1996–2006: Early work and breakthrough Fan debuted in the television series
Powerful Woman (1997)
, where she met the lead actress
Leanne Liu, who recommended her for the television series
My Fair Princess (1998–1999). The two seasons of costume drama, in which she plays a supporting role as a princess's handmaiden, became a runaway success and brought her recognition across the Chinese-speaking world
. On the eve of the shooting of
My Fair Princess in 1997
, at the age of 16, Fan signed with
Chiung Yao, the Taiwanese writer and showrunner. After Fan rose to fame with the costume drama, her parents closed their clothing business and moved to Beijing to support her acting career, becoming her early agents. Fan broke up with Chiung Yao in 1999, following a high-profile contractual dispute that arose after she signed on to Jia Yun's productions without going through her agency. Fan and her mother filed for termination with the agency, which countersued Fan for unilaterally terminating the contract and demanded a compensation fee of . Through court mediation, Fan settled the contract termination with the agency by paying in compensation, reportedly the life savings of her parents at the time, who had just bought a house in Beijing. In the same year, she was promised with five TV series in three years by Jia Yun, a family friend and founder of Zhejiang Pi Ka Wang Group, a leather and furniture manufacturer which later gained prominence in entertainment business. Jia became a key supporter during the early stage of Fan's career, though her slate of television projects under his company failed to gain traction. Their relationship apparently soured after rumors circulated about a romantic or "kept" relationship between them. When Fan's contract with him expired, her family publicly accused Jia of exploiting her for self-promotion. Jia was placed on a wanted list in 2007 for "illegally absorbing public deposits," and he turned himself in in 2015. In 1999, while shooting TV series
Qingchun Chudong produced by Jia, Fan was introduced by co-actors
Li Bingbing and
Ren Quan to their manager Wang Jinghua, one of China's earliest and most powerful managers. In June 2000, Fan signed with Wang, and followed her next year to join in
Huayi Brothers, where Wang became the head of its talent management. In 2002, Fan established Huairou Fanbingbing Film & Television Art Training School and a production and publicity company, both in the charge of her mother. In 2003, Fan starred in
Feng Xiaogang's
Cell Phone, which became China's
highest-grossing film of the year and earned her the
Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress. Fan also appeared in films such as
The Lion Roars (2002),
The Twins Effect II (2004),
A Chinese Tall Story (2005), and
A Battle of Wits (2006), for which she received a nomination for Best Actress at the 12th
Golden Bauhinia Awards. In 2006,
Forbes China awarded her the Star of the Year. Fan's tenure at
Huayi Brothers, China's leading entertainment conglomerate in the 2000s, was marked by tensions between her rapidly rising stardom and the corporate machinery. Although she benefited from Huayi's strong film production network, the company's lack of adequate public-relations support and personal attention left her frustrated, particularly after her role as a mistress in
Cell Phone drew increasingly negative and often salacious publicity. In 2004, she faced her first public-relations crisis when
Chongqing Business Daily published an article implying her "casting-couch" transaction. Fan urged Huayi to issue an immediate statement, but the company responded only days later, leading to a newspaper retraction that came well past the news cycle. In 2006, a viral post making similar allegations appeared on
Tianya. This time Fan took the initiative with the help of Mu Xiaoguang (also known as Mou Enguang), a Taiwanese businessman with reputed ties with the
Four Seas Gang, who befriended Fan when he was producer of the TV series
The Legend and the Hero (2007). Mu identified the posters as two middle-school students in
Shaanxi Province by tracing the IP address and registration data. The two teenagers admitted to acting on instructions from another actress and issued a public apology to Fan. Fan later stated that she had identified the actress involved but chose not to disclose her name. In 2005, Fan's powerful manager Wang Jinghua left Huayi to co-found Chengtian Entertainment, triggering an exodus of talent and a shake-up across the industry. Fan chose to remain with Huayi, reportedly persuaded by the company's promise to cast her opposite
Chow Yun-fat in the historical epic
A Battle of Wits (2006), though the lead role ultimately went to
Andy Lau. After Wang's departure, her protégé Li Xue, sister of Li Bingbing, who also remained with Huayi, took over as Huayi's head of talent management. The unfavorable internal competition facing Fan intensified as
Zhou Xun joined Huayi. Amid rumors that her contractual negotiations had broken down, Fan largely skipped the promotion of her final project with Huayi,
The Matrimony (2007), which was released around the same time her contract expired.
