‘Friends’ Is Being Censored In China And Fans Aren’t Happy

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefAcclaimed Japanese animated film “Poupelle of Chimney Town” will release in North American home entertainment markets from May.The rights in the U.S. and Canada are controlled by Eleven Arts which has appointed Shout! Factory to handle distribution.

Wall Street Journal reporter Erich Schwartzel’s book, Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, warns in its prologue: “China’s pressure on Hollywood and its own entertainment industry have the potential to challenge the American film industry as the chief narrator of the twenty-first century.”

Editor’s Note: Wall Street Journal reporter Erich Schwartzel’s new book Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy includes a chapter on Fan Bingbing, one of China’s biggest global stars who disappeared from public view in 2018 shortly after she was cast to star in the female action spy movie The 355. In the excerpt below from the Penguin Press book, Schwartzel takes readers from Cannes through Fan’s house arrest — where she was “watched constantly, even while taking showers” — to her eventual reappearance (albeit via greenscreen and with a body double for The 355) as she had become what Schwartzel calls “the most famous chicken used by Chinese authorities to scare the monkeys of its entertainment industry.”

< 1 min read Multiple episodes of the hit television series Friends have been removed or censored by Chinese streaming services due to LGBTQ+ characters and storylines.

Bill Maher zeroed in on China during the latest edition of “Real Time”, targeting the winter Olympics in Beijing during the “New Rules” segment.

Bill Maher couldn’t hide his contempt for the country hosting the Winter Olympics on his Friday Real Time. 

Total War: Warhammer 3 at launch, and players of the game allege that it’s causing noticeable performance issues.Yesterday (February 17) marked the release of Total War: Warhammer 3, however it’s been marred by negative reviews criticising the game’s performance.The strategy title currently has a ‘Mixed’ rating on Steam, with 41 per cent of the game’s reviews being negative at time of writing. The majority of these negative reviews focus solely on facing performance issues within the game.Now, many players are pointing fingers at Denuvo, anti-piracy software that SteamDB shows was added in a patch on Total War: Warhammer 3‘s launch day.

Fight Club.Back in January, the 1999 film hit headlines after it emerged that its final scenes had been altered on streaming platform Tencent Video, replacing The Narrator (Edward Norton) killing off imaginary alter ego Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and watching buildings collapse.Instead, a blank slate reads: “The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. After the trial, Tyler was sent to a lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment.”Now, in a new interview with Empire, Fincher has spoken out about the edit.“It’s funny to me that the people who wrote the Band-Aid [ending] in China must have read the book, because it adheres pretty closely,” he said, referring to the fact that in Chuck Palahniuk’s novel on which the film is based, ‘Jack’ is in an institution at the end.When asked about the ending, he replied: “Here’s what we know.

The return of popular American sitcom Friends to streaming services in China has provoked a significant online backlash after viewers noted numerous changes that had been made to the show, including the removal of LGBTQ references.

China’s streaming services have deliberately censored multiple “Friends” episodes due to LGBTQ characters and storylines.

Nathan Chen has won Olympic gold!

Naman Ramachandran Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen has wrapped shooting of his first Mainland Chinese feature “The Breaking Ice.”Hailed as one of Asia’s brightest young directors, Chen competed in the shorts competition at Cannes in 2007 with “Grandma” and won the Camera d’Or with his debut feature “Ilo Ilo” in 2013. His sophomore feature “Wet Season” premiered in competition at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Nathan Chen has earned his place in the Olympics record book!

Nathan Chen has earned his place in the Olympics record book!

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterAt some point in the past decade, Hollywood stopped looking at the burgeoning Chinese box office as found money and instead embraced the theatrical market’s windfall for what it has become: a necessity.Today, whether or not blockbuster plays in China could mean the difference between hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket sales. That reality is downright painful at a time when China has continued to deny releases for Hollywood’s biggest 2021 movies, such as Disney’s “Black Widow,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and “Eternals,” as well as Sony’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.” And the few films that were given access to Chinese movie theaters, including MGM’s James Bond sequel “No Time to Die” and Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” remake, earned far less than their studios had expected.

EXCLUSIVE: After teaming in the Disney/Marvel film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Michelle Yeoh is set to top an international cast for the Destin Daniel Cretton-directed Disney+ fantastical series American Born Chinese. She will star alongside Ben Wang (MacGyver), Yeo Yann Yann (Wet Season), Chin Han (Mortal Kombat), Daniel Wu (Reminiscence), Ke Huy Quan (Finding Ohana), former Taekwondo champion Jim Liu and Sydney Taylor (Just Add Magic).

David Fincher’s “Fight Club” has been restored in China to include the original ending after censorship of the final fight scene by Tencent Video sparked backlash.Before the Chinese streaming service began running the 1999 Brad Pitt classic last month, Ed Norton’s narrator killed off his imaginary alter ego (Pitt) and it was implied that his mission of creating anarchy was playing out.But, to follow strict censorship rules, the ending was completely changed. Replacing the climactic scene was a black screen with the message: “The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding.

BEIJING -- Instead of waiting until prime time, Olympic fans in the United States will be able to watch the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games on Friday with their morning cup of coffee.The ceremony, which officially opens the Winter Games even though some events already have started, is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. in China.