Meanwhile, some supporters are questioning whether the criticism is unwarranted, saying some people just want to make her look bad. At a film music concert in Beijing on Sunday, Zhang declined to respond to inquiries about her recent scandals, simply saying, "It's not easy to be an actress," the Beijing News reported Monday.
Some users pointed out that Zhang had fulfilled most of the money she pledged, and she has already helped a lot with the relief efforts. According to the Southern Metropolis Daily last week, bloggers on tianya.cn claimed that Zhang had given just 840,000 yuan (about $123,500) of her promised donation to help those affected by the devastating earthquake on May 12, 2008.
Following these scandals, Zhang Ziyi took a harsh attitude toward media reports of those scandals, Tian said, which is why she failed to win sympathy from the public and lost her best opportunity to help herself out of the scandals. "Everyone’s got to experience hardships and adversity, and international celebrities are no exception," he said. "This is part of their growing pains. Zhang is not ethically perfect, but being too harsh on her is also not good for her."
"At that time, many potential donors made oral commitments to donate money to Sichuan, but it was hard to realize and follow through on some of these donations," the statement says. "But I (Zhang) have not given up my efforts to fulfill my promise."
"Zhang is a famous entertainment star and could be seen as an entertainment commodity. The outbreak of consecutive scandals could undoubtedly make her more famous, but her reputation and credibility will be seriously hurt," he said. Ji told 163.com that someone simply wanted to foment trouble for Zhang, and the secretary of Zhang’s foundation was prepared to respond soon.
However, the spotlight she has attracted has also brought her problems — a phenomenon that has been growing along with the Chinese entertainment industry. Once a favorite actress of Zhang Yimou, a renowned Chinese director, Zhang Ziyi eventually made her name internationally known by starring in the Hollywood-made Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha.
The web page outlining CRCF donations shows that on May 15, 2008, Zhang remitted 440,000 yuan and 400,000 yuan, successively, to CRCF. Early last year, Zhang made headlines after appearing partially nude in beach photos posted online. After only a few hours, searches for the terms "Zhang Ziyi sex-photo-gate" on major search engines, including Baidu and Google.cn, reportedly yielded more than 100,000 results.
The money was pledged to the Chinese Red Cross Foundation (CRCF). Zhang Yiwu, a professor at Peking University, said that the recent scandals related to Zhang Ziyi might not be a bad thing for the actress, but he suggested that the public’s overreaction shows its mistrust in elites. He said that the public shouldn’t idolize celebrities’ moral standards or personalities, nor should it totally denounce them when scandals erupt. "We can’t deny Zhang’s cultural value, despite what has happened recently," he said.
In December, Zhang placed first on a list of the 50 "most beautiful people in China," an annual event organized by the Beijing News. The Xinhua News Agency reported that the recognition was given partly because she organized an overseas fundraising campaign to help survivors of the earthquake.
"These scandals involving Zhang reflect people’s mentality of hating the rich and the famous," he said.
In 2005, Zhang was faulted by many Chinese for accepting the role of a Japanese geisha in the movie Memoirs of a Geisha, as Japan is often an unfavorable target of Chinese anger for its invasion of China during World War II.
Media reports indicated that Zhang promised to donate 1 million yuan of her own money within a few days of the quake. But later on, she said at the Cannes Film Festival in France that she had raised the total $1 million she had promised.
Some asked why, after more than a year and a half, she hasn’t donated any more of her promised contribution.
The only statement was made Thursday through her agent, Ji Lingling, which said that Zhang had set up the Ziyi Zhang Foundation in California in 2008 shortly after the earthquake and organized an overseas fundraising drive, according to 163.com.
Divided reactions by Chinese web users have been rife online.
Later, a Beijing-based newspaper, Shopping Guide, ran a story on January 13 claiming that Zhang was the mistress of a businessman dubbed "Mr A" and that she had broken up with her boyfriend, Vivi Nevo. Zhang sued the paper Wednesday, saying her reputation had been tarnished.
On December 23, a poster with Zhang’s image put up at the Boyue Hotel in Beijing was splashed with ink by a group of men, prompting reports speculating that Zhang was caught up in economic and romantic disputes, a report by 163.com said.
Tian Jinshuang, an entertainment critic and chief of an entertainment training school, attributed Zhang Ziyi’s current awkward situation to her inappropriate response to those consecutive scandals and a failure by her public relations companies to deal with the aftermath of the events.
Yin Hang and Guo Qiang contributed to this story
Chinese film star Zhang Ziyi is being criticized for not yet honoring her more than $1 million commitment to earthquake relief in Sichuan.
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