The decision to protect the national film industry came two weeks after Catholic protests against the screening of the film in Beijing were branded as "medieval".
Shanghai (AsiaNews/SCMP) After two weeks of screening and overall box office earnings of 104 million yuan (around 10.4 million euros), the Chinese government has banned the "Da Vinci Code" from the country's cinemas. The film is based on a novel by Dan Brown with the same name.
The film sparked protests by Christians and Muslims around the world, including members of the Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics, which urged its members to ban the movie.
However although some cinema managers in Shanghai have pointed to "a decision motivated by religious respect" the government move appears to have been prompted more by the need to give more space to local films, rather than the desire not to offend people's religious feelings. An article appeared today in the government China Daily newspaper, claiming that the government "decided to ban the film from cinemas after a series of protests from several Chinese film companies, who saw rapidly declining box office earnings for their films and increasingly empty cinemas."
Beijing limits the number of foreign films shown in the country and ruthlessly censors any content it deems "politically sensitive or pornographic".
When the premier of the film was held in Beijing on 17 May, Xinhua (the official press agency), said that "thanks to a star-studded cast and superb directing", and especially thanks to "40 million sales of the book and to protests in religious circles worldwide", the film was set to be a "resounding success". At the time, protests by Catholics, and their call for a ban on the film, had been described as "medieval".