AMNESTY International has launched an investigation into the imprisonment of four Vietnamese officials jailed for helping a Hongkong film company produce a controversial movie in the country.
Stars and Roses, starring Andy Lau and Cherrie Chung, grossed $13 million during a three-week Hongkong run in 1989. But it was banned soon after it opened in Hanoi in June 1991 because of scenes of prison torture, re-education camps and a government crackdown on human rights campaigners.
Hongkong's Chun Sing Film Company has admitted it added the sensitive footage after returning to the territory, in the wake of sentiment from the June 4 Beijing crackdown. The company has been blacklisted by Vietnam.
The movie, also known as Loving the Songs From Vietnam, tells the story of a Hongkong businessman thrown in and out of prison in Vietnam until he is rescued by a woman interpreter who helps him cross the border to China.
After it aired in Hanoi, the director-general of the government-run Union of Video Cinematography Enterprises, Pham Cong Canh, who had allowed the 30-strong Hongkong crew into Vietnam, was arrested along with three junior colleagues.
Last November, he and Pham Kim Thanh were jailed for three years for''internationally violating state economic management principles, policies and regulations with serious consequences,'' as well as ''causing serious consequences through negligence''.