'The Emperor's Daughter' Zhao Wei, Rumored to Flee to France... All Her Works Erased Overnight

It has been reported that Zhao Wei, known domestically for the drama 'Hwangjeui Ttal' (The Emperor's Daughter), has fled to France. Photo by Asia Economy DB

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyun-joo] Chinese actress Zhao Wei (趙薇), who gained fame in South Korea through the drama 'The Emperor's Daughter' and the movie 'Red Cliff,' is reported to have fled to France.

On the 29th, Taiwanese local media such as Liberty Times and United Daily News reported that Zhao Wei arrived at Bordeaux Airport, a famous wine region in southern France, around 2:20 a.m. on the 27th (local time) via a chartered plane, and this news rapidly spread through the social networking service (SNS) Weibo.

According to the reports, Zhao Wei quickly left the airport by car that was waiting for her and headed to a local vineyard. The vineyard she went to is one of the four vineyards she had previously purchased, where her husband Huang Youlong (黃有龍) and children had already arrived.

However, United Daily News explained that the authenticity of this news has not yet been confirmed.

Zhao Wei caused controversy in 2001 for wearing a dress with a design reminiscent of the Rising Sun flag. Photo by Baidu Capture (Yonhap News)

Taiwanese media reported that after a past photo of Zhao Wei wearing a dress featuring the Rising Sun Flag, a symbol of Japanese militarism, drew belated attention and controversy, her works were removed overnight. Since the 26th, Zhao Wei's works have reportedly not been searchable on several video sites.

In this context, Taiwanese media placed emphasis on the possibility of her connection with Jack Ma (馬雲), founder of China's largest e-commerce company Alibaba Group. It was reported that Zhao Wei invested about 3.1 billion Hong Kong dollars (approximately 465.5 billion KRW) at the end of 2014 to acquire a 9.18% stake in Alibaba Pictures, Alibaba's video business subsidiary, and earned 4.4 billion Hong Kong dollars (approximately 660.7 billion KRW) in profits by April 2015.

The Chinese authorities imposed a five-year ban from the securities market on Zhao Wei for directly investing 60 million yuan (about 10.8 billion KRW) under her mother's name and purchasing 30% of the listed company's shares through a 3 billion yuan (about 541.7 billion KRW) loan during the Series A financing round of Ant Group (formerly Ant Financial), Jack Ma's fintech specialized financial subsidiary, in July 2015.

However, Zhao Wei is known to have continued investing in the securities market under her mother's name.

Taiwanese media also hinted at the possibility of Zhao Wei's collusion with political and business circles as another reason for the removal of her works. In addition to Zhao Wei, works of Gao Xiaosong (高曉松), a famous Chinese musician and chairman of Alibaba Group's Alibaba Music, were also taken down from video sites.

Furthermore, it was reported that one of Zhao Wei's companies, an entertainment management agency, included actor Zhang Zhehan (張哲瀚), who was expelled from the entertainment industry and lost all advertisements after posting photos taken at Yasukuni Shrine (靖國), a symbol of Japanese militarism.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.