South China Sea: Philippines pulls Hollywood film ‘Uncharted’ from cinemas over map showing nine-dash line

The move comes shortly after Vietnam, another claimant in the South China Sea, also banned the movie, which released in the Philippines in February
A two-second frame in the film contains an image of the so-called nine-dash line, which Manila’s foreign ministry said was ‘contrary to national interest’

The Philippines

Reuters

Published: 5:03pm, 27 Apr 2022

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The Philippines has pulled the plug on all domestic screenings of Hollywood film Uncharted, over a scene showing a disputed map of the South China Sea, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

The move comes shortly after Vietnam, another claimant in the South China Sea, also banned the Sony Pictures action movie, which stars Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg. It was released in the Philippines on February 23.

A two-second frame in the movie contains an image of the so-called nine-dash line, which marks China’s claims in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway. The scene “is contrary to national interest,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Actor Tom Holland, who plays Nathan Drank in ‘Uncharted’, points at a map in a trailer for the film. Photo: YouTube

The U-shaped line is a feature used on Chinese maps to illustrate its maritime territory in a region where Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, and Malaysia, the Philippines all have competing claims.

A 2016 ruling by an arbitration tribunal in The Hague invalidated China’s claims to almost the entire waterway through which about US$3 trillion worth of ship-borne trade passes annually. Beijing did not participate in the court proceedings and does not recognise the ruling.

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Sony’s Columbia Pictures Industries Inc was ordered to stop screening the film and has complied, the foreign ministry said. Sony Pictures did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

In 2019, the Philippines’ foreign ministry requested DreamWorks to shut down cinema screenings of animated film Abominable after a scene showed the same Chinese nine-dash line.

The movie was also pulled from cinemas in Vietnam and Malaysia after uproar over the map.

01:21

Vietnam pulls DreamWorks’ ‘Abominable’ over South China Sea map

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jnr said at the time that the scene showing the map should be cut, and people should not only refuse to watch the film, but boycott the entire company.

“Of course they should cut out the offending scene which will show our displeasure better than if we unconstitutionally ban it as some suggest,” Locsin said on Twitter.

The country’s top diplomat said the Philippine film regulator should have replaced the scene with “a hectoring lecture”, while calling on movie fans to shun the production company altogether.