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© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013.'Iron Man' shows Hollywood's bent to take on China censors' steely grip
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Yubaru
Screening vs censorship? Semantics maybe, but certainly biased wording.
Yubaru
On a separate note; Kind of like JT here, they censor, not screen!
isoducky
You have to do what you have to do. Their options are slim, accept some amendments or fork over all procedes to the black market.
samwatters
"China and Russia share a close-knit history of socialism and have recently reaffirmed close political and military ties." Nonsense. China and Russia are Communist countries, not Socialists. Shame on whoever wrote this article for not checking the most basic of facts.
praack
isoducky - it would be ok if the film changes only affected a local market- but it does not- do we need to change plot items to make China look better? do we need to remove China or Chinese from a scene because it might cause problems in the future- and no one wishes to shoot extra scenes?
this causes a story to be rewritten before it is shot, it causes self censorship, this occured quite a lot in Japan when the concern was whether a film would get past both the US and the Japan censors in the 1948-58 period. a lot of film never got shot just in case someone would get upset.
The Chinese need to grow up a little - perhaps we all do.....
Thunderbird2
Fan Bingbing looks very non-Chinese... I think she's either had masses of plastic surgery or she had never looked particularly Chinese. Maybe that's why they chose her?
As for censorship... I've seen some Category 3 films from HK/China... in terms of nudity they don't pixel anything out, but everything else is (not very well) simulated.
Back to "Iron Man" and the special inserts... didn't the Japanese version of the Clavell's "Shogun" have specially shot footage? I seem to remember reading that in the 'Making of...' book.
Tiger_In_The_Hermitage
Whats the issue here? With big budget movies, studios need funding. Those who fund these movies have a message to push. It happens all the time in America, thats why 90% of their movies talk about America saving the world and how great their democrazy and freedom are for the benefit of the world, blah blah blah. All part of the popuganda.
Serrano
"Zhu Dake, an outspoken Chinese film critic based in Shanghai"
He's better toe the line if he doesn't want to be arrested.
Serrano
He'd better toe the line.
mrmalice
so .... its not quite clear, do the chinese get a censored version with pieces cut out, or an extended version with more footage than the original aimed at the 1 billion wide chinese markit ?
HonestDictator
In the PRC you don't have to think for yourself, the CCP thinks for you!
OssanAmerica
Iron Man 4 should have him leading the angry oppressed Chinese masses and destroying the CCP and their PLA henchmen, establishing a democracy in China. That should go over well.
Jim N Helen Hill
This is no big deal, the studios have always been doing this for years. The always shoot extra footage so they can have one cut for the theaters, one for cable, one for airplanes, one for TV. For a foreign film to get through to the US censor board and the theater association is almost impossible.
billyshears
I think this is a big deal because this movie doesn't have "extra footage" for other outlets. A Hollywood big budget movie has been made with the criterion of passing ridiculous "strict censorship", expressly for the lucrative Chinese market. This translates as cinema-goers in other countries having to watch movies with content pandering to the controls of a corrupt regime . Could this be a sign of things to come?
OldHawk
Makes one long for the days of the Hong Kong (pre-1997) movie industry.
toshiko
Unlike China, Movie screening is done by production company stuffs. The majority of movies are made in California but some are made in other states. Also, many movies are from Japan. Made-in-Japan movies usde to have English narration on screens (black and white time) but American voice actors are used now. the purpose of screening is to see profittability. A production company apologized and scrapped one of its movie when contents of the movie is similar to Boston bombing, Censorship in USA? No such action in USA. Sony distributed violent movies are all over. There are NCIS, CSI, and other shows that use FBI or CIA in story lines but we still watch new release very week on CBS, etc channels so I think there is no restriction on creating such stories. Cartoon Network are full of Japanese cartoon movies.
toshiko
Ironman 3 in 3 D is all over in theaters no. BTY, USA does not have censor board whatever it is.
toshiko
In USA, comic book fun of ole time knew Iron,am was a communist fighter. (early 1960's). Then as society changes, comic book thees has been changing. We watch Ironman as also a member of Avengers on TV animated series. USA people like superman and batman,etc, too. Live Ironman 3 is on now everywhere, Marvel Cinematric Universe Film is doing very fine in animated TV series and even movies now.