The Oscar for Best Banned Picture

By David Barboza | The New York Times
March 12, 2006

AFTER Ang Lee accepted his Oscar as best director for "Brokeback Mountain," he was hailed by fellow Chinese in Hong Kong and his native Taiwan. Here in mainland China, the government-controlled English-language daily newspaper went so far as to call him the "pride of Chinese people all over the world" and the "glory of Chinese cinematic talent."

Never mind that the fruit of that cinematic talent — a movie about gay cowboys in love — has not been and probably won't be approved for showing on the mainland. Or that Mr. Lee's Academy Award acceptance speech, though televised here, was censored by the authorities, who omitted references to gays and Taiwan.

Film is like most everything else in China: nothing comes easy. Only a few dozen foreign films a year are approved for showing here, although those that aren't are widely watched on pirated DVD's. American movies, legally or illegally obtained, are particularly popular. The official inclusion of four Hollywood blockbusters last year led to record box office figures in 2005, although the top-grossing movie was a government-financed Chinese film — watched but also ridiculed by the public.

Mr. Lee, the first filmmaker born in greater China to win the Oscar for best director, is in good company. Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li, two of China's best-known actresses, are also the pride of the nation. And this year, they will suffer a similar fate at home. Their Hollywood film, "Memoirs of a Geisha," was supposed to reach cinemas here on Feb. 9.

But the film was essentially banned late in January, apparently because of concerns that showing Chinese stars playing Japanese geisha could provoke public anger at a time when anti-Japanese sentiment in China is running high; just as official China views homosexuality as deviant, the Chinese view geisha as prostitutes, and for some, the film evoked memories of the Rape of Nanking. (The Chinese ban their own movies, too, usually for anti-government themes but sometimes for sexual ones. The most famous case involved the 2001 film "Lan Yu," which, like "Brokeback Mountain," featured a long-term gay affair using straight actors and was admired by Ang Lee.)

So the biggest year in film here was also one of the oddest: the Chinese public can't see (in the cinemas, at least) films featuring the most-talked-about Chinese actors and directors who went West to make films, but they are allowed to see "King Kong" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

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