2007–2017: Mainstream popularity Fan left
Huayi Brothers in February 2007 to establish her own Fan Bingbing Studio, a pioneering example of the one-person agency model in the Chinese entertainment industry, with Mu Xiaoguang as her manager and
Yang Tianzhen as head of public relations. Fan starred in eight films in 2007, including
Shinjuku Incident and
Bodyguards and Assassins, the latter of which earned her a nomination for
Best Supporting Actress at the
29th Hong Kong Film Awards. Notably, Fan collaborated with director
Li Yu for the first time in
Lost in Beijing (2007), beginning a long-term artistic partnership and close friendship. The film, one of the most high-profile cases challenging Chinese film censorship, was selected for the main competition of the
57th Berlin International Film Festival. In response to the submission of its uncensored version to the festival without prior approval, Chinese authorities blocked its domestic release, which had originally been scheduled for May 2007. It was also submitted for consideration at the
44th Golden Horse Awards, but later withdrawn under pressure from Beijing, which that year barred films solely financed by mainland Chinese companies from competing for the Taiwanese awards. According to that year's Golden Horse chair,
Peggy Chiao,
Lost in Beijing would have received seven nominations had it not been withdrawn. Fan was still nominated for and won
Best Supporting Actress for her role in
The Matrimony, though she did not attend the ceremony. In late 2007, a censored version of
Lost in Beijing was finally cleared for release in China, but it had only a brief theatrical run before being pulled from cinemas and banned in early 2008. One of the prominent shifts in Fan's independent era was her team's painstaking effort to rebuild relations with the media, transforming her from one of China's most reviled—and often misogynistically targeted—celebrities into one of its most media-savvy figures. Mu Xiaoguang, known for his fiercely protective attitude toward Fan, financed two television dramas to repair her public image:
Rouge Snow (2008), written by
Yu Zheng, and
Jintai-Pan (2009), adapted from
Pai Hsien-yung's novel of the same name. Both were female-led stories centered on virtuous, resilient women. In
Jintai-Pan, the morally complex nightclub dancer, one of Pai's best-known characters, was rewritten into a traditionally "positive" figure embodying chastity and perseverance. Though the change drew mixed reviews, it reflected Mu's determination to "set Fan straight." The two projects also marked the beginning of Fan's long-term collaboration with co-producer Talent Television & Film Co., Ltd., of which
Zhao Wei was a founding member. The year 2010 marked a leap forward in Fan's career. She earned the Best Actress Award for her performance in
Buddha Mountain at the 23rd
Tokyo International Film Festival. But most memorably, the year was defined by her appearance at the
63rd Cannes Film Festival, where she created a sensation in China with her red carpet gown inspired by a
dragon robe, historically worn by Chinese emperors. The now-iconic ensemble not only cemented her image as an unapologetically ambitious and self-assured woman, but also heralded a new phase in her career, when she fully embraced the power of publicity and image-making. Throughout the 2010s, Fan maintained one of the highest public profiles in China, owing largely to her striking, fashion-forward appearances at international film festivals, often as a brand ambassador rather than for a competing film. Her unconventional path to success attracted both admiration and derision, with critics dubbing her a "carpet star" for a career built more on glamour than on work. In 2011, Fan starred in the martial arts film
Shaolin alongside
Andy Lau and
Jackie Chan and
The Founding of a Party, which was released to mark the 90th anniversary of the
Chinese Communist Party. In May, she appeared at the
64th Cannes Film Festival to promote
My Way. In October, she became a member of the International Competition Jury of the 24th
Tokyo International Film Festival. That same year, Fan signed a four-year artist representation agreement with Talent Film and Television. Under the deal, Talent acted as Fan's exclusive agent for television projects, and Fan became a major shareholder of Talent. For the first half of 2012, Fan attended many fashion shows in Paris. On 16 May, she attended the opening ceremony of the
65th Cannes Film Festival as the only East Asian global spokesperson on behalf of
L'Oréal Paris. In the film
Double Xposure, which was released in China on 29 September, she portrays a girl who, after suffering trauma during childhood, experiences visual hallucinations after witnessing her father kill her mother. Most film critics praised Fan's performance, and she won Best Actress at the 2013
Huading Awards. The film was a financial success, with a domestic gross of more than , which broke the box office record for a domestic art film in China. On 12 December, Fan made an unpaid surprise cameo in
Lost in Thailand in support her first-time filmmaker friend,
Xu Zheng. The film broke the box office record for Chinese films in China. at the premiere for
X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2014|alt=|left In 2013, Fan appeared as Dr. Wu's assistant, Wu Jiaqi, in the mainland Chinese version of
