Django Unchained Pulled From Theaters in China Mid-Premiere

First Tarantino film to premiere in China

Reason 24/7

Last year, China raised the number of American films allowed into its market from 20 a year to 34 after box office revenue topped $2 billion in 2011. It's a lucrative market for American filmmakers, who may even be willing to self-censor to secure access to Chinese movie-goers. This winter's U.S. blockbuster about a freed slave's rescue mission, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained,  actually made it past the censors and premiered Thursday. But it didn't last long.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Just a few minutes after the lights dimmed and the credits rolled, Chinese censors on Thursday yanked Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" from cinemas around the country.

A Shanghai cinema company posted to its official Weibo account this morning that screenings of the film would be delayed indefinitely for "technical reasons." The cinema announced it would reimburse viewers who had already bought tickets.

China's State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) is notorious for its heavy censorship, but filmgoers couldn't remember an occasion when a film was pulled during its premiere.

A previous Tarantino film, the martial arts revenge flick Kill Bill, was filmed in China but never released there. Django Unchained was the first Tarantino film to secure a release date in the communist country. 

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Comments

[fried wylie]

Their loss.

[AlmightyJB]

You let the peasants see one guy be unchained the next thing you know they want to be unchained too.

[generic Brand]

Where's Tom Friedman to tell us that China is still everything the US could and should be?

[Archduke Pantsfan]

Try here

=]

[Cheradenine Zakalwe]

The Chinese hate Tarantino because he's so passionately against foot binding.

[albo]

+1

He certainly isn't ashamed of his own freakiness.

[TheIronSheik]

Chinamen know that a plot about a self-motivated black is ridiculous on its face.

[Another David]

Dude, "Chinaman" is not the preferred nomenclature.

[CE]

Isn't that the reason Red Dawn changed our conquerors from the plausible Chinese to wildly implausible North Koreans? Although you'd think China wouldn't have a problem with a film showing them as ruling the world.

[prolefeed]

Hmmm, a movie about a person wanting to be free so much that he's willing to kill anyone who is a slaver?

Can't figure out why the communist Chinese censors would have a problem with that.

[Juice]

They're all just going to watch bootleg DVDs anyway.