Chinese To Ban Avatar

[Kamber Parrk]

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and
_entertainment/film/article6992685.ece

[alesoun]

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/...-to-china.html

[Demo]

http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle6992685.ece

I think this is what you meant to link yours in not working

[Kamber Parrk]

Thank ye kindly!

[BlightedArt]

First District 9 in Nigeria and now this.

Anything Weta seems to have its hands involved with gets banned somewhere. Oh well, still Weta.

[Little Sloth]

China ban everything that hints at the suppressed rebelling, is anyone surprised?

[nauvice]

why are news of what China and other communist countries are banning always more popular than what our own governments and/or other authorities are doing?

[Kamber Parrk]

why are news of what China and other communist countries are banning always more popular than what our own governments and/or other authorities are doing?

Well,

Obama's not trying to keep the Big Blue Cat People from peeing on his political "tree."

[AbsurdRes]

Sigh, it has to happen somewhere or else they won't be happy.

[Ian Barker]

why are news of what China and other communist countries are banning always more popular than what our own governments and/or other authorities are doing?

There's plenty of that.

[nauvice]

Well,

Obama's not trying to keep the Big Blue Cat People from peeing on his political "tree."

When was the last time the average American saw an international movie (especially non west european ones)? Those don't even need to be banned officially for them to never make it over the states' cinemas.

[Little Sloth]

why are news of what China and other communist countries are banning always more popular than what our own governments and/or other authorities are doing?

Because then we can say: 'Oh isn't it great that we live in a land so free?'. It's all relative and people generally don't like to think about their own problems. Though really China is pretty crazy about what they ban and block.

[Sepulverture]

When was the last time the average American saw an international movie (especially non west european ones)? Those don't even need to be banned officially for them to never make it over the states' cinemas.

Occasionally.

Anyway in the states we are spoiled on high quality cinema. The rest of the world is catching up in terms of visual quality. As an American living in China who goes to Chinese cinema and watches a ton of Chinese t.v. and movies (for their language study value) I can testify that most of the stuff that gets churned out here is utter garbage.

I can only watch dramatic re-enactments of semi-fictional historical events so many times before it becomes blase and derivative. The same could be said for a lot of western films (including European, not just Hollywood) but at least it's made up for with top notch visuals that are at least superficially engaging even if the content isn't fresh.

That's not to say all Eastern media is crap. I liked Slumdog Millionaire, and there are a bunch of Korean and Japanese movies I like, and I have my list of Chinese movies that I like too, although it's comparatively small, and it includes some movies from pre-Britain-turning-Hong-Kong-back-over-to-the-Chinese cinema, but still.

This is straying more into cultural territory and production technique rather than a movie being banned because a government has a hard-on for retarding it's own populace en masse to save itself from it's inevitable doom.

EDIT: I just realized that most of the Chinese movies I like are actually banned in China for content that is critical of the Communist party...

[s.ketch]

When was the last time the average American saw an international movie (especially non west european ones)? Those don't even need to be banned officially for them to never make it over the states' cinemas.

But that's not the government's doing. It's just business. Publishers don't want to market or try to put out movies from another culture on a wide scale because they don't sell. Sure there's a small market for such films, and that's why companies like Fox and other major players have proprietary companies for indie and foreign films.

It's also why there are US versions of popular foreign films. The world got REC and we got Quarantine. They're doing an American "Let the Right One In" too. REC and the original LtROI are available, but the US versions will be put out for the broadest audience possible.

[Faxtar]

When was the last time the average American saw an international movie (especially non west european ones)? Those don't even need to be banned officially for them to never make it over the states' cinemas.

This reminds me of a funny exchange about censorship from the old comedy central show Strangers With Candy.

Mr. Jellineck:Let me tell you a little story Jerri.

Jerri: oh no.

Mr. Jellineck:I had a painting show in a gallery once and it was viciously censored.

Jerri: Did someone snatch it down like my photo?

Mr. Jellineck: No. Nobody bought it. Not even when I slashed the price! I was so disgusted I pulled it from the gallery and donated it to the Crab Shanty Restaurant, and you know something? They censored me as well, because when I went there for a bucket of Hush Puppies it wasn't hung prominently.

Jerri: Well, maybe it wasn't any good?