Iron Man 3, which was released on 1 May. The same year, she starred alongside
Aarif Rahman in the romantic comedy
One Night Surprise, which aired on
Chinese Valentine's Day. The low-budget film became a commercial success and received positive reviews. On 9 December 2013, the Chinese e-commerce giant
Alibaba Group's B2C business
Taobao announced that Fan topped the list of the most valuable celebrities for boosting online business and said that Fan influenced approximately in sales on its ecommerce website. On 22 December, Fan received the Best Actress Award and the Hottest Figure Award at the
Baidu Hot Ceremony. In 2014, Fan portrayed the mutant
Blink (Clarice Ferguson) in
X-Men: Days of Future Past. She also announced that she has a four-film contract with
20th Century Fox, yet she has not appeared in another X-Men film since. On 31 May,
Barbie announced the launch of the Fan Bingbing Celebrity Specialty doll in Shanghai.
Louis Vuitton also chose Fan as the first Asian actress to be provided with a specially tailored dress for their red carpet. The same year, she starred in
wuxia fantasy film
The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom. In 2015, Fan joined the
China Central Television (CCTV) variety show as a judge in
Amazing Chinese and as a contestant in the
reality television show ''
Challenger's Alliance. She was ranked fourth on Forbes'' World's Highest-Paid Actresses list for 2015. Following the success of
The Empress of China, which was co-produced by Talent, the company was listed on the
ChiNext board of the
Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2015. Fan's 4-year representation contract with Talent ended in March 2015 without renewal, as part of a planned high-premium acquisition. She established a production company with a registered capital of , packaging her ten-year personal contract rights into the entity. Talent planned to acquire 51% of Fan's company for approximately in cash. However, after Chinese regulators tightened oversight of entertainment-industry mergers and acquisitions in 2016, Talent abandoned the purchase and instead co-founded a joint venture with Fan, with a total investment of from both, to jointly manage her ten-year representation business. which won her Best Supporting Actress at the 1st Golden Screen Awards. Fan then starred in
Guo Jingming's
L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties. The all-star film, which was released on 30 September, is China's first computer-animated motion film, but performed poorly at the box office. Fan won the
Silver Shell for Best Actress at the 64th
San Sebastián International Film Festival and the
Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress for her performance in
I Am Not Madame Bovary, directed by
Feng Xiaogang. Fan was honored at the 2017
Time 100 Gala in
Manhattan, recognized on
Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people. In April 2017, Fan was announced to serve as a jury member at the
2017 Cannes Film Festival. The same year, she starred in
Sky Hunter, an aerial warfare film directed by her partner Li Chen. She also starred in the French film
The Lady in the Portrait opposite
Melvil Poupaud. In June 2017, Fan was invited to become a member of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
2018–2021: Tax case and disappearance On May 10, 2018,
Feng Xiaogang posted on Weibo a concept poster for
Cell Phone 2, a sequel to Fan's breakout film
Cell Phone (2003). On May 27, former CCTV host
Cui Yongyuan, who had a feud with the original film due to its alleged insinuations about his real life, posted on Weibo photos of Fan's contract for
The Bombing (2018), where Cui had been credited as the producer before being replaced by his business partner Shi Jianixang, showing that Fan was paid . On May 28, Cui further alleged that another actor had signed two contracts for a four-day film shoot—one for and the other for —pocketing a total of . Due to the smaller contract's amount matching Fan's revealed contract from the previous day, many incorrectly believed Cui referred to the same person with two days' revelations and was thus accusing Fan of tax evasion through the dual contracts. On May 29, Fan's studio denied the accusation of tax evasion. On June 3, amid public outcry triggered by Cui's posts, China's tax authorities announced the launch of an investigation into Fan's suspected tax evasion. Cui offered his help to the investigation, but clarified that the CN¥60 million contract did not involve Fan, nor did he know whether she had evaded taxes. Instead, the yin-yang contracts he exposed involve a group of people, including Shi Jianxiang and Yang Zi, both behind
The Bombing. Cui also apologized to Fan for subjecting her to the investigation, stating that his targets were Feng Xiaogang and
Liu Zhenyun, the director and the writer of
Cell Phone. Questions, concerns, and rumors about Fan's whereabouts grew when she was not seen after a last public appearance on 1 July 2018, and a lack of activity on social media after 23 July. According to a later deleted Weibo post by Qiu Ziming, a former journalist for
The Economic Observer, Fan was arrested while consulting a fortune-teller Shen Aixu, known by the epithet "Little Immortal," at
