'Django' screenings in China suspended
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E-mail China.org.cn, April 11, 2013
After winning two Academy Awards, Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" was supposed to hit Chinese cinemas today, but was soon dramatically taken down after its morning screenings.
According to insiders at China's various theater chains, the film's distributors China Film Group and Huaxia Film Distribution Co. asked theater bosses to suspend the showings of "Django Unchained" at 9 a.m.
Several dramatic scenes occurred at theaters across China today, with shocked audiences in Guangzhou stating on their microblogs that they had just watched the film for one minute when the lights went back on and theater staff told them showings had been cancelled and asked them to leave.
The film's distributors said this happened due to "technical reasons," while Columbia Pictures declined to respond.
Moviegoers and Internet users are outraged by the cancellations and media speculations said the Chinese authorities may have just realized there might be one or two seconds of nudity still in the movie -- which will in fact not affect people’s enjoyment of the movie.
At the same time, some Chinese domestic film rivals of "Django Unchained" may have been pushing for maximum benefits and the best showing schedules for their own productions so they stabbed "Django" in the back, one industry insider told China.org.cn.
Theater staffs across China are shocked and furious, one anonymous staff member in Beijing told China.org.cn that due to Tarantino’s fame and this award-winning film, they had originally arranged for a heavy screening rotation. "We can refund the tickets bought at counters but it will be very troublesome to refund those bought online," he said, "We have never seen this kind of situation before and I'm afraid many theaters cannot achieve their box office goal for this month due to the absence of 'Django'."
The anonymous theater staffer also revealed, "It's absolutely not for any 'technical reason.' We'll be severely punished if we continue showing the film. It doesn't make sense if it is just a 'technical reason' as was reported. But if the film did have a problem, how did authorities not spot this when they imported and censored it? "
"Django Unchained" was supposed to hit Chinese theaters on April 11, 2013. But due to the current drama, a re-cut version may come back in theaters at the end of April – if ever.
How "Django Unchained" passed the censorship bar
"Django Unchained" was said to have challenged Chinese censorship standards, but now it certainly seems to have lost that battle.
Quentin Tarantino himself cut the Chinese version to bypass censorship.
Due to his style of black humor, violence and blood, Tarantino's films, including "Kill Bill" which features several scenes shot in China, have never landed on the Chinese mainland. To bypass the nation's censorship, the violent and bloody "Django Unchained" had already undergone several changes.
Zhang Miao, head of Columbia Pictures' China office, told the press days ago that the director himself had agreed to adjust the film a little for a different market.
The cut scenes include the bloody shooting between Django (played by Jamie Foxx) and Calvin Candie's (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) people towards the end of the film, as China.org.cn observed during the movie premiere on Tuesday night.
"The adjustment is a kind of progress, rather than saying it is a compromise. The so-called 'bloodshed and violence' scenes are actually serving the movie's theme. The adjustments, such as darkening the color of the blood and cutting down on the movie’s blood spill, will not affect the movie's quality," said Zhao.
Recent Hollywood movies that have been forced to cut some scenes or had them removed by the authorities include the latest James Bond movie "Skyfall" and fantasy epic "Cloud Atlas." "Cloud Atlas" even lost a whopping 38 minutes and the then co-director Lana Wachowski said "it sucks" at a Chinese press conference -- before later retracting her statement and stating the directors loved the Chinese parties' efforts.
As "Django Unchained" had passed the censorship-bar with no more than a two-minute cut, the many scenes of violence and bloodshed in the film might not only excite Tarantino fans and movie goers, but also cause social concern about how to protect the youth since China does not yet have a film rating system.
Jiang Wen's blockbuster "Let the Bullets Fly," with a similar style of black humor and violence, attracted crowds of Chinese viewers to cinemas, making more than 600 million yuan (US$96.8 million) at box offices. However, many careless parents brought their children into theaters -- who often ended up in tears.
One film critic under the pseudonym of "Tübingen Carpenter" said, "If someone told you 'Django Unchained' would be showing its almost full-on version in China, it would not be a good thing. Who would then protect our underage audience?"
But just on April 9, the China's Film Director Guild held its annual forum. Director Li Shaohong said she was not optimistic about launching a rating system in a few years. "The Western film industry has a very mature system from shooting to showing to supervision. But China just doesn't want anything inappropriate for showing and this traditional thinking cannot be changed overnight." She said that if China's film industry doesn't change its overall system, it will be more troublesome to set up a rating system.
Besides the cut and adjustments, Hollywood also finds other ways to market its films and please audiences in China, the second largest film market in the world.
Recent reports have stated several blockbusters such as "Iron Man 3," "Transformers 4" and "World War Z" will have their own Chinese versions specifically edited for this market.
The "Iron Man 3" Chinese special version will feature actress Fan Bingbing, who will not appear in other versions of the film screened around the world. Michael Bay also said Chinese actors will have ten minutes on-screen time in "Transformers 4," but he will cut those scenes for the U.S. and international versions.
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