Do we like Zhang Ziyi?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent record, no harmful words or acts found, one old charity stumble that was put right, and not much on LGBTQ+ issues either way.
Zhang Ziyi has now been at it for close to 30 years, and she's still being handed gongs. In March she accepted the Excellence in Asian Cinema award at the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong, saying she'd spent over 20 years growing through cinema. She used the speech to urge filmmakers to tell more of Asia's stories.
The latest bit of news is a tidy one. Hong Kong Baptist University gave her an honorary professorship on 27 October and she spoke to film students at its Future Film Fest. On connecting emotionally with a role, she told them it sounds easy but is very difficult to do. Nothing messy about it, which is the theme of her recent news.
Her biggest scrape was a nasty one that she was on the wrong end of. In 2012 the US-based site Boxun alleged she'd been paid for sex with senior officials. She sued for libel, and in December 2013 the site settled, retracted the reports as untrue and apologised. Her side of that story is the one a court settlement backs.
The charity one is murkier. In 2010 China's state broadcaster CCTV alleged she hadn't paid the full amount she'd pledged to quake relief after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Her manager said the shortfall was paid once it was discovered, and the Chinese Red Cross Foundation said it had received her full pledge. It reads as sloppy admin rather than a scam, but it's the one real mark against her.
On the harm check, honestly, there's very little to report. We found nothing from her on trans people, women, migrants or the planet, good or bad, and no run of dodgy projects or company. She did walk away from Dolce & Gabbana in 2018, calling the brand disgraced after its co-founder insulted Chinese people, and said she and her team would stop buying its products. That's a point in her favour, but it isn't proof of where she stands on LGBTQ+ rights, so we'll say the record is thin.
So would we support her? Yes, with a small asterisk and a note that this is a thin file. Nothing nasty, a defamation fight she won, a bit of grace on the Dolce & Gabbana thing, and one old donation hiccup that was fixed. We'd happily put her on the screen. A clearer word from her on LGBTQ+ people would bump the number up.