Fan Bingbing Returns to Television Two Years After Her Tax-Evasion Scandal

Chinese actress Fan Bingbing is making her return to the screen following a two-year exile from the entertainment industry due to a tax-evasion scandal. Per Deadline, the South China Morning Post reports that her 2018 series Win the World will debut on streaming service Youku, date to be announced. The period drama was originally scheduled to air in 2018, but both Fan Bingbing and her co-star, Gao Yunxiang, were facing scandals at the time. Gao was arrested in Australia and accused of sexual assault. He was acquitted in March 2020 after 22 months in custody. According to Deadline, the show was halted in the middle of production and it’s unclear whether additional filming was necessary. The series will reportedly be 60 episodes instead of the planned 76. In the series, Fan Bingbing plays a widow and entrepreneur who helps the founder of the Qin dynasty fund the construction of the Great Wall. The actress knows a thing or two about getting money. She disappeared for months in 2018 amid accusations of tax evasion, reportedly in excess of $100 million. In a Weibo post made in October 2018, Fan accepted the charges and agreed to a fine of $70 million. Universal has set her next project — Simon Kinberg’s spy thriller 355, co-starring Penelope Cruz, Jessica Chastain, and Lupita Nyong’o — for January 2021. Who doesn’t love a comeback?