Blink, and you may miss her

Fan: her latest attempt to crack Hollywood sees her star in X-Men movie

Most WiC readers will have missed Fan Bingbing’s first Hollywood foray in the blockbuster Iron Man 3. Her cameo appearance – she plays a nurse who attends to Tony Stark – was cut entirely from the film’s international release. Even for the Chinese version, where Fan does make an appearance, it’s a blink-and-miss-it moment.

So perhaps it’s appropriate that Fan’s second attempt at Tinseltown stardom sees her play a character called Blink in the latest X-Men instalment, Days of Future Past.

Fan plays a mutant with powers of teleportation (a tough role for method actors, WiC would guess). But Fan seems to have concentrated more on dialogue, with producers hiring a language coach to help her with the script. It’s difficult to know whether it was worth the money (Blink has one line: “They are here”). But Xinhua was still impressed, and helpfully pointed out that Fan had the same screen time as former Bond girl Halle Berry.

“Just because Fan only has one line doesn’t mean she appears in just one scene,” it pointed out. “Although, admittedly, most of her scenes are fight scenes,” it conceded.

Fan says she’s not bothered by her relatively brief appearance. “There are a lot of Hollywood stars in the movie and everyone’s screen time is limited. But the film is said to be the best in the X-Men franchise. To be a part of that is good for me,“ she told reporters. “I’ll be much happier if I get more opportunities in Hollywood because there’s lots of things for me to learn.”

Chinese cinemagoers were keen to appraise Fan’s latest performance. The X-Men flick logged an impressive $39.5 million in ticket sales during its first weekend, the biggest Hollywood opening in China this year. X-Men should continue to do well, helped by the Dragon Boat Festival holiday on Monday, which will have prompted larger audiences over the long weekend.

© ChinTell Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sponsored by HSBC.

The Week in China website and the weekly magazine publications are owned and maintained by ChinTell Limited, Hong Kong. Neither HSBC nor any member of the HSBC group of companies ("HSBC") endorses the contents and/or is involved in selecting, creating or editing the contents of the Week in China website or the Week in China magazine. The views expressed in these publications are solely the views of ChinTell Limited and do not necessarily reflect the views or investment ideas of HSBC. No responsibility will therefore be assumed by HSBC for the contents of these publications or for the errors or omissions therein.