Mr. Jellineck: Oh Jerri, if this was an isolated incident I would say maybe, but they did the same thing to my novel, my collection of poetry, and my sportswear line.

Jerri: Oh my god.

Mr. Jellineck: Don't you see Jerri they're trying to censor me again by censoring you.

[Aphotic Phoenix]

It's also why there are US versions of popular foreign films. The world got REC and we got Quarantine. They're doing an American "Let the Right One In" too. REC and the original LtROI are available, but the US versions will be put out for the broadest audience possible.

Ugh, like how they tried to do a remake of Oldboy? Oh, I'm sorry "an adaption of the manga"...with Will Smith in the starring role. No, NO, NO x 100. Apparently that project got dropped in 2009, thank goodness.

[nauvice]

you guys have good points but to some extent it is about culture. its more than just because of the quality. The article also mentions a Chinese movie competing with Avatar, and I cant blame the government for trying to preserve their culture from being too westernized, the banhammer was a desperate measure. especially since Americans aren't exactly that open towards international movies. You cant expect everyone to digest our stuff if we wont even consider theirs. like you mentioned Buck, they either wont sell (they cant since noone knows anything about them, its up to the industry to make the first move), or they have to be Americanized with US versions or directed by a westerner (slumdog for example is a British film, Bollywood films are a bit different)

and even if its not the US government's fault. I dont mean to be too technical. China is a communist country, every authority from any industry is linked to the government, so of course that sounds more shocking if the government is behind it to someone from a capitalist country

[Nightblue]

/facepalm

This is just total nonsense. It's truly sad to see the freedom of speech etc actually going backwards. Everything was making progress and loosening up till the clamp down in the excuse of (or because of, I'm not sure what to believe) the Olympic. Why, oh WHY???

People will watch the film anyway, in their own homes, on pirated DVD's. I seriously don't see why the government would ban the film, even if their view point made sense, which it really doesn't, even though I'm Chinese and I know the culture.

[the ANGRY filipino]

They banned it, but DVD rip off's are everywhere here.
though some theatres are showing it ( or managed to show it before the ban)...
at 200 rmb a ticket...
the DVD cost's 10 rmb..
note to self: watch it again after work, visuals are just orgasmic...

if the communist authorities are irked over a movie about blue cat people living on a fictional planet....think about how they would react to the 2010 remake of Red Dawn ( in the originla film, a group of american teenagers foil a russian invasion..in the remake..well...its the chinese doing the invading)

[George Abraham]

Why would they still allow the 3D version. This is starting to sound like market strategy to me and not pollitics.

I think I believe the budget explanation. They need to pay for this stuff and the normal version is not making enough profits to meet the exchange. Buying American from China is expensive.

They might still be pissed off over kung fu panda. American's making a movie about Chinese culture so they can pump chinese yeng out of China like a Trojan horse. They did the same with Madagascar and the Lion King. Hehehehe!! Who's next? The Ice age Australian character wasn't good enough, we need a proper out back money gobbler. C'mon!!

Australazia!! ;P

[Sepulverture]

Why would they still allow the 3D version. This is starting to sound like market strategy to me and not pollitics.

I think I believe the budget explanation. They need to pay for this stuff and the normal version is not making enough profits to meet the exchange. Buying American from China is expensive.

Australazia!! ;P

I don't know about the 2d one not making enough money (assuming I read your statement right).

My office is located 3 floors above a large cinema in one of Beijing's western-central shopping districts and since the movies opening on any given day I could take the elevator down to the cinema level and see lines of people going to the 2d screens.

This is just my observation though, I'm not sure if any box office reporting says otherwise.

EDIT:

T.A.F. - It's only 5 kuai per DVD where I live, 10 kuai for rip-offs with real boxes.

[George Abraham]

Well, a citizen will know best. I was just being radical again.

The article opened with the discontinuation of the "normal version" but skipped the detail and went off into politics.

There is a feature on repeat here in ZA atm about kung fu panda, it's making and reception in China, and it makes you think about who's making the money, especially with block buster's.

Then again there's also the question on how popular 3D is in China, if it's like here it might not matter if they still air the 3D as there's not alot of cinema's kitted for 3D yet but I somehow doubt it. How big is 3D in China?

[Kraus]

I highly doubt it's only because of authorities not wanting people to draw comparisons with reality. It's not like a buncha blue aliens will make the chinese question their governement if they don't allready.
I think the authorities are just tightassed, and don't want Avatar to make any money in China, because they are spitefull that they can't make anything of that caliber themselves.

