Movie Scandal Angers Chinese

The hottest movie in China these days is not a blockbuster. In fact, critics consider it a dud and few people have seen it. But “Life Translated” is burning up Internet chat rooms and turning its 25-year-old first-time filmmaker into a household name.

Why? She’s the daughter of a Communist Party boss.

The romantic comedy by Li Qianni might have fizzled without fanfare if not for the high-handed actions of the local government in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, where the filmmaker’s father is deputy party secretary. Angering parents, it organized entire public schools to see the film last month during school hours. Students paid for tickets out of their own pockets.

The parents turned to the Internet to vent. Then an increasingly news-driven national media began to zero in on the filmmaker and her father.

“It’s beyond the movie itself,” said Suo Yabing, a film critic in Beijing. “We’re talking about a seemingly ordinary girl’s overnight success and the dark, ugly underside of a bright, sunny facade.”

According to media reports, the film novice, who is also known by the nickname Niuniu, boasts a personal fortune of about $1 million. She fronts three entertainment-related companies that provided the main funding behind her film. But her resume says she has been studying abroad for nearly a decade. So how did she make all that money?

The focus naturally turned to her father, Li Yizhen, who oversees Shenzhen’s propaganda division, including the companies run by his daughter and his wife, a wealthy businesswoman.

On the surface, this story may seem insignificant in a country where corruption is rampant and much larger scandals involving banking and real estate fraud remain unresolved. But in the age of the Internet, the court of public opinion fills a critical void in a system that lacks adequate checks and balances.

Already, the Internet has pushed many seemingly small cases of impropriety into the forefront of public debate. In a notorious case last year, the wealthy relative of a government official struck and killed a poor vegetable vendor with her BMW, causing a stir in Internet chat rooms. The official was later removed from her post.

Some Internet users are describing the movie scandal as “Shenzhen’s BMW incident.” Others are calling for the father’s resignation.

“Mr. Li, step down. Go home and study the Three Represents,” one person wrote, referring to the slogan of former President Jiang Zemin that has become a catchphrase about how the government should serve the interests of the people.

In his defense, the senior Li says that he did not order students to see the movie and that if his subordinates did it to please him, he had nothing to do with it.

That might not be good enough for China’s increasingly vigilant populace, which has an inherent distrust of officials and sees corruption as the nation’s No. 1 scourge.

“This case shows people’s understanding of corruption is changing,” said Guo Yong, an anti-corruption expert at Beijing’s Qinghua University. “It’s no longer just about large amounts of money exchanging hands. It’s also about conflicts of interest, and much more subtle ways of using public resources to serve personal gains.”

The Communist Party also considers corruption a serious threat to its rule and has launched many campaigns to clean up the system. Now that this case is out in the open, critics say, it will be difficult for Beijing to ignore.

“Corruption is a serious problem. But most officials believe if they don’t get caught, they are OK,” said Victor Yuan, an independent pollster based in Beijing. “This could be Mr. Li’s political Waterloo.”