9 June
After Short-lived Hit Run, Da Vinci Code Banished from Chinese Theaters
Following up on a previous post: This is a good example of how the state maintains a distorting hand even in entertainment, probably among the most liberalized industry in China: a newspaper in Shenyang has reported that the Da Vinci Code, after a wildly popular run of less than 3 weeks (box office revenues shot through US$ 5 million in the first week alone, not much for international standars but pretty impressive for China) nationwide, is suddenly being pulled June 9 from theaters all over the country, upon government orders. The reason, speculated the newspaper, is either to make way for a bunch of domestically-made movies to hit theathers this summer, or because of "religious controversies" .
On the second possibility, which I do believe holds some water: there must be some real sick, paranoid people that rack their brains everyday hunting for "controversy" in life, and unduly reflect these in their decisions on what is "fit" for the public to see and hear, and what not. But when there is no relevant controversy, they either invent, or borrow some. As in this case, I just couldn't help snorting out loud: are we even a freaking religious country to give any serious thoughts about what the Vatican says about the movie? It is someone else's religion, someone else's heresy for Confucius's sake! Are the censors so crazy they want to borrow someone else's excuse to shut something down? When have they become so scared of any "public" reaction over anything?
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