Deji Plaza in Nanjing. The session, arranged by Deji founder and real estate tycoon Wu Tiejun, with Fan paying Shen , was raided by the police, who detained Fan, Shen, and Wu on the spot. To maintain secrecy, they covered Fan's head, escorted her from the elevator to the parking garage, and transported her to Beijing by police car. When Fan requested to use the restroom during the transfer, officers cleared the area to prevent exposure. In 2021, the
WeChat official account "Defenders," a society of defense lawyers, disclosed that Shen, the "Little Immortal" arrested alongside Fan, had been sentenced to 12 years in prison. On June 9, Ma Yuan, an actor and nephew of
Xi Jinping, wrote on Weibo, "Everyone, stop making wild guesses… He is not alone…," expressing support for Cui Yongyuan's exposé of the entertainment industry. Ma continued to voice support for Cui on social media and, on June 26, reposted a celebratory article titled "Cui Wins Big! Thousands of Chinese Film Companies Face Bankruptcy!" In the first week of July 2018, Fan canceled a scheduled meeting with a production company, informing them that she had been placed under house arrest. In August, her international agent, Jersey Chong, denied reports that Fan had been arrested. According to the book
Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy by Erich Schwartzel, for months, Fan was secretly detained under "
residential surveillance" at a vacation resort, a form of extrajudicial detention typically used against senior party members. "She was allowed no phone, pen, or paper. She was watched constantly, even while taking showers." Taiwanese television commentator Hsu Sheng-mei claimed, citing a friend of Fan's manager Mu Xiaoguang, that Fan, Mu, their accountant, administrative assistant, and the company's legal representative had all disappeared simultaneously from five different locations in July before being transferred to Beijing "to assist in the investigation." The Taiwanese triad
Four Seas Gang, which had established a presence in mainland China following Taiwan's crackdown in the late 1990s, made efforts to rescue Mu, who had connections with the gang. During Fan's disappearance, her fiancé
Li Chen and brother
Fan Chengcheng continued working. However, when Li made his first appearance on August 28, in a video recorded for
Zhejiang Television's tenth-anniversary celebration, he did not wear his engagement ring. In September,
Montblanc,
Chopard,
Swisse, and Thailand's
King Power terminated their endorsement contracts with Fan, while other brands erased her image. On the evening of September 15, Fan's Weibo account briefly appeared online before going offline again within ten minutes. On September 16, her birthday, the account automatically generated a birthday post, which was immediately deleted. On September 16,
Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of
Global Times, wrote on Weibo that Fan's studio and the authorities should disclose her whereabouts and the progress of the investigation to the public, emphasizing that "transparency is a necessary principle of a law-based society." He also stated that regardless of Cui's motives, his whistleblowing was "an act of courage." On September 17,
Apple Daily reported that Fan had returned home after questioning and was barred from posting or contacting the outside world pending the results of the official investigation. On September 22,
Securities Daily reported that the Jiangsu tax authorities were still investigating cases in the film and television industry, with final results to be announced later, though no individuals were named. Mu remained out of public view until March 2023, when he attended the funeral of his uncle, veteran actor Yun-Peng Shang, in Taipei. Several sources claimed that Mu had served four years in prison to protect Fan by taking the blame, but the Chinese authorities have never disclosed whether he was sentenced following his arrest. Among other individuals connected to Fan's case, Cui Yongyuan alleged that during the investigation he was targeted by Shanghai police for tax evasion, whom he accused of having been bribed by Kuailu Group founded by Shi Jianxiang. In 2019, Cui was blacklisted in China after publicly accusing the
Supreme People's Court of corruption, a claim denied by the authorities. Shi Jianxiang, producer of
The Bombing and Cui's former business partner, left China for the US in March 2016 following an investigation by the
China Film Administration into box office fraud involving
Ip Man 3, which had been packaged by Shi's Kuailu Group as a financial investment product raising more than RMB 10 billion. In April 2024, Shi Peng, then director of the Jiangsu Taxation Bureau and the official who had overseen Fan's case, was placed under investigation for disciplinary and legal violations. Fan's case triggered a sweeping tax-audit campaign and regulatory reforms across China's entertainment industry, leading to a prolonged downturn. In December 2018, a group of cultural and film industry representatives anonymously issued an open letter to Premier
Li Keqiang, questioning the retroactive and punitive taxation methods of the
State Taxation Administration. According to Xinhua News Agency, from October 2018 to the end of the year, taxpayers in the entertainment industry "conducted self-inspections," and in taxes were declared. Since the tax case, Fan has been effectively blacklisted in mainland China. On October 17, 2018,
The Bombing canceled its release in China. On October 26, the film was released as scheduled in North America, with Fan's scenes reduced to nine seconds.
