The journalists strikes and street protests of early January may now have subsided, but the media censorship debate in China still continues. In a surprise twist this week Chinese state media has hit out at the country’s film censors, after they cut large parts of the new James Bond movie.
The official state news agency Xinhau has run complaints about the heavy censorship of ‘Skyfall‘, the latest Bond movie which opened in China this week.
Censored Skyfall Premieres in China
Censored ‘Skyfall’ Premieres in China by tvnportal
“Movie regulators should respect the producers’ original ideas, rather than chopping scenes arbitrarily,” said one Shanghai film professor in an interview with Xinhua reporters.
Scenes but out from Skyfall for the Chinese audience included depictions of prostitution in Macau, lines from the Bond villain in which he described being tortured by Chinese security agents, and a scene in which a security guard is killed by a French hit man in a Chinese skyscraper.
