Vietnam blocks ‘Abominable’ film over depiction of Beijing’s nine-dash line in South China Sea
- The U-shaped line is a feature used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over vast expanses of the resource-rich South China Sea
- China and Vietnam have been locked in a stand-off in the disputed waterways after China dispatched a vessel to conduct an energy survey in July
The U-shaped line is a feature used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over vast expanses of the resource-rich South China Sea, including large swathes of what Vietnam regards as its continental shelf, where it has awarded oil concessions.
China and Vietnam have been locked in a months-long stand-off in the disputed waterways after China dispatched a vessel to conduct an energy survey within waters controlled by Vietnam in early July.
“We will revoke [the film’s licence],” Ta Quang Dong, deputy minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, was quoted as saying by the Thanh Nien newspaper.
The ministry is in charge of licensing and censoring foreign films.
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Co-productions between the US and China, the world’s two largest film markets, are increasingly common but have so far failed to garner the kind of cross-continental success studios covet.
The main characters are all Chinese, living in modern China, and voiced predominantly by Asian actors. It took US$20.9 million when it opened in US cinemas, and 20 million yuan when it opened in China.
In Vietnam, though, it was removed from cinemas on Sunday after images of the scene with the offending map were shared widely on social media.
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A spokeswoman for CJ CGV Vietnam, Vietnam’s largest cinema chain and a unit of South Korea’s CJ CGV, declined to comment.
A receptionist at the state-run National Cinema Centre in Hanoi said the culture ministry had issued an order requiring all Vietnamese cinemas to stop showing the film because of the map scene.
Calls to Nguyen Thu Ha, the head of the culture ministry’s cinema department, went unanswered on Monday.
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In August, police broke up a brief protest outside the Chinese embassy in Hanoi over the operations of a Chinese survey vessel in the disputed waters.
Vietnam has repeatedly accused the vessel and its escorts of violating its sovereignty and has demanded that China remove its ships from the area.
