Alexander Stuart

It's fantastic that Chinese actress/director/singer Zhao Wei , about whom I blogged repeatedly in 2013, is now a billionaire, according to Forbes.   Her directorial debut, So Young , about a group of college students, was a huge success, earning $118 million in mainland China alone and making it the fifth highest grossing Chinese movie of all time when released.  (I wrote about the film's opening week success in a post titled Zhao Wei's So Young So Successful In China. I also posted video of Zhao Wei on the set of her directorial debut, So Young .)  As Forbes reports, it is Zhao's shrewd investments, as much as her huge success across many fields of entertainment, that have earned her the nickname, "China's show-business Buffet." In particular, Zhao acquired a 9.18% stake in her close friend Jack Ma's company Alibaba Pictures in 2014, for an investment of $400 million. Ma had invited Zhao to invest, in order to add so...

Zhao Wei's So Young is a phenomenal success already in China. Leading Chinese actress Zhao Wei's feature film debut So Young has proven a huge box office success in China, taking 350 million yuan ($56 million) in its first week. Its nostalgic theme - a love story set in the 1980s and 1990s - has connected in a big way with Chinese audiences. Hopefully the movie - based on  the  best selling  Chinese novel,  To Our Eventual Lost Youth , by  Xin Yi Wu  - can expand its success internationally. Zhao Wei is a megastar in her native China. Also known as Vicki (or Vicky) Zhao , she has built a formidable reputation as an actress, pop singer and now director. She is one of the  "Four  Dan  actresses" in China (四大花旦), along with  Xu Jinglei ,  Zhang Ziyi  (best know internationally for Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ) and  Zhou Xun . ( Dan originally referred to female roles in Chinese opera - but,...