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Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick

Thu, Apr 7th 2011 8:31am




Filed Under:
censorship, china, movies, time travel, tv


China Says No More Movies And TV Shows About Time Travel

from the don't-even-think-about-it dept

It's no secret that time travel stories in movies and TV are a bit cliche at this point, but that doesn't stop people from using them repeatedly. It's just such an easy plot device. But, don't expect to see much more of it in China. Ima Fish alerts us to the news that the General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television in China has announced that time travel stories are no longer allowed on TV or in movies. Apparently, such stories are "disrespectful to history" and that many of the "stories are totally made up." Apparently, the General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television in China is unfamiliar with the definition of fiction.

It sounds like time travel stories had become especially popular in Chinese media, and it sounds like someone at the Bureau just got sick of it. Along similar lines, the Bureau has apparently also declared that no more TV/movie versions shall be made of "the four great classical novels of China." Honestly, it really feels like someone (or some people) involved in this Bureau just got sick of seeing similar shows and decided to issue a ban.

Of course, the real question is how long will it take for people in China to create a video that involves going back in time to restock the General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television with people who seem less silly?

56 Comments | Leave a Comment

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    Hephaestus (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 8:10am

    Re: the four great classical novels of China

    What do you mean no more Monkey King??

    "It sounds like time travel stories had become especially popular in Chinese media, and it sounds like someone at the Bureau just got sick of it."

    I wish they would do they same in the US with all the stupid teen vampire TV shows and Movies.

     

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      weneedhelp (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 10:10am

      Re: Re: the four great classical novels of China

      "I wish they would do they same in the US with all the stupid teen vampire TV shows and Movies."

      And stupid no talent whores that get reality shows too.
      And all those stupid high school shows where everyone is gay or on the verge of sex.
      And all those stupid CSI-in-every-flavor shows.

       

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    identicon
    James Carmichael, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 8:41am

    In Soviet Russia, time travels you!

    Hey China, I have a whole list of things I don't like, could you ban those too? Pretty pleeeeeaaaase?!

    - Anchovies
    - Any mention of iPod's, iPad's, or anything that starts with a lowercase 'i' followed by an uppercase letter
    - American politics
    - Nepal

     

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      Fushta, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 12:35pm

      Re: In Soviet Russia, time travels you!

      I'd like to add:

      - No more naming dogs "General Zhou" or "Hunan Chicken"

       

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    •  
      identicon
      Movies, Apr 26th, 2011 @ 11:17pm

      Re: In Soviet Russia, time travels you!

      I don't see how they'll stop access to streaming movies which contain such plots... completely retarded!

       

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      identicon
      G, Apr 29th, 2011 @ 9:57pm

      Re: In Soviet Russia, time travels you!

      Why is it u don't like Nepal?? If it's some kinda personal reason, then fuck you..you better have a good explanation 4 ur dislike.

       

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    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 8:41am

    Well, at least this makes the U.S. relatively less of a laughingstock.

     

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    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 8:45am

    "Along similar lines, the Bureau has apparently also declared that no more TV/movie versions shall be made of "the four great classical novels of China.""

    Hum...I don't know all four of them, but I assume the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin" are among them. The Government has every motivation to supress these classics, because some people might read them and start having some crazy ideas. Crazy ideas that involve rebellions and such.


    PS: I highly recommend reading about those two stories. They are actually very good.

     

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      Ima Fish (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 8:52am

      Re:

      From Wikipedia: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin (aka Outlaws of the Marsh), Journey to the West, and Dream of the Red Chamber (aka The Story of the Stone).

       

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      xs (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 9:49am

      Re:

      Not everything in China is related to "crazy ideas", you know. The true motivation to ban further remake is because there're 3 or 4 remakes in the last few years on the "Dream of Red Chamber" alone. And each one is a worse adaptation than the one before to boot. There are suspicion that those productions are actually money laundering efforts.

       

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    Whatis42? (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 8:46am

    This is gonna piss off...

