HOLLYWOOD EAST
THE LINE WAS TRITE, BUT FAN BINGBING delivered it with conviction. Looping arms with kung fu legend Jackie Chan, she craned her neck and widened her eyes into a lemur-like gaze. “You’re not all here for us, are you?” she asked, with manufactured surprise, of the hordes gathered at a PR event for the action flick Skiptrace. In truth, they weren’t. Far more than Jackie—as Chan is universally known, with an antic exclamation point after his first name—they were there for her.
Fan, 35, is China’s biggest celebrity, having ruled the screen since her teenage years. Her work ethic makes the ubiquitous Jennifer Lawrence look like a slacker. Last summer, Fan starred in two blockbusters, one of which was Skiptrace, also featuring Jackie and directed by Hollywood-turned-Beijing transplant Renny Harlin. Another Fan vehicle, L.O.R.D.: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties, has made over $55 million since opening in September. There are also the cover-girl obligations for L’Oréal, Louis Vuitton and Cartier, among other luxury brands eager to associate themselves with Fan’s face in China’s market. Fan ranks as the world’s fifth best-paid actress, according to Forbes, nestled between Jennifer Aniston and Charlize Theron. She is so adored at home that plastic surgeons specialize in giving clients the Fan Bingbing look: outsize eyes peering out of a V-shaped face, like a cartoon princess ready for her selfie.
Sure, barely anyone outside China has ever heard of the Chinese actor—but that doesn’t really matter. Fan’s megawattage proves that celluloid success no longer depends on making it big in Hollywood. She has dipped a slender ankle—the Chinese aesthetic’s ideal ankle is one so delicate, it can be encircled by thumb and forefinger—into Hollywood. But so far she has been confined to the background. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Fan portrayed a teleporting mutant named Blink. The name was apt—critics joked that if you blinked, you might miss her speak in her Hollywood debut; she also played an unnamed nurse in Iron Man 3—though you’d see her only in the extra scenes added specifically for the China market. “The reason I
