Chinese filmmaker faces $164 mn lawsuit over children

Top Chinese film director Zhang Yimou is facing a USD 164 million lawsuit after violating the country's controversial one-child policy, a lawyer said today, prompting renewed debate around the rules.
Critics say China's late-1970s family-planning law, which restricts most couples to one child, is selectively and sometimes brutally enforced, while the wealthy and well-connected are easily able to pay the fines levied for extra offspring.
But in recent days some users of China's popular online social networks have directed their anger at the policy itself, rather than Zhang, with some hoping the attention heaped on his case may hasten the eventual demise of the law, which authorities have recently moved to relax.

The lawsuit was sent to the Intermediate People's Court in Wuxi today, the hometown of Zhang's wife, one of the lawyers behind the action told AFP.
Guo Chengxi confirmed reports that it demands a total of one billion yuan (USD 164 million) from the director of "Red Sorghum" and "Raise the Red Lantern", half in compensation for public resources, and half in punitive damages.
"Right now, in China, this phenomenon of wealthy people having more than one child is very serious," she said, adding they decided to take action against Zhang because he "represents a typical case" of an elite trying to skirt the one-child law.

Jia Fangyi, the other lawyer, was quoted as saying the actions of wealthy people such as Zhang were "unfair to the poor and those who strictly follow the national policy".

"The rich have become increasingly audacious by violating the family planning policy just because they are rich enough to pay the fine... And they take an extra share of resources from society," Jia was quoted as saying in a front-page report in the government-run China Daily.
The court might not accept the case, the newspaper added.
Zhang, one of China's best-known filmmakers and the director of the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, had faced rumours for months that he had fathered as many as seven children with several different women.

Amid increasing pressure -- including a Nanjing newspaper's publication last month of a front-page "wanted" poster seeking information on his whereabouts -- Zhang finally issued an apology on Sunday through his studio's microblogging account.
He acknowledged that he has two sons and a daughter with his current wife, as well as another daughter with his ex-wife.
The one-child policy was put in place to control China's booming population, and officials say it has been key to the country's rising prosperity.