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The Strange Case of ‘Winnie the Pooh’: Why Was the Film Removed from Hong Kong Cinemas?

by Chloe Baker
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In Hong Kong, plans to show a movie called “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” have been canceled. This has caused people to talk about how much censorship there is in the city. The company that was going to screen the film made an announcement on Facebook saying they had no choice but to cancel its releases in both Hong Kong and Macao with great regret.

A distributor spoke to Big Big News in an email and said that the movie won’t be released in theaters as planned. They didn’t know the reason. The theater chains involved did not answer when asked for why this happened.

In China, the Winnie the Pooh character is a bit of an inside joke directed at their President, Xi Jinping. Before 2018, Chinese people were not allowed to search for Winnie the Pooh on social media! As a result, when Disney’s “Christopher Robin” movie featuring Winnie the Pooh came out that year it was not allowed to be released in China either. The decision to pull the movie from Hong Kong cinemas recently has made people worry about decreasing freedom levels there.

The government in Hong Kong is making changes to the law so that films shown there need more approval. Initially, the movie was supposed to be seen at 30 cinemas in Hong Kong, but this might change due to the new regulations. The Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration said they already gave approval for the film while it’s up to the individual cinemas whether they want to show it or not. The government refused to comment on any such plans.

A movie screening that was supposed to happen on Tuesday night at one cinema got canceled. Professor Kenny Ng from Hong Kong Baptist University’s film school wouldn’t give us a reason why it was canceled, but he thinks that people are trying to stop criticism by using commercial decisions.

Hong Kong used to be part of the British Empire. In 1997 they returned back to Chinese rule and promised that their Western-style rights & freedoms would stay. But after many people wanted democracy in 2019, China created a law that prevented anyone from speaking out or going against it.

This year, the government made this law stricter – even banning films that could go against it.

Mr Ng said that over the last two years, censorship has become more common in the city. They usually censor non-commercial movies like independent short films. He said this means there are a lot more things we can’t show or talk about now.

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