Official censor board in China has axed half of scenes featuring Chow Yun-Fat in "Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End" for what is believed as "vilifying and defacing the Chinese."
- Jun 16, 2007
AceShowbiz - Considered to present negative views of the Chinese, scenes featuring Chow Yun-Fat as pirate lord Captain Sao Feng in "Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End" have been cut by the censor board in China, the main state news agency Xinhua revealed Friday, June 15.
Half of the Chow scenes got reported to have been sliced for what the agency calls "vilifying and defacing the Chinese." Among those slashed were said to be the actor's recitation of a poem in Cantonese and a shot in which he says "Welcome to Singapore", thereby making his appearance in the movie only about ten minutes from a total twenty minutes shown.
Zhang Pimin, deputy head of the film bureau under the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, was quoted to say that the cuts were made according to China's "relevant regulations on film censorship" and "China's actual conditions" yet refused to unveil the specific reasons for the action.
Regarding this matter, local magazine Popular Cinema was noted to have its own opinion, pointing out that the scenes were sliced down due to the negative images they displayed.
"The captain starring Chow is bald, his face heavily scarred, he also wears a long beard and has long nails, images still in line with Hollywood's old tradition of demonizing the Chinese," so it said.
However, the editing-room snips appeared to bring no disastrous effect for "Worlds End" in gaining big booty as it successfully took in an impressive $1.3 million on its opening day in the country on Tuesday, June 12, according to The Walt Disney Co.. So far, the flick has grossed $260 million in North American only and over $750 million worldwide.