L.O.R.D.: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties 2 was canceled ten days before its originally slated premiere on July 6, 2018. A remade version of the film was released on Tencent Video on December 4, 2020. Fan was removed from the posters and credits, her character's face replaced with CGI and most of her scenes deleted, leaving only her voice. Besides
Cell Phone 2, which wrapped filming in July 2018, Fan's notable unreleased projects include the crime film,
The Perfect Blue, and the historical drama,
The Legend of Ba Qing (also known as
Win the World).
The Perfect Blue, directed by
Cao Baoping, was reportedly reshot with
Ni Ni in 2024.
The Legend of Ba Qing, then the largest single investment in an Asian television series with a budget of , nearly bankrupted its producer, Talent Television & Film, following
Gao Yunxiang's sex scandal and Fan's tax case. Fan ceased to be a shareholder of Talent in 2019, cashing out at least CN¥36 million and ending 13 years of close collaboration. Talent spent over using AI to alter the faces of the show's two leads and announced in 2020 that the series had been delivered to
Alibaba Group's Tmall Technology, which paid CN¥450–480 million for the show's permanent exclusive distribution rights, with the AI-altered version reportedly featuring Li Chen and
Wang Likun. However, in October 2025,
Angela Pan said that the series remained banned. Fan made attempts at a comeback in China with limited success, with her publicity usually censored or
shadowbanned on the Chinese internet. From November 2018 to February 2019,
Louis Vuitton held the exhibition
Volez, Voguez, Voyagez in Shanghai. A gown previously worn by Fan, who had collaborated with the luxury brand since 2012, was displayed as part of the exhibition, and her image appeared on a large screen at the venue. On April 22, 2019, Fan attended the
iQIYI Ninth Anniversary Gala in Beijing, with photos posted on her
Instagram the next day. This was her first public event after the tax case; however, by the time she arrived, the media session had already ended. Her closed-door session included only industry VIPs, with no journalists present. In May 2019, Chen Lizhi, founder of MaxTimes and Fan's co-founder in the Heart Ali charity project for children with congenital heart disease in Tibet in 2010, revealed on WeChat Moments that Fan had traveled to Tibet for a charity event but fell ill due to altitude sickness. Shortly afterward,
China.org.cn, the web portal of
China Internet Information Center, published an article cautioning Fan against using charity as a means to "whitewash" her image or "salvage" her career. Fan was in attendance at the Shanghai Beauty Summit on 12 July and the 12th China Cosmetic Summit on 22 July. In September, Louis Vuitton released a set of promotional images on social media featuring several ambassadors, including Fan. The Weibo post received negative comments and was deleted within three hours, although the same content remained accessible on Instagram and Twitter. Since June 2019, Fan appeared on the covers of international magazines, including
Grazia Korea,
Marie Claire Malaysia, ''L'Officiel Russia
, and Harper's Bazaar Vietnam
. In June 2020, Fan appeared on the cover of Lifestyle'', her first Chinese magazine cover since the tax case. In August 2020,
LVMH-owned
Guerlain announced her as its global brand ambassador. In October, Fan walked the red carpet at the 27th
Huading Awards, where she had initially been scheduled to present an award but was omitted from the final ceremony lineup. On November 13, China's
National Radio and Television Administration issued a notice prohibiting "law- and ethics-violating artists" from appearing or speaking publicly. On November 17, Fan appeared at the
Ellemen Film Hero Awards to present an award for the animated film
Legend of Deification, but she was excluded from the live broadcast on
Youku. In the two years following her tax case until the end of 2020, as part of her efforts to pay the penalty, Fan filed over 200 infringement lawsuits in China, the majority of which she won. Some defendants, after losing their cases, appealed for a second trial, claiming that as a scandal-hit public figure, her image no longer held commercial value. However, these appeals were also unsuccessful. In April 2021, following Chinese actress