    Dr. Who and the Proprietors of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe

     

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    wallow-T, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 8:59am

    On movie versions of the Classical Novels of China: the shortened-for-USA-theaters version of John Woo's "Red Cliff" was utterly dazzling, if you like historical war movies. I still have not gotten to the 5-hour complete DVD version, dang it. IIRC, "Red Cliff" was made with the complete cooperation of the Chinese government, which furnished Chinese Army resources for set building and for extras.

    "Red Cliff" is drawn from a small chunk of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

     

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      crade (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 11:01am

      Re:

      Red Cliff is actually inspired by the (historical documents) and is quite a bit different from The Romance of the Three Kindoms. In Romance, Zhou Yu is pretty much a villain, and in Red Cliff he's like the main hero. Personally I thought the full lenght movies (red cliff 1 + 2) are way better than the shortened version since they actually made sense :)

       

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    identicon
    Michael, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 8:59am

    More breaking news...

    *** This Just In! ***

    US Political news and all statements from the US Entertainment industry have been banned in China.

    Apparently, such stories are "disrespectful to history" and that many of the "stories are totally made up."

     

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    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 9:08am

    The bureau is the final resting place of the god Nuggan.
    He will soon issue bans on the depiction of harmonicas, the color blue and staplers.

     

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    Ddub, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 9:09am

    I don't blame them..

    .. after watching a season of "Heroes", I felt the same way.

     

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    baslow (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 9:09am

    Never the Twain shall meet?

    Will A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court be grandfathered in?

     

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    RadialSkid (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 9:16am

    Cliched.

     

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    Saurabh, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 9:16am

    vampires...

    Can we get a similar law here with no more vampire/werewolf shows/movies?

     

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    Barry Solow (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 9:20am

    Should we fear...

    ...for the fate of the counterfactual conditional in China?

     

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    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 9:25am

    Make a time travel movie where these jerks never came into power, or there was a massive revolution, and China becomes a utopia because of it. I bet they'd love that. Kickstarter anyone?

     

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    Anonymous Coward, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 9:26am

    Mike, are you sure this is for real, and not a hoax? I mean, it just sounds so utterly bizarre. Why would the Chinese government go on a genrecidal rampage?

     

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    Anonymous Coward, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 9:34am

    I believe that the General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television in China is actually run by a time traveller from the 46th Century and he's frightened of the populace discovering the truth.

     

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    The Devil's Coachman (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 10:12am

    Probably a bunch of doddering old coots behind this.

    Idiotic, reactionary crap from some of the many pants-crapping, three-toothed, drooling morons in the Chinese government are an everyday occurrence, and there won't be any change in that for a long, long time. I'm sure most of them still venerate the little red book like the bible thumpers do theirs. This isn't even news.

     

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    Berenerd (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 10:23am

    What about time travel...

    ...into the future? I mean, does that count? How can it hurt the past if its in the future???

     

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    crade (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 10:55am

    No more Three Kingdoms flicks? You may has well just shut down the film industry over there then. At least they polished off Red Cliff first.

     

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    Bored SysAdmin, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 10:56am

    Someone jumped the gun with wrong translation

    use google translate:
    http://news.qq.com/a/20110402/000116.htm
    They talk about cloning western drama movies and shows in general (vs creating original ideas), not specific to single subject of time travel....

     

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      xs (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 11:55am

      Re: Someone jumped the gun with wrong translation

      Yep. What were stopped was only remake of the 4 classics. And that's only with "no more remake in the short term", not a complete ban. For time travel shows, it's only "Not encouraged", because of the distortion of historical fact, and lack of artistic value. Cloning of western shows are also only limited, but not banned, with an aim to have original shows comprising 60% of content.

       

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        crade (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 12:15pm

        Re: Re: Someone jumped the gun with wrong translation

        Not encouraged means you can make them, but we will take them away, send you to a reabilitation camp and break your legs.

         

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    BoredSysAdmin (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 11:00am

    Someone jumped the gun with wrong translation

    use google translate:
    http://news.qq.com/a/20110402/000116.htm
    They talk about cloning western drama movies and shows in general (vs creating original ideas), not specific to single subject of time travel....

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

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    identicon
    cj, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 11:08am

    Obviously only approved historians are licensed to be "disrespectful to history" and make up stories about the past. At least the Chinese own up.

