X-Men star Fan Bingbing returns to screen with Jessica Chastain's 355, months after tax evasion scandal

Last year in July, X-Men star Fan Bingbing, who is one of China’s leading actors, went incognito after she was charged with tax evasion and other offences. While the incident threatened to almost upend her career, she is now returning on screen with the Jessica Chastain-fronted all-female spy film 355, Variety has reported. [caption id=“attachment_6428391” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] (left-right) Penelope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, Marion Cotillard, Jessica Chastain and Lupita Nyong’o. Twitter/@TrendingWeibo[/caption] The report says that the highly-anticipated action-flick will start rolling this year with the original cast, which includes Chastain, Fan, Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard. The film will be directed by Simon Kinberg and produced by Chastain under her banner Freckle Films. However, the project has lost the financial backing of China’s Huayi Brothers Media, possibly due to Bingbing’s continued involvement in it. The film was announced back in May last year, but the fate of the film was put in doubt when Fan was accused of tax evasion . Rumours suggested that the Chinese superstar was held by Chinese government. Soon after, the actress disappeared from the public eye until she re-emerged in October admitting that she had evaded taxes and apologised to her fans. She was reportedly ordered by authorities to pay nearly $130 million in back taxes, penalties and interest. Although she was not officially banned in the country, her career suffered a major blow in China.