Commuters in Jilin in northeast China got more than they bargained for when a film banned as pornography was accidentally shown on a large LED screen in a crowded public square near the train station.
The Forbidden Legend: Sex and Chopsticks was played to a surprised public for about 10 minutes after a maintenance technician started watching the Hong Kong softcore flick on his laptop without realising it was connected to the LED screen.
Hundreds of commuters stopped to watch the film, which is very loosely based on a classic 12th-century Chinese erotic novel The Plum in the Golden Vase.
Threw disc out window
The worker, who has been identified only by his surname Yuan, was repairing the screen on a building near the main railway station in Jilin in northeast China, the Xinhua news agency reported.
He then started watching the movie, before the advertising company that owns the screen called him to say he was screening the movie for the whole square.
He immediately threw the disc out the window, though that might not be enough to save him.
Xinhua quoted the police as saying that an individual who plays porn on a giant display board can be held responsible for spreading pornographic audiovisual products.
The reaction online was less censorious. Liu liu wrote on the Twitter-style Weibo: “The train station people were worried the commuters waiting to buy tickets must be bored.” Yan hui style wrote: “So many people stopped and watched it. That means everybody likes it.”
Another web wit wrote: “Thanks for sharing, maintenance man!”