Avatar is not American anti-opression propaganda, it's American 'You suck at movies, go back to making our pencils, and watch our movies instead' propaganda. Or that's how i'd view it as a chinese propaganda chief.

[Nightblue]

I highly doubt it's only because of authorities not wanting people to draw comparisons with reality. It's not like a buncha blue aliens will make the chinese question their governement if they don't allready.
I think the authorities are just tightassed, and don't want Avatar to make any money in China, because they are spitefull that they can't make anything of that caliber themselves.

Avatar is not American anti-opression propaganda, it's American 'You suck at movies, go back to making our pencils, and watch our movies instead' propaganda. Or that's how i'd view it as a chinese propaganda chief.

I would like to clarify that just like the U.S, Chinese "authorities" do not usually make movies

[Sepulverture]

I highly doubt it's only because of authorities not wanting people to draw comparisons with reality. It's not like a buncha blue aliens will make the chinese question their governement if they don't allready.
I think the authorities are just tightassed, and don't want Avatar to make any money in China, because they are spitefull that they can't make anything of that caliber themselves.

Avatar is not American anti-opression propaganda, it's American 'You suck at movies, go back to making our pencils, and watch our movies instead' propaganda. Or that's how i'd view it as a chinese propaganda chief.

I wouldn't speak too loudly here about it being purely a business move here unless you've got experience living here.

I read an article recently that confirmed suspicions held by a lot of people around me. The government (as many people can guess without actually being here) is willing to do more or less anything to keep it's own interests safe. Recently it was announced that China Telecom and China Unicom actively censor text messages sent between phones here that contain any string of words or characters that don't pass a content inspection filter. Supposedly it's part of the crackdown on porn, but of course it's super easy to make this into something to monitor politically sensitive discussion as well.

I am of the belief that the business side of it is meant purely to draw attention away from the fact that the government is trying to stop people from switching on their brains. Many of my students after watching this movie and then going online later and surfing a few of the blog sites used here in China have come to class saying that they can understand the parallel quite easily, some of them personally having been victims of forced eviction.

I have one friend here who was sent away to live with distant relatives as a small child because her parents wanted to have a second child, and so decided to hide her presence from the authorities. After she reached college age she was supposed to come back to the city to live with her family again but those plans were canceled when the government forcibly evicted her family from their home in a village on the northern outskirts of the city. The gov. evicted them because they wanted to demolish that portion of the village to make way for the Line 13 portion of the Beijing subway network. Her family has lived with her uncle since then and she lives on her own since she's the oldest child in her family.

There is deep resentment of the government here for land appropriation, the apartment complex I live in is mostly inhabited by peasants whose land was re-possessed by the government to make way for the apartment complex that i live in now and a large shopping mall that is still under construction. Most of those peasants who now live in my area were given subsidies on apartment purchases, and some of them were outright given apartments in exchange for the land, but left most unemployed since many of them are unskilled and most are largely uneducated. In other areas of the city it hasn't been so civil, according to talk by the locals that I get on with here.

Near my house there is a small plot of undeveloped land where there's a small defunct rice farm that is still inhabited by several families who appear to have successfully resisted land repossession.

[Kraus]

Nightblue It would be quite the day to see U.S authorities interfere in Hollywood affairs, Hollywood interferes with U.S authorities. Chinese authorities are a different breed, the nasty kinda breed, soviet union kinda breed. They take that shit personnally.

Sepulverture I see. So they just don't want to stir allready brewing tension.. Allthough i can guaradamntee they'd be to stoked on the CGI to care afterwards.

[George Abraham]

I think it's better understood looking at this thread:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...12#post2603812

I think I am starting to understand why the blue cat's got banned. It's a little to close.

Almost like copying someone's art, if it's a little too close it's infringement of Chinese heritage, I don't think you want other artists on the other side of the globe to have their non Chinese purple cats flying around in your Heritage. Kung fu Panda was Chinese but I could understand if chinese "art authorities" would want to stop free access of this nature.

I think it might be that it’s too close and they don’t get it quite yet and not sure weather it was a blatant fornication or Chinese heritage or just accidental/non intentional conceptual work.

