Recently, the salary of Chinese actress Mao Xiaotong topped the Weibo hot search list. Actor Liu Jin uploaded a video on Weibo, revealing that he was owed 16,000 yuan in salary by the second season of "Painting Rivers and Lakes: The Bad Guys" in 2017, and he has not yet asked for it back. The heroine of the same drama, Mao Xiaotong, who played the role of the Northern Qi princess in the hit drama "Joy of Life 2", was owed more than 12 million yuan in salary. The entertainment industry was immediately "exploded", and netizens lamented that ordinary people could not earn so much money in their lifetime.
Actor Liu Jin, who played supporting roles in films such as "Charlotte's Troubles", posted a short video on a short video platform last Friday (25th), saying that Mao Xiaotong was owed 12.5 million yuan in salary by the crew when she starred in "Painting Rivers and Lakes: The Bad Guys 2". Liu Jin said that in the summer of 2017, he took on the second season of "Painting Rivers and Lakes: The Bad Guys". During the filming process, the film crew called a halt due to funding issues, and all the actors were forced to disband on the spot. He was owed 16,000 yuan in salary by the crew, which he has not yet received. Mao Xiaotong, the leading actress of the show, sued the film crew and won the case, but when it was finally executed, it was suspended because there was no executable property under the name of the film company.
On Monday afternoon, Mao Xiaotong's unpaid salary topped the trending search list. It sparked heated discussions among netizens and shocked the Chinese entertainment industry. Fang Rong, an insider in the TV drama industry, said in an interview with Radio Free Asia on Tuesday that Mao Xiaotong's salary of 12.5 million yuan was in line with the film and television market of the year, and that problems may have arisen during the period when the investors stopped filming. She said: "First, many bosses' films cannot be broadcast because they cannot pass the review. Second, an actor in the film is on the blacklist. Third, there are all kinds of situations saying that this film cannot be broadcast, this film cannot be broadcast, and that film cannot be broadcast."
Investing in TV dramas is risky, and filming was stopped during the shoot
Fang Rong also said that many TV dramas were stopped by the authorities for various reasons during the filming process, and the investors suffered heavy losses: "I have several friends in Beijing who invest in film and television. In 2019, I had dinner at the entertainment circle dinner table in Beijing for two consecutive days. On the first day, a small boss said that he had lost 50 million yuan in investment. Another said that if the loss was not hundreds of millions of yuan, don't talk about it when you dine at our table."
According to the Morning News, the lawsuit mentioned in Liu Jin's revelation does exist. As early as June 2021, a court judgment was made public online. The applicant for execution was Mao Xiaotong (Shanghai) Film and Television Studio, and the executed persons were Wang Zhi and Beijing "Ying Bai Nian" Cultural Media Co., Ltd. The trial court was the Dongcheng District Court of Beijing. The court judgment shows that Mao Xiaotong (Shanghai) Studio requested the court to order "Ying Bai Nian" Company to pay Mao Xiaotong (Shanghai) Studio 12.5 million yuan in service fees for the third and fourth episodes of the TV series "Painting Rivers and Lakes: The Bad Man (Season 2)" and 2.5 million yuan in liquidated damages for overdue payment, and at the same time bear the attorney fees of 104,800 yuan for this rights protection, etc., and the court supported it. However, the Weibo of the above-mentioned defendant company has stopped updating in 2017.
Mao Xiaotong's pay of over 10 million yuan has sparked heated discussions on Weibo and in the media. Some netizens said that seven years ago, Mao Xiaotong was not as well-known as she is now, but her pay was already over 10 million yuan, "It is hard to imagine how high the pay of those first-line stars is", "Ordinary people have to start working since the late Qing Dynasty to earn 10 million yuan", and other media exposed the pay comparison of the main actors in the TV series "Joy of Life 2", with Zhang Ruoyun's pay being 27 million yuan, Chen Daoming's 20 million yuan, Li Qin's 11 million yuan, and Mao Xiaotong's 9 million yuan.
Regarding netizens' complaints about Chinese actors' excessively high salaries, which are in sharp contrast to the current ordinary working class, Henan netizen Li Lu told our station: "The actors' salaries are so high that they are beyond people's cognition and fall below people's bottom line. This is a reflection of a deformed society. The so-called singers and movie stars can earn far more than ordinary workers and farmers for generations when they perform on stage. This deformed salary performance is reflected in this deformed value system."
"Yin-Yang Contracts" are still being used to invest in shadows and are suspected of money laundering
Fang Rong, an industry insider in the film and television industry, told our station that some actors still have two pay contracts, also known as "yin-yang contracts", and the situation of suspected money laundering in TV dramas still exists. Shandong human rights lawyer Liu Shuqing said in an interview with our station that if the pay of film and television artists is paid according to the contract and complies with relevant laws, there is nothing wrong with it. Because most people's income is not high, it is normal to complain about this. He said: "But China's extremely high pay cannot be ruled out as a means of money laundering in many cases. For example, these stars work with corrupt officials or funds of unknown origin to launder money. Let's assume that they are innocent and it is just market behavior."
In 2022, the State Administration of Radio and Television of China issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Chinese TV Dramas", proposing to standardize the income distribution order, including actors' pay, and promote the use of standardized, institutionalized, and unified labor contracts such as pay. It requires that the total pay of actors shall not exceed 40% of the production cost, and the pay of the leading actor shall not exceed 70% of the total pay.
It is really shocking!
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