “social responsibility” among 100 celebrities last week and put Ms. Fan last.

中国社会科学院和北京师范大学上周发布了今年的《中国影视明星社会责任研究报告》，范冰冰在100位名人中排名倒数第一。

A promotional video Ms. Fan recorded for De Beers, posted on YouTube on May 24, amounts to one of her last public appearances.

范冰冰为戴比尔斯录制的一段宣传视频是5月24日在优兔上发布的，这大概是她最后一次公开露面。

In it, Ms. Fan describes how her parents sent her to music school as a child and wanted her to be a teacher, though she decided as a teenager to pursue an acting career. (She compares cutting a diamond for jewelry to the process of making a film.)

在这段视频中，范冰冰讲述了自己的父母怎样在她小时候送她去音乐学校，希望她成为一名教师，但她在十几岁时决定从事演艺事业的故事。（她把将钻石加工成珠宝的过程比作拍电影。）

“Women today are very powerful,” she says, “they take control of their work and career, and in the meantime take care of their families.”

“当今的女性其实是非常厉害的，”她说。“因为她们可以兼顾自己喜欢的工作和事业，还可以兼顾自己的家庭。”

Ms. Fan’s disappearance followed an accusation in late May by a retired state television anchor, Cui Yongyuan. He posted on Weibo what appeared to be two contracts for an upcoming film, a sequel to one of her early successes, “Cell Phone,”released in 2003. One purported to show a salary of $1.6 million to be reported to the tax authorities (for four days work, as was widely noted online), the second an actual payment of $7.8 million.

范冰冰的失踪发生在中国国家电视台的退休主持人崔永元在今年5月底对她进行指控之后。崔永元在微博上公布了似乎是一部即将上映影片的两份合同，该片是2003年上映的《手机》的续集，《手机》是范冰冰成名的早期作品之一。其中一份合同据称显示的片酬是1000万元（付给四天的工作量，如网上人们普遍指出的那样），这是要报给税务局的片酬，另一份合同上则是实际支付的6000万元的片酬。

The practice of having dual contracts — known as “yin and yang” contracts — is widespread in many industries in China as a way to avoid taxes, but Mr. Cui’s accusation prompted the State Administration of Taxation to announce a broad inquiry into the entertainment industry.

使用所谓“阴阳”双重合同作为一种避税手段的做法，在中国的许多行业都很普遍，但崔永元的指控导致国家税务总局宣布将对娱乐业进行一次全面调查。

Its announcement did not mention Ms. Fan, but included this warning: “If violations of tax laws and regulations are found, they will be handled in strict accordance with the law.”

税务总局的声明中没有提到范冰冰的名字，但警告说：“如发现违反税收法律法规的行为，将严格依法处理。”

Mr. Cui later retreated from his initial accusations, saying he did not mean to target Ms. Fan. His ire appeared to be directed as much toward the director of “Cell Phone,” Feng Xiaogang. Mr. Cui previously had accused him of slander because the plot — in which a prominent television anchor has an affair with an assistant, played by Ms. Fan — bore striking, though he said inaccurate, parallels to Mr. Cui’s own career. A person at Mr. Cui’s office said he was no longer making any statements on the matter.

崔永元后来改变了他最初的指控，说自己不想针对范冰冰。他的怒火似乎也针对《手机》的导演冯小刚。崔永元此前曾指控冯小刚诽谤，因为《手机》的情节——一位著名电视主持人与（范冰冰扮演的）助手发生婚外情——与崔永元的职业生涯有惊人的相似之处，虽然崔永元曾表示那些说法不准确。崔永元办公室的一位人士说，他不再就此事发表任何声明。

Ms. Fan denied the accusation of tax evasion — as has Mr. Feng — but she has stopped posting on her Weibo account since the tax investigation was announced. Nor has she updated her verified Twitter and Facebook accounts since she was in Cannes in May. There have been rumors of her arrest or detention — or even her flight from China.

范冰冰否认了逃税指控，冯小刚也否认逃税，但自从税务局宣布调查以来，她已停止了在微博上发帖。而且，自从今年5月参加戛纳电影节以来，范冰冰再也没有更新过自己在Twitter和Facebook的实名账户。她已被逮捕或拘押的传言已经出现，甚至还有传言说她逃离了中国。

Efforts to reach Ms. Fan or a spokesman in recent weeks proved unsuccessful.