Zheng Shuang's tax case, a Weibo user posted in defense of Fan: "I hope the authorities will release the full list of those who contributed to the in back taxes after Fan Bingbing's case. Don't single someone out and crush them completely—publish the entire list and rectify the issue systemically. Stop using the salary cap policy as a smokescreen to fool the audience. I believe exorbitant pay is a systemic issue, and solving it would be truly commendable." Fan liked the post in Weibo but later unliked it and posted: "This world has never been fair. When you feel something is unfair, you need to accept it as normal. When you feel something is fair, you should consider yourself lucky." Unlike many other Chinese celebrities who were convicted of tax evasion after her trend-setting case, Fan was allowed to maintain a social media presence, which she parlayed into a successful career running her personal brand, Fan Beauty. Founded not long before her tax case, Fan Beauty's
GMV surpassed in 2021, in 2022, and in 2023.
2022–present: Overseas ventures In January 2022, two Hollywood films starring Fan,
The 355 and ''
The King's Daughter, were released. Her participation in The 355
had been announced at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival shortly before her tax investigation. Production was subsequently delayed and did not resume until the summer of 2019, when scenes involving her character were filmed in Paris using a body double, Chinese actress Lu Ning. Fan was eventually permitted to leave China to complete filming in Los Angeles, shot against a green screen and integrated through post-production. The film, her first project following her reemergence, saw its Douban page removed prior to its premiere. The King's Daughter
, which had completed filming in 2014, was released shortly after The 355''. Fan's performances in both films received negative notices and earned her a nomination for the
Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress. In the same year, Fan had a cameo role in the South Korean TV series
Insider (2022) and received the ACA Excellence Award at the
Busan Film Festival's Asian Content Awards. In 2023, she starred in the Hong Kong-produced, South Korea-set
independent film Green Night (2023), directed by Chinese director Han Shuai. The film, which contains queer themes that would be banned in China, premiered in the Panorama section of the
73rd Berlin International Film Festival, marking her return to the film industry after five years. In September 2023, she served as a jury member at the
71st San Sebastián International Film Festival. In October 2023, she received the Cinema Icon Award at the
34th Singapore International Film Festival. In November and December 2024, two of Fan‘s earlier films,
Bodyguards and Assassins (2009) and
Sacrifice (2010), were screened in two themed retrospective exhibitions across China, marking the first time her works were shown in the country since her tax case. In February 2025, Fan joined the competition jury at the
75th Berlin International Film Festival, presided over by
Todd Haynes. That same year, she played a Sherpa in the American action-thriller
Ice Road: Vengeance, opposite
Liam Neeson. She also played a widowed farmer and spiritual healer in the Malaysian independent film
Mother Bhumi, directed by
Chong Keat Aun. The film was selected for the main competition section of the
38th Tokyo International Film Festival, and earned her
Best Leading Actress at the
62nd Golden Horse Awards. The win made her the first major mainland Chinese actor to compete for and receive the award since it was boycotted by the Beijing government following a pro-
Taiwan independence speech by a Taiwanese winner at the ceremony in 2018. Despite having expressed a strong desire to attend the ceremony in Taipei, Fan did not appear and instead delivered her acceptance speech by phone through the director on stage. News of her win was heavily censored on Weibo and other Chinese social media platforms, with posts by both her studio and herself deleted. From 25 to 29 December 2025,
Mother Bhumi was screened in Hong Kong in five theatrical showings to meet the eligibility requirements for the 44th
Hong Kong Film Awards. On 15 January 2026, when the list of eligible films was released,
Mother Bhumi, along with three other films, was absent and therefore ruled ineligible, with no explanation given. In March,
Mother Bhumi entered the main competition of the 28th
Far East Film Festival in
Udine, Italy, with Fan receiving the Golden Mulberry Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. == Media image ==