I think artists have to take into consideration that mountains are not always just mountains; some of tem have cultural “copy right”

[EDIT]
Just realised those birds might as well have been called dragons. What's the likelyhood? Could be that the whole world had an ancient shaman like culture at some point. Could be that this movie is interpreted to make people see their rulers as iron grip tyrants, well I don't think China is alone though, that's how everything came to be. The rest of the world are fornicators though in the same breath seeking to unify the world powers, so I could see how movies like this could be seen as a threat. It's coming through that hole in the wall into the minds of the people.

[Kamber Parrk]

I wouldn't speak too loudly here about it being purely a business move here unless you've got experience living here.

I read an article recently that confirmed suspicions held by a lot of people around me. The government (as many people can guess without actually being here) is willing to do more or less anything to keep it's own interests safe. Recently it was announced that China Telecom and China Unicom actively censor text messages sent between phones here that contain any string of words or characters that don't pass a content inspection filter. Supposedly it's part of the crackdown on porn, but of course it's super easy to make this into something to monitor politically sensitive discussion as well.

I am of the belief that the business side of it is meant purely to draw attention away from the fact that the government is trying to stop people from switching on their brains. Many of my students after watching this movie and then going online later and surfing a few of the blog sites used here in China have come to class saying that they can understand the parallel quite easily, some of them personally having been victims of forced eviction.

I have one friend here who was sent away to live with distant relatives as a small child because her parents wanted to have a second child, and so decided to hide her presence from the authorities. After she reached college age she was supposed to come back to the city to live with her family again but those plans were canceled when the government forcibly evicted her family from their home in a village on the northern outskirts of the city. The gov. evicted them because they wanted to demolish that portion of the village to make way for the Line 13 portion of the Beijing subway network. Her family has lived with her uncle since then and she lives on her own since she's the oldest child in her family.

There is deep resentment of the government here for land appropriation, the apartment complex I live in is mostly inhabited by peasants whose land was re-possessed by the government to make way for the apartment complex that i live in now and a large shopping mall that is still under construction. Most of those peasants who now live in my area were given subsidies on apartment purchases, and some of them were outright given apartments in exchange for the land, but left most unemployed since many of them are unskilled and most are largely uneducated. In other areas of the city it hasn't been so civil, according to talk by the locals that I get on with here.

Near my house there is a small plot of undeveloped land where there's a small defunct rice farm that is still inhabited by several families who appear to have successfully resisted land repossession.

Sepulverture,

Sorry for the cultural disconnect on my part, but in a communist system, where there is no "private property" is "forced eviction" really possible? I mean, it's not like the evicted "owned" their "property." (But, it's not like I don't understand that those peasants were probably jerked around pretty roughly). However, the irony is manifest-- displacement of subsistence rice farmers in Vietnam by French colonials is one factor that made communism attractive in that country back in the late 40s.

Similar things happen in the U.S. under "eminent domain" actions by government. But, these are mitigated by rights under the Constitution.

Culturally, "Avatar," if anything, seems to be critical of "Manifest Destiny" as it played out against the Indians in the colonization of America-- sort of a "Dances With Big Blue Cat People" a la Kevin Costner.

[the ANGRY filipino]

I don't know about the 2d one not making enough money (assuming I read your statement right).

My office is located 3 floors above a large cinema in one of Beijing's western-central shopping districts and since the movies opening on any given day I could take the elevator down to the cinema level and see lines of people going to the 2d screens.

This is just my observation though, I'm not sure if any box office reporting says otherwise.

EDIT:

T.A.F. - It's only 5 kuai per DVD where I live, 10 kuai for rip-offs with real boxes.

Sep, I always buy the rip off DVD's with those nice boxes..lol! The packaging on these rip offs...amazing....looks like the original ones..(then again over here..you sometimes can't tell which ones are the rip's and which ones aren't.)

@ those who always criticize America/the west everytime Communist china is mentioned:
Be glad your government gives you the right to whine and complain about it. People don't have that right over here.
Sure, the western world can be jerks sometimes...but not at this level...

[Kraus]

Hmm another reason might be because they simply won't have 2D screens left to show their own movie, that's why i think they left the 3D versions, or so i've hird. Making it an intricate battle of what to saturate the public with. Which makes most sense to me.
Besides, like someone mentioned, the first thing that will spring to a chinese person's mind is Pocahontas.