CHINA:IN THE latest sign of tougher censorship in China, regulators have blacklisted rising starlet Tang Wei for her steamy role in the Ang Lee movie Lust, Caution, months after it screened in the country, because the film supposedly glorifies traitors.
The ban on Tang Wei comes as censorship, stopping smut and the need for a stricter moral code in an Olympic year are high on the agenda at China's annual parliament, the National People's Congress, which is meeting in Beijing.
China's top regulator of the entertainment industry, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (Sarft) has issued a memo stating the actress has been blacklisted and pulled a cold-cream commercial she made.
Ang Lee, who is advising on the Olympics in Beijing in the summer, appears to have escaped the blacklist, though his movies are often not shown in China. It is possible that following Steven Spielberg's withdrawal there was a feeling that to lose another high-profile director could be damaging.
He said he was "very disappointed" at the news.
The ban is a surprise, as Ms Tang is hardly a threatening figure. Born in Zhejiang province in 1979, she is like fellow Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi a graduate of the Beijing Central Academy of Drama. She played a policewoman on CCTV Movie Channel for which she won domestic kudos but was generally not well known.
Playing Wang Jiazhi in Lust, Caution was Ms Tang's big break and she won rave reviews for her assured performance in the erotic drama that unfolds during Japan's occupation of Shanghai in the 1940s.
There was a media frenzy when she signed up to endorse cold-cream products for a hefty six million yuan (€550,000) fee last month and local people have followed her love life as closely as they would any other film star's, but she is not a political figure in any way.
The film's message is ambiguous because of Tony Leung's strong performance as a Chinese collaborator with the Japanese. But its political credentials are on-message, as they deal with the lengths the Chinese went to when it came to eliminating collaborators during the second World War, or the anti-Japanese War as it is known in China.
Perhaps Ms Tang's performance is too good - she is reportedly accused of "beautifying" traitors.
The film contains several lengthy sex scenes and the fact that it made it past the censor is one of the great mysteries of the film bureau, which can approve or ban films, despite the excising of seven minutes of brutal, acrobatic sex.
Sarft this month announced censorship criteria aimed at "purifying screen entertainment and creating a more harmonious environment for the public, especially children." Film-makers are not allowed to produce films that depict hard-core sexual activity, rape, prostitution or nudity. Any content involving "murder, violence, horror, devils and excessively terrifying scenes" is banned.