China blacklists actress in Lust, Caution
Last Updated: Saturday, March 8, 2008 | 2:37 PM ET
CBC News
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Chinese officials have blacklisted actress Tang Wei for her role in the erotic Ang Lee-directed spy thriller Lust, Caution.
A memo sent Friday by China's State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) to the country's media demanded they remove any works and commercials featuring Wei, according to broadcasting trade paper The Hollywood Reporter.
Chinese actress Tang Wei, seen here last August at the Venice Film Festival, has several explicit sex scenes in Lust, Caution.
(Andrew Medichini/Associated Press)
Lust, Caution — which captured a Venice film festival Golden Lion last May — features Tang as an undercover insurgent who becomes sexually entangled with a powerful collaborator during Japan's occupation of Shanghai in the 1940s in order to assassinate him.
"Beautifying Japanese collaborators sparked the controversy over Lust, Caution in China even more than the sex scenes did," said a report from the United Evening News in China.
Tang was named best new performer in December's Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards — considered the Chinese-language Oscars — for her performance in the film.
Chinese officials have previously criticized Lust, Caution for its "glorification of traitors and insulting to patriots."
SARFT allowed the film to be shown in China last year albeit with seven minutes of sex scenes removed.
Taiwan-born director Ang Lee, who won an Academy Award for directing 2005's Brokeback Mountain, has been spared blacklisting because he is an artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics. Nevertheless, he was not pleased with the move.
"I am very disappointed that Tang Wei is being hurt by this decision," Lee said in a statement.
"She gave one of the greatest performances ever in a movie that was properly produced and distributed. We will do everything we can to support her in this difficult time."
SARFT's edict also excludes the actress from Chinese awards shows as well as the producers of the film. In addition, discussions about the film and Tang on web forums have been deleted, according to Hong Kong newspaper Oriental Daily.
The move comes just as the Asian Film Awards announced that Tang would be a presenter. It's not known whether the awards, set for March 17 in Hong Kong, will be affected by the decree.
Chinese authorities have been exercising stricter controls over film, media and the web over the past few years.
They have banned talent shows, cosmetic programs and any shows deemed to be overtly pornographic or sexual on television and radio.
Recently, they limited the broadcast of foreign cartoons on primetime television as well as anything that touches upon horror, crime and the supernatural in film.
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