I think the reasons for Li Bingbing’s prominence in that movie are to appeal to Chinese audiences and because the movie was financed, in part, by a Chinese company.
I suspect it skews toward the femme, since there’s a few longish series with primarily female leads (Ring, Ju-On, Chakushin Ari)…although ‘Final Girl’ doesn’t really apply to Ju-On - there’s only a handful of characters who survive encountering the curse the first movie they appear in, and that’s mostly only due to how the series handles the timeline - the two originals are basically one continuous story, and the theatrical movies, so the events of all the movies within each continuity (4 original, 2 remake) overlap. The one exception is one of the two not-in-either-continuity anniversary movies - the main protagonist makes amends with her dead friend, ending that curse, and surviving the movie.
Wow, I accidentally a few words here.
The theatrical movies are told in a strongly anachronic order (the original v-cinema have this to an extent, as well, but we spend less time with the bits outside the Kobayashi and Suzuki storylines).
She also happens to be a good actress.
Aahhh. Russian-Jewish.
That explains it.
