The Portrait of a Cut and Censored "Olympic Host" -- Cinephiles, Pack
Your Bags. An Uncut Version Awaits.

December 19, 2007
Shanghai Journal

Cinephiles, Pack Your Bags. An Uncut Version Awaits.
By HOWARD W. FRENCH

SHANGHAI ― For weeks now, the ranks of Chinese visitors to Hong Kong
have swelled with a brand-new category of tourists: moviegoers.

In a response to the censoring of a film about love and betrayal in
Shanghai during the Second World War by the Taiwan-born director Ang
Lee, mainland movie fans have flocked by the thousands to Hong Kong to
see the full, uncut version of the film, “Lust, Caution.”

The phenomenon of so many people voting, as it were, with their feet has
highlighted the public’s rapidly changing attitudes toward the long
unquestioned practice of government censorship of the arts, and prompted
debate about the way films are regulated in China.

Travelers have made their way to Hong Kong to see movies before, of
course, but always in much smaller numbers. Critics and commentators
here attribute the interest in Mr. Lee’s movie to a variety of factors,
from word of mouth about risqué sexual content stripped from the
censored version, to a sensitive political subtext rarely seen in
mainland cinema, to the fame of the Academy Award-winning director.

Perhaps most important, though, is the rise of a class of affluent
urbanites in China’s rich eastern cities who have grown increasingly
accustomed to ever more choice in their lives. “I went to Hong Kong with
my girlfriend to see “Lust, Caution” because it was heavily censored
here,” said Liang Baijian, 25, a businessman and stock market investor
from the Guangxi autonomous region. “We could have bought a pirated copy
of the movie here, but we were not happy with the control and wanted to
support the legal edition of the film.”

At least one Chinese movie fan has tried to sue the State Administration
of Radio, Film and Television, which regulates the industry, for
deleting some of the film’s content. The director, Mr. Lee, has said
that the censored material was regarded as politically unacceptable in
Beijing because it reinforced the notion of sympathy between a young
Chinese woman and a collaborator with the Japanese occupiers. The
lawsuit has been repeatedly rejected by Beijing courts.

Many in the Chinese film industry support the idea of introducing a
ratings system like the one used in the United States, which advocates
say would lessen the need for outright censorship. The state film
administration, however, has resisted.

Other travelers to Hong Kong, meanwhile, said they accepted the
rationale of a censorship system in a country of stark disparities in
regional income and education, but thought the practice was no longer
justified in cities.

“For myself, I strongly object to censorship, but for the country as a
whole, I think I can still understand its necessity,” said Yan Jiawei, a
graphics designer from Shanghai who saw “Lust, Caution” on a recent
business trip to Hong Kong. “It has something to do with people’s
educational level. In big cities like Shanghai, people will treat the
deleted scenes as art, while those in less developed areas will only
think of them as immoral.”

People in the movie industry here said that the fact that a censored
“Lust, Caution” was available at all in mainland China demonstrated how
far the parameters of the acceptable had broadened since the beginning
of China’s reform era over two decades ago. Not long ago, Chinese film
was thoroughly dominated by plot lines that heavy-handedly reinforced
conventional dividing lines between good and bad, with little room for
moral complexities. Unquestioned love of country was a favorite theme.

While many have been drawn to “Lust, Caution” by the allure of sex
scenes, which even now run the gamut from tame to nonexistent in most
Chinese cinema, still more groundbreaking for a film released here is
the notion of a traitor in a leading role depicted as an attractive
character instead of a villain. “The country has undoubtedly become more
and more open and advanced, and this is the tide of history, which no
one can prevent,” said Fang Li, a leading producer. “Compared to a
market economy that’s developing so fast, I’ve never seen an industry in
China as backward as the film industry, though.”

Mr. Fang said much of the blame for this lay with the censors, a group
of mostly elderly people who work in committee and invite critical
comment on movies from different branches of government, from the
Women’s Federation to provincial governments, all seeking to present
their constituency in the best light and to avoid offense. The censors
“spend most of their time worrying how not to lose their post,” he said.
“They are very careful not to make mistakes.”

Other critics of the system said the country’s censors had become much
more careful about leaving fingerprints. Wu Di, a researcher at the
China Movie Art Center in Beijing, said that when the director Tian
Zhuangzhuang shot “The Blue Kite,” a 1993 movie about the banned topic
of the Cultural Revolution, notice was sent throughout the film industry
warning companies against hiring him. Mr. Tian framed one of the posters
and hung it on his wall, referring to it in interviews with journalists.

“Now, under the so-called harmonious society, they wouldn’t do things so
baldly,” Mr. Wu said. Instead of publishing a banning notice, nowadays
the same result is achieved with a few phone calls, which leave little
trace.

Li Yu, director of the recent film “Lost in Beijing,” which has some
nudity, said she tried hard to remain positive, even after being forced
to excise several minutes from her movie.

“People who make movies in China understand the situation well, and a
lot of them are criticizing the system, saying that censorship prevents
them from making good movies, which is partly true,” Ms. Li said. “But I
feel the environment is becoming more and more relaxed.”