“Wan Sui Wan Sui Communism!” cries Chinese Film industry amidst censorship

Hey did you guys know that the 70 years anniversary for the founding of the great People Republic of China is this October? That’s right in 1949 those BAD NATIONALIST was driven out, nowadays known as Taiwan. A little backdrop of Chinese History before we go into this whole mess, uh basically back in 1900s the Japanese (big oof) shrek China in Manchuria and dealt a heavy blow to the Qing Dynasty. Then the Western Powers was like, “you can’t do that” so Japan was like “yo OK” and pull out. Then the Western Powers went in and basically establish sphere of influence in China and Japan was like “that’s unfair man! I weaken them” while the Westerners were like “So?”. Japan took it on itself to destroy Russia in the Russo-Japanese War and grab a piece of China for itself. Then the Boxer Rebellion happened because of foreigners in China which basically ended the Qing Dynasty. Sun Yat-sen then reunited China and establish the Koumintang party. But then poor leadership under Chiang Kai Shek (Yat-sen successor) made the communist party gain prominence so they began to clash. Then they were like lets be friends and together fought the Japanese together during WW2 and Chairman Mao use this oppurtunity to also sow more discontent with the “Nationalist” (Koumintang) party in China. After WW2 they did a bro hug much like Soviet and US and then was like “what’s next”. Then they remember they were fighting a civil war because of ideological difference and resume, with Koumintang/Nationalist Party losing and exile to Taiwan. Nowadays they (now the government of the country Taiwan or CHINESE TAIPEI) still view themselves to be the rightful government of China.

Anyways July is suppose to be the month where a lot of Chinese movies come out. Sadly though, since this is an anniversary that’s divisible by 10, China has recently move to crackdown on its entertainment industry. Not only are they not afraid of taking bold steps like taking down Fang Bing Bing who was literally a megaball V2 of an actress (her career luckily hasn’t quite been taking down) they also went after director Feng Xiao Gang and basically created a social score that saw many celebrities scoring a E (50/100) or only a little bit height. Who suffers the most from this censorship? Huayi Brothers, possibly the biggest Chinese film producer.

They became big because of Fan Bing Bing but then also lost a lot of money because of her, around 1.09 billion yuan in 2018. So this year they had a plan, to make a film that celebrate chinese past and increase nationalism! They shot the film using a fleet of IMAX Cameras and a lot of money in the film that is title “The Eight Hundred” which spoke about Chinese soldiers bravely fighting in the Sino-Japanese War. Sadly at the last minute the film was pulled from showing, the reason was the soldiers feature were…… FROM THE NATIONALIST PARTY. A similiar film with a different title “Hidden Swords” was also pulled because it focus on Nationalist soldiers bravely fighting the Japanese forces with swords when they didn’t have guns.

The 800 Photo Credit: Inkstone and Shanghai Film Festival

Not only war films are now being pulled for not focusing on “the right group”, films from other genre has been pull out of showing as well. Director Derek Tseng’s (who is a famous director in China) “Better Days” have also been pull along with Huayi Brothers’ “Last Wish”. The topic of those two films? One was about high school bullying and the other was about a terminally ill man looking to “nut and go” (and other variation such “Ejaculate and evacute” or “beat then delete” or “impreganate and evaporate”). Both subjects were deem “inappropriate” by the Chinese government and after beating them down with censorship, these films are probably will be forever deleted and never shown.

Credit: Inkstone news and Handout

Admist all of these losses and censorships, Huayi Brothers finally caved in and announce that they were going to establish a “Communist Community” inside their company that basically will make sure that their film are up to the “high standards” China hold themselves too. The move was probably forced due to the rapid lost of money the company is currently facing. With one big film company calling “mercy”, it remains to be seen if other will follow.

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