Cambodia bans latest ‘Kingsman’ film for portraying country as a criminal hub

Hollywood’s lighthearted spy blockbuster Kingsman: The Golden Circle has been banned in Cambodia because of a scene that portrays the country and one of its famous temples as a hotbed of crime, an official said on Friday.

The action-comedy sequel follows a fictional British spy organisation that joins forces with an American counterpart to search for a drug lord’s hideout, which turns out to be a jungle-ringed temple in Cambodia.

Bok Borak, director of the Culture Ministry’s film department, said the “unacceptable” film was banned from cinemas for “using the name Cambodia as a hideout for criminals”.

“And what is more worrying is that it uses one of our temples as a place to produce drugs, to kill people cruelly … So we don’t allow the screening of this film in our country,” he added.

He said the film was not made in Cambodia but the drug lord’s temple resembled the well-known Ta Prohm – a site in the famed Angkor complex that is tangled in tree roots and was used as a set for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.