I’m one of the few people out here who seems to appreciate and agree with our need for censorship (at least as we here in North America define it in our movie ratings). But in the larger and more literal definition of censorship… when someone tells you what you… as an adult… can or can not watch/say/listen to/see or think… that’s just not good.
Apparently in Vietnam right now there is a huge hunger for horror and ghost films. Even live stage theater is being dominated by the genre right now. And up until this point, most Vietnamese film fans have had to made due with Korean or American imports to satisfy their horror cravings.
So recently, a few of the domestic studios started to produce horror… but they’re meeting big resistance from the government over the issue. The folks over at M&C give us the following:
Vietnamese film studios are seeking to satisfy the country’s rising enthusiasm for horror movies but are frustrated by government demands to tone down the scares, a Vietnamese studio head said Tuesday. ‘It’s not reasonable,’ said Le Phuoc Sang, whose Phuoc Sang Studio co-produced the recent ghost film Muoi, at 4 million dollars among the most expensive films ever shot in Vietnam.
Sang said the release of the movie, a Vietnamese-South Korean co-production, had been delayed by censors at the country’s Department of Cinematography. ‘We have to cut out some of the horror scenes and then resubmit the film to the department for approval,’ Sang said. On August 6, the Department of Cinematography ordered filmmakers and distributors to ‘minimize the production and import’ of horror and ghost movies. The order said such movies have ‘little recreational value and are incomprehensible to most viewers.’
Just to clarify my position on this. I don’t have any problem with a ratings board slapping an R or an NC17 on a film if they feel it’s not suitable for minors. No problems with that at all. However, there is a difference between that, and having the government dictate what you can and can not see as an adult. We’re not talking about kiddie porn here where children have to be exploited in order to deliver the goods… we’re talking about horror films.
Methinks once the government grasps how much foreign money could be brought in with the export of quality horror films, they’ll start singing a different tune. North American horror fans just eat that stuff up.
