On Tuesday, public showings of a horror movie depicting Winnie the Pooh as a slasher were suddenly cancelled in Hong Kong, triggering conversations about growing censorship in the city.
VII Pillars Entertainment took to Facebook to announce that the release of “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” on Thursday had been canceled with “great regret” in Hong Kong and neighboring Macao.
The Film’s distributor stated that cinemas had notified them that they would not be able to screen the film as scheduled.
For many residents, the Winnie the Pooh character is a playful taunt of China’s President Xi Jinping and Chinese censors in the past had briefly banned social media searches for the bear in the country. In 2018, the film “Christopher Robin,” also featuring Winnie the Pooh, was reportedly denied a release in China
The film being pulled in Hong Kong has prompted concern on social media over the territory’s shrinking freedoms.
The movie was initially set to be shown in about 30 cinemas in Hong Kong, VII Pillars Entertainment wrote last week.
The Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration said it had approved the film and arrangements by local cinemas to screen approved films “are the commercial decisions of the cinemas concerned.” It refused to comment on such arrangements.
A screening initially scheduled for Tuesday night in one cinema was canceled due to “technical reasons,” the organizer said on Instagram.
Kenny Ng, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University’s academy of film, refused to speculate on the reason behind the cancellation, but suggested the mechanism of silencing criticism appeared to be resorting to commercial decisions.
Hong Kong is a former British colony that returned to China’s rule in 1997, promising to retain its Western-style freedoms. But China imposed a national security law following massive pro-democracy protests in 2019, silencing or jailing many dissidents.
In 2021, the government tightened guidelines and authorized censors to ban films believed to have breached the sweeping law.
Ng said the city saw more cases of censorship over the last two years, mostly targeting non-commercial movies, such as independent short films.
“When there is a red line, then there are more taboos,” he said.