记者在最近几周里试图联系范冰冰本人或其发言人的努力未获成功。

Officials declined to comment on the status of the investigation, or whether Ms. Fan has since become a focus of it. An official with the Public Security Bureau in Wuxi, the city near Shanghai where her studio is based, refused to comment on whether the bureau had, as rumored, taken over the case.

有关官员拒绝就调查的进展置评，也不愿对范冰冰是否已成为调查的焦点置评。范冰冰工作室位于上海附近的无锡市，该市公安局的一名官员拒绝对无锡市公安局已接手此案的传言置评。

“The situation is that we all speak with one voice from top to bottom: that is that we don’t accept interviews and we have no comment,” the official said.

“这个情况就是我们从上到下都是有统一口径，就是对外是不接受采访也是无可奉告，”这位官员说。

Until now, at least, a partnership with Ms. Fan has been a prize for international luxury companies. She is a regular sight at red carpets and fashion shows around the world, and has a well-documented love of Louis Vuitton, Valentino and Chopard.

至少迄今为止，签下范冰冰给国际奢侈品公司带来好处。她是全世界走红毯和时装秀的常客，有充分证据表明她喜欢路易威登、华伦天奴和萧邦。

Luxury brands, though, tend to be careful with China, because their biggest growth is in Asian markets.

毕竟奢侈品牌注重中国，因为它们增长最快的市场在亚洲。

Montblanc, a German accessories brand that has worked with Ms. Fan since April, confirmed that it had terminated her contract. The company praised Ms. Fan as “the quintessential modern woman” when it brought her on in the spring.

4月以来同范冰冰合作的德国饰品品牌万宝龙确认终止了合同。公司今年春天公布合作时赞誉范冰冰“典型的现代女人”。

De Beers, the diamond company, has had a long relationship with Ms. Fan, who wore De Beers jewelry at the Cannes Film Festival this year. On Wednesday, she was missing from company web pages. After inquiries about the removal, she reappeared.

钻石公司戴比尔斯同范冰冰有长期合作关系，范冰冰今年在戛纳电影节上佩戴了戴比尔斯的珠宝。周三，她被从公司网站上撤下，有人询问撤掉原因后，她有出现了。

Jeff Trexler, associate director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University, said displays of conspicuous wealth are seen as an affront to the message being promoted by the Chinese government: that everyone in the country is rising upward on an economic wave. “The more wealthy your spokespeople are, the greater the risk is,” he said.

福德汉姆大学时尚法研究所副主任杰夫·特雷克斯勒说，过分露财被视为对中国政府主张的一种冒犯，这种主张是全国人民都富裕起来了。“你的发言人越富有，风险越大。”

Companies also worry that if they upset the Chinese government by continuing to promote someone who has fallen from favor, as Ms. Fan appears to have, they might suffer in a variety of ways, from taxes audits to obstacles opening new stores.

各公司还担心，如果继续支持范冰冰这样失势的人，可能会各种倒霉，包括被查税和难开新店等。

When it comes to the entertainment industry, which is heavily censored in China, the authorities appear to be particularly sensitive to the influence stars can have — for better or worse — on public opinion.

中国对娱乐行业有严格的审查，就这个行业而论，当局似乎对明星可能对公众舆论产生的（好的或坏的）影响特别敏感。

In the aftermath of the tax investigation, the authorities also announced new limitson the salaries of actors, even in privately financed films. No one actor can now earn more than 70 percent of the entire cast or more than 40 percent of production costs. The statement did not mention Ms. Fan, but said the industry was “distorting social values” and “fostering money worship tendencies.”

早在税务调查之前，当局就宣布过对演员片酬的限制，哪怕是私人出资拍摄的电影。被媒体称为“限酬令”的通知说，单个演员的片酬不得超过全部演员总片酬的70%，全部演员的总片酬不得超过制作成本的40%。当局最近再次发通知要求严格落实限酬令，通知虽然没有提到范冰冰，但指责过高的片酬“扭曲社会价值观念”，“滋长拜金主义倾向”。

Ms. Hung, the critic, said the investigation clearly had been intended to send a message about celebrity excess — and perhaps even about tax evasion. She noted the often-cited idiom “to kill a chicken to scare the monkey,” and said even the uncertainty around Ms. Fan’s case would have a chilling effect.

评论人洪晃表示，此次调查显然是要对名人的放肆行为，甚至是可能的逃税行为传递一个信息。她指出，中国有一个常用的成语：“杀鸡儆猴”，仅是围绕着范冰冰案的不确定性就足以产生寒蝉效应。

翻译：Cindy Hao

纽约时报中文网

转自英文联播

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