Youku Deletes Zhang Zhe Han’s Name From Word of Honor, SNS Platforms Disable Comments on His Accounts, and Chinese Association of Performing Arts Issues Official Ban

Whether one thinks what is happening to C-actor Zhang Zhe Han is the degree of consequences for his past actions or wildly overblown and overwrought, it’s still worth noting exactly what is happening still. This weekend, the Chinese Association of Performing Arts issued an official statement telling all its members (concerts, variety, shows, programs) to boycott and ban his involvement. The largest social media site Weibo has disabled all comments on his accounts for violation of platform policy. Youku which owns the rights to hit wuxia drama Word of Honor has deleted Zhang Zhe Han, who is the male lead, from the cast list. NetEase and QQ, the music platforms, have deleted all of Zhang Zhe Han’s songs as had video sharing site Douyin taken down all his videos. Lastly, Zheng He Han’s SNS account has reportedly self-deleted all posts with his popular costar Gong Jun from WoH, likely to keep the fallout from hitting another currently popular actor.

I think the CAPA ban is the nail in the coffin and the best Zhang Zhe Han can do is one day, years from now, return as a character actor or supporting role. He will be losing the prime of his acting life which was set to hit the stratosphere in the coming two years thanks to his WoH breakout, and it’s hard to re-climb the ladder when there are countless young actors waiting in the wings for their own breakout. There is no shortage of male leads in C-ent. And for those wondering if Zhang Zhe Han is punished for a myriad of his past actions which have come to light – it’s only for his visit to Yasukuni Shrine, the other stuff is ancillary. The Chinese government is setting an example about forgetting or making light of Japanese military atrocities during the war against China so anything related to military era Japan (Yasukuni Shrine, the rising sun flag) has and will always be completely unacceptable.