Censorship thus becomes extremely difficult to enforce. However, this firewall is easily bypassed by determined parties using a proxy server or any number of widely available programs (e.g., Psiphon, Tor, UltraSurf). The CCP’s most infamous act of censorship in recent years has involved the group of policies which have been collectively nicknamed “ The Great Firewall of China.” Instead of directly accessing the internet, Chinese internet users are connected to each other through a national intranet, which allows them to access only certain approved internet content (Dowell, 2006, p. Nevertheless, censorship persists, although not always in immediate or obvious ways. In the apparent age of the global village, this censorship would seem to be more difficult to achieve than ever before. In 2008, in a move that has been mocked by news media in the West, horror films were also declared off-limits, and any media containing horrific elements “specifically plotted for the sole purpose of terror” are now officially banned (General Administration of Press and Publications, quoted in Sun, 2008). Nominally, piracy is also one of these taboos, but intellectual property laws are not consistently enforced, particularly in outlying regions of China. Certain ideas have at various times been labeled taboo for both political and moral reasons: in the twenty-first century, censored topics have included pornography, the user-created content of websites such as LiveJournal and YouTube, the views of certain news media that are critical of the CCP, and information relating to Tibet, Taiwan, and the Falun Gong religion. Even before becoming the governing body of China in 1949, the CCP tightly controlled information. Packaging and contents of the “100% imported” Death Note DVD set, including a music CD, purchased from a small DVD shop on the main street of a Shanghai suburb in early 2009.įilm, like many aspects of Chinese society, is heavily controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). To better understand the controversy surrounding Death Note (see Figure 1) in the Chinese context, this article explores the historical precursors to the Chinese Communist Party’s ban on horror films, and examines the attitudes of Chinese students studying at an Australian university, some of whom had acquired the film illegally through internet piracy while they were still in China.įigure 1. Though it was not licensed by any Chinese distributor and was eventually banned by the government, the Death Note franchise has gained popularity and notoriety within China. This article uses a case study of the Japanese film Death Note (Kaneko Shūsuke, 2006) to advance current understanding of Chinese cinema found in important studies such as Chu (2002), Zhang (2004) and Berry and Farquhar (2006), and to show how new aspects of film-viewing are emerging among mainland Chinese audiences. Cinema in China has been central to this criticism, particularly with respect to the distribution of foreign films. The government of the People’s Republic of China has often been criticized for its policies regarding freedom of expression. The article also proposes a new viewpoint about how trade and popular presses in the West are attempting to understand China’s changing role in the global cultural industries. To better understand the controversy surrounding Death Note in the Chinese context, this article explores the historical precursors to the Chinese Communist Party’s ban on horror films, and examines the attitudes of Chinese students at an Australian university. Key words: China film policy, Death Note (2006), horror films in China, foreign exhibition in China, film piracy, internet piracy Cultural Flows Beneath Death Note : Catching the Wave of Popular Japanese Culture in China
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