     

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    John, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 12:05pm

    If only

    Now if only we could get american idol and any spinoff shows banned in America

     

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    Ben, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 12:09pm

    Chinese time travel/history?

    "disrespectful to history"

    Most of China's history is made up, in an advertisement for a Chinese opera on local TV they began with the usual statement about 5000 years of history! Hard to have a history that goes back 5000 years when your written language only goes back 3000 years (please don't mention "oracle bones")http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language. Chinese History is about as old as Greek history (except that Greek history hasn't been heavily re-written). Just as China tries to claim that the "great-wall" is 2000 years old when only a tamped earth wall existed prior to 220 AD, but they always show the 15th century section when making these claims. The Chinese also claim to have "invented" the crossbow, regardless of the fact that crossbows existed everywhere, and despite the absurd bragging the Romans used crossbows, Alexander used crossbows. The Persians used crossbows earlier than the Chinese. The only things that the Chinese invented were silk, fireworks and propaganda.

     

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    identicon
    Ben, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 12:09pm

    Chinese time travel/history?

    "disrespectful to history"

    Most of China's history is made up, in an advertisement for a Chinese opera on local TV they began with the usual statement about 5000 years of history! Hard to have a history that goes back 5000 years when your written language only goes back 3000 years (please don't mention "oracle bones")http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language. Chinese History is about as old as Greek history (except that Greek history hasn't been heavily re-written). Just as China tries to claim that the "great-wall" is 2000 years old when only a tamped earth wall existed prior to 220 AD, but they always show the 15th century section when making these claims. The Chinese also claim to have "invented" the crossbow, regardless of the fact that crossbows existed everywhere, and despite the absurd bragging the Romans used crossbows, Alexander used crossbows. The Persians used crossbows earlier than the Chinese. The only things that the Chinese invented were silk, fireworks and propaganda.

     

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    Anonymous Coward, Apr 7th, 2011 @ 2:14pm

    This is what I pretty much said for Batman and Spiderman films; I haven't seen any since the mid-00's. I got everything I possibly could out of the medium and no longer wished to experience anything further.

     

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    Jesse (profile), Apr 7th, 2011 @ 6:32pm

    Apparently, such stories are "disrespectful to history" and that many of the "stories are totally made up."

    I'm more curious about the time travel stories that weren't made up...

     

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    mirradric, Apr 8th, 2011 @ 2:06am

    From my reading of the qq article

    From what I've read in the article it's more of a statement that they do not advocate and will not approve broadcasting certain categories/genres of shows during prime time. The categories mentioned are time travel, imitations/remakes/clones of foreign (to china, like hollywood) productions and remakes of the 4 classics.The rational is that there are simply too many of these after these genres gained popularity and many are of low quality in terms of plot and production.
    They do not encourage wholesale imitation/remake of foreign films but hope that they can contain more than 60% of original material. Time travel films were specifically mentioned as an example of poor plots and weak devices.
    More importantly, the article makes no mention of a ban. To the contrary, it mentions that some of the films have been approved for broadcast in non-prime time slots creating a new "midnight prime time" although the bureau does not encourage submitting films for midnight slots just to get approval.

     

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    Anonymous Coward, Apr 8th, 2011 @ 6:34am

    All future Star Trek movies/shows should be made in China.

     

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    through the cracks, Apr 10th, 2011 @ 2:11pm

    Re: RE: re: Re:

    What about a film where we go back in time & stop the production of Ishtar & Pat?

     

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    PaulLev (profile), Apr 13th, 2011 @ 2:02am

    what more do you expect from totalitarian countries? http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2011/04/china-goes-totalitarian-about-time.html

     

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    phoebe, May 2nd, 2011 @ 7:07am

    ?????

    what are you talking about ??????????????????????

     

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    phoebe, May 2nd, 2011 @ 7:09am

    ?????

    some say something diffrent please

     

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    michaelz, Jun 6th, 2011 @ 9:45am

    Scientist warning about China Time Research

    I heard this guy on Art Bell a year ago warning about China's time travel research and that they were getting into it in a BIG way. If you search for David Lewis Anderson and Coast to Coast Radio on youtube you will find it. Also, just saw this at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxfbEpSZyzE.

     

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