How a heavy hand of censorship is stifling China's lucrative movie industry

International News

As trade tariffs and tweets by President Donald Trump hammer some of China’s biggest companies, the country’s movie business is taking a hit -- from its own government.
Tougher government censorship has blocked potential hits and compelled filmmakers to stick with safe formulas that aren’t winning audiences, while a tax evasion crackdown has made some investors reluctant to back films, crimping output even further.
In the year after Chinese President Xi Jinping put the Communist Party’s propaganda office in charge of regulating films, China’s box-office totals are headed for their first annual decline in at least a decade. Further hurting the industry, potential summer hits that might have come to the rescue have been cancelled, with no explanation.
The chill has spread to some of China’s most globally recognized filmmakers, bankable names that cinema operators have relied on for hits.
In February, director Zhang Yimou’s “One Second” was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival and has since been subject to a series of government-ordered re-cuts, the Hollywood Reporter reported last month. Three of Zhang’s films were nominated for Academy Awards. He won top honors in Berlin for “Red Sorghum” and directed China box-office hits including “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers.”

 Another prospective summer winner, Guan Hu’s “The Eight Hundred,” was withdrawn before a planned July 5 premiere. The film was anticipated to be a crowd-pleaser and a critical success that could help restore momentum for local fare.“‘The Eight Hundred’ was going to be a big film,” said T J Green, chief executive officer of Apex International Cinemas, which builds and runs cinemas through a strategic alliance with the state-owned China Film Group.