Hollywood’s battle versus censorship continues to unfold, this time near the South China Sea, as Sony’sUnchartedhas now been officially banned in Vietnam over a map’s depiction of territory currently under dispute in the Western Pacific Ocean.
Typically, censorship news coming from Asia tends to be the consequence of decisions made by the China Film Administration, but Vietnam is no stranger to these types of decisions either, withUnchartedonly being the latest victim. The sole topic of Taiwan’s recognition as an independent country has sparked endless debates and tumultuous international affairs ever since the island nation was established in 1949, although nowadays claims over the “nine-dash line” section of the ocean - which extends to territory that is also claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam, The Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, including the Paracel and Spratley Islands - has taken up the spotlight as one of the region’s focal points for potential conflict.
RELATED:8 PlayStation Games Sony Should Adapt Into Movies After Uncharted
That being said, this particular geopolitical mess is now at fault for gettingUnchartedbanned in Vietnam. State media reported that “The film was banned from distribution after we watched it and found it contained an illegal image of the infamous nine-dash line.” The ban stems from a scene that features a map showing the area under Chinese control, a portrayal that is deemed unacceptable by Vietnamese authorities that have banned or censored other productions in the past due to similar circumstances.
This is hardly the first time Vietnamese authorities have intervened in such fashion, as blockbusterCrazy Rich Asianswas edited to omit a similar map, and Dreamworks’Abominablewas also pulled from theaters over the same reasons. Unchartedpremiered in China last week, raking in a reported $15M from the box office for a country where console gaming, and thustheUnchartedgames, lack the recognition they have in other parts of the world.
Consideringnot evenAvengers: Endgame, Taiwan’s highest-grossing film ever, only totaled $12.3M in 2019, it’s fairly easy to see why Sony prioritized pleasing Chinese censors instead of Taiwanese ones, as has often been the case for most of Hollywood. In China’s case, the communist nation has refused to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation since the People’s Liberation Army of the Chinese Communist Party ousted the then-governing Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name) from the mainland.
More recently, John Cena was forced to apologize for mistakenly acknowledging Taiwan as a country, with thePeacemakeractor going as far as posting a video in fluent Mandarin Chinese to address the issue. Suffice to say,China is no stranger to censorshipwith some of the country’s latest policies geared towards eliminating video game violence and “effeminate men."
