The UCLA professor also noted that China doesn't usually welcome horror films because the country has no rating system. The thinking is that all films should technically be suitable for general audiences.
China allows only a limited number of American films to play in its theaters every year, so it “bans” Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Sony, and Paramount films all the time by refusing to give permission for them to play in Chinese cinemas.
China's ban on films featuring zombies and ghosts is primarily driven by the government's efforts to control and regulate the entertainment industry, as well as to prevent the spread of superstitious beliefs among its citizens.
Chinese horror include films from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan that are part of the stream of Asian horror films. Like Korean and Japanese horror as well as other Asian horror films, many focus on ghosts (yurei is also very common), supernatural environments, and suffering.
China's censorship includes the complete blockage of various websites, apps, video games, inspiring the policy's nickname, the Great Firewall of China, which blocks websites.
Additionally, scenes depicting nudity, violence, or mild profanity are typically toned down. In China, due to Western product restrictions, and the China-United States trade war, HBO was blocked and restricted, and the replacement is currently Tencent Video and iQIYI.
China blocked the release of Disney's animated “Mulan” for eight months in the late 1990s after the company backed Martin Scorsese's “Kundun,” a film seen as sympathetic to the Dalai Lama. The animated “Mulan” bombed in China as a result.
One of the first widely banned movies in the U.S. was “The Birth of a Nation” in 1915. It was controversial for its portrayal of the Civil War, the post-war era and race. The NAACP led some efforts to ban it. “Babe Comes Home” was banned in Chicago in 1927 for a scene portraying baseball star Babe Ruth chewing tobacco.
Brad Pitt was banned from entering China for almost 20 years for a film he starred in back in 1997. The plot of the movie, which was based on a historical event in the mid-twentieth century, led the Chinese government to punish the famous actor. 'Seven Years in Tibet' was released in 1997.
For years, Hollywood movies were loved by Chinese audiences, often dominating the country's box office rankings. Chinese moviegoers took a special liking to the Transformers series. The big-budget action films clinched the top spot at China's box office in 2011 and 2014.
TikTok has never been available in mainland China, a fact that CEO Shou Chew has mentioned in testimony to U.S. lawmakers. ByteDance instead offers Chinese users Douyin, a similar video-sharing app that follows Beijing's strict censorship rules.
Amazon continues to offer limited services in China, like Amazon Prime, but without the on-demand video benefits. Customers can still enter the webpage amazon.cn, but can only access products imported from Amazon sites located overseas. This includes the US, UK, Germany or Japan.
Are VPNs in China illegal? Short answer: VPNs are not illegal in China, but their use is heavily restricted. Long answer: Using a VPN in China is not officially illegal. China allows VPN providers to operate as long as they cooperate with the state, which defeats the privacy purpose of having a VPN in the first place.
The show is also being criticized in China for its opening scene where a professor is thrashed for going against the government during the 'Cultural Revolution'. Viewers in China have condemned the scene and have said that it was shown in the wrong way, as per a report by Forbes.
A Netflix adaptation of Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin's “The Three-Body Problem” has sparked mixed reactions in China, with some complaining of a lack of nuance, that much of the action takes place outside of China and that key characters are played by non-Chinese actors.
Its system of firewalls is called the Great Firewall, and it restricts access to not just Gmail, but all Google services (including Google docs, Google Maps, Google Translate, and more). The Chinese government blocks these services to limit their users' internet freedom.
Snapchat is completely banned in all of Iran, China, Cuba, and North Korea. Many workplaces, schools, and universities also block access to Snapchat and other social media platforms on their networks.
The Chinese government has repeatedly censored anime shows that the country considers immoral, especially those that include bloody and violent scenes. Blood-C, a Japanese anime television series, has been banned since it includes a "particularly bloody" scene which may cause "extreme discomfort".
Across China generally, but particularly in hotels, cafes, restaurants, and bars, internet access is good. However, you can improve your access by obtaining a Chinese phone number to login to these free wifi hotspots. Most travelers planning to stay in China for a longer period of time, usually buy a local SIM card.
