While rumors have been circulating online that his books will be removed from bookstores as the result of an official ban, reports showed that they were still being sold. His new film, Cafe Waiting Love, which premiered on October 17, however, suffered from an online boycott. Three days after the film's premiere, it had only generated 6.84 million yuan ($1.1 million) in box office in the mainland, as opposed to over 30 million yuan in box office one week after the premiere of his first movie You Are the Apple of My Eye.

These changes forced Xi to reconsider his company's new production. "We had to postpone this project, and change the major cast and crew," Xi said.

Condemnation and boycott

Giddens Ko is not the only celebrity likely to suffer a financial hit from a publicity crisis in the mainland. In Hong Kong, many celebrities, including singers, actors and directors who participated in the Occupy Central movement have been condemned by State media and boycotted by netizens.

A recent commentary published by the Xinhua News Agency condemned actors Chapman To and Anthony Wong Chau-Sang and singer Denise Ho for their support for Occupy Central, saying they are harming Hong Kong's society.

But netizens' fury can sometimes be as harmful to the celebrities' careers as an official ban. Many celebrities, once they are targeted as "unpatriotic" by netizens , often see their personal social media pages flooded with thousands of angry comments and vulgarities, in a form of verbal violence.

Online sentiment can also influence the market for a celebrity' works. The marketing teams for the film Aberdeen, for example, deleted the name and image of Chapman To from its marketing materials this May, after the actor was boycotted by mainland netizens. The film was still a commercial failure, a fact which some netizens regarded as a victory.

The sentiment was the strongest on China's blogosphere. On Sina Weibo, over 45,000 tweets were posted under the tag "pro-Occupy Central celebrities, please get out of the mainland." The tag was first created by an Internet denizen called Haishireping on October 21 and soon became the hottest topic of the day.

Author Lu Tianming wrote on his Sina Weibo, "Some celebrities, especially those from Hong Kong and Taiwan, on the one hand openly support independence movements in Hong Kong or Taiwan and engage in separatist activities. On the other hand, they rely heavily on China's mainland as their source of income. Shouldn't the SARFT ban them temporarily as well?"

In response to the call for a ban, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang said on his Facebook page that he will shoot more Hong Kong films, even though it means taking a pay cut.

Feng Jun, an analyst with Ent Group, a consulting firm for the entertainment industry, said that politics is a sensitive topic in the entertainment industry. "Celebrities live on their work and on public opinion toward them. Their reputation is their 'second life.' To protect their reputation celebrities should avoid scandals or political leanings," she told the Global Times.