CHINA:It's the gossip of the moment in China: whether aspiring actress Zhang Yu should have gone public with the sleazy workings of the casting couch in the Chinese film business or kept quiet.
When Zhang decided she wanted to blow the whistle on the way some of China's top TV and film-makers demanded sex in return for roles in soap operas and films, she held a press conference in a Sichuan hot-pot restaurant in Beijing. And then she posted 20 graphic sex videos of her and a host of big movie business names, making them some of the most accessed pieces of video on the planet.
Zhang says she won all her roles through sleeping with the directors, assistant directors or men in charge of casting. But the difference was, she made films herself - of the casting couch sessions.
The videos are a rare insight into just how China's casting couch works and millions of Chinese have logged on to the websites, prompting a debate over what is justifiable content on the internet.
"Why should a woman suffer in silence and bear with all the unfair treatment?" Zhang asks in her weblog. "If you have to mix with beasts and snakes and you are not venomous, how shall you survive?"
Some webizens are shocked that household names would abuse their positions so shamefully, while others have merely had their worst fears confirmed about how things work in the film business. Whether shocked or saddened, they are logging on to the websites showing the clips in their hundreds of millions.
It has certainly helped to boost the profile of the actress and the top Chinese website Sina.com has a special section devoted to Zhang, who has few significant roles to her name.
Zhang (30) comes from a poor farming community in Hubei province, and insists the reason she is exposing the Chinese casting couch is because she wants to uncover the hidden rule and "challenge the powers-that-be who exploit young women".
Zhang had complained for years about the casting couch but no one listened.
She first started making the accusations in 2002, saying a well-known director had asked her to arrange sex for him with another actress in exchange for a movie role. The director's defence was that he was drunk and couldn't remember the incident.
The casting couch is nothing new in China, no more than it is in other film industries. Everyone in this sleazy tale refers to the "hidden rule", which confirms the existence of the casting couch but insists on a Mafia-style "omerta" silence on its existence.
"We the Chinese women have suffered so much humiliation in the past, but nobody dares to talk about it," she said in a recent interview. She is now reportedly writing an autobiography called Days in Showbiz.
There are quite a few worried faces in China.