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Asia Minute: Movie Poster Mishap Sparks Anger in Hong Kong

Paramount
Paramount

A Hollywood movie that hasn’t even been released yet is already sparking some controversy in Asia. HPR’s Bill Dorman explains in today’s Asia Minute.

“Arrival” is a science fiction movie about alien spacecraft landing at various spots around the earth.  Promotional posters show those spacecraft lingering above different cities…including Hong Kong.  And that’s where the trouble starts.  One of the