Obama in China: Long gone, and still headlinin'
Protest in Guangzhou: Why would you burn garbage?
Interview: Coco Zhao, from jazz to M. Butterfly
Barbie Spa: For the cosmopolitan plastic beauty in you
Week Around the Ists
As regular readers of Variety magazine, Shanghaiist was not surprised to read that Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which opens today in Chinese theatres, has been slightly cut-down by government censors.
While this is usual for international movies playing in China, Shanghaiist wasn’t too happy to find that half of superstar Chow Yun-fat’s scenes, in which he plays a Singaporean pirate,were cut out. According to official sources on China Film, the scenes that were cut involved “too much violence and horror,” such as a scene of Chow reciting a poem from eighth-century writer Li Bai called "The Moon Shining Over the Mountain on the Border." Another scene that was removed focused on Chinese architecture.
These scene cuts bring up the question of whether the Chow's depiction of the Chinese came into play in the censoring decision.
We at least hope the cuts aren’t terribly edited. Past blockbuster movies we’ve seen in Shanghai cinemas, such as King Kong and Harry Potter 4, were also censored, and featured abrupt mid-scene cuts and numerous jumps right to the middle of action.
More info, and some spoilers, at East Day.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End opens today, Tuesday, June 12, in cinemas all over Shanghai. For a list of movie theaters in Shanghai, go here or here.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
post to facebook
I think the critics would be more than happy for the Chinese government to censor even more of this film on the grounds that it is very poor and has no discernible or intelligible plot.
Mark Kermode of the BBC has gone on record to say that watching this film should be punishable with a prison sentence. China could do a lot worse than appoint him as a state censor, because at least he has good taste about erotic thrillers and zombie movies.
If the Chinese government can't get off their obsessive compulsive censorship trip then they can at least have the decency to censor content that really deserves to be hacked or blocked like CCTV 9 and the sycophantic articles in Shanghai Daily.
"China could do a lot worse than appoint him as a state censor, because at least he has good taste about erotic thrillers and zombie movies."
As far as I'm concerned, erotic zombie thrillers are the best type of movie out there.
IIRC last I remember Chow's Mandarin pronunciation -was- pretty violently horrific, I hope he read the poem in Cantonese. ^_^
I wonder if the censorship in theatres leads to people buying more pirate dvds.
Now if you'll excuse me I need to go buy some erotic zombie thrillers down on the corner...
Actually, Keith Richards is already a zombie and you would struggle to find a pulse on Keira Knightley or Orlando Bloom.
Nothing very erotic to write about here though!
Boredom of the Caribbean is about arousing as trying to get your pictures to show up on Flickr.
Go and see Grindhouse. Wouldn't it be great if an uncut version of that film could be shown in Shanghai cinemas. That film is both sexy and violent.
Grindhouse was, no doubt, the best film I have seen in theaters this year (with Zodiac a close second). I really wish a dvd of it would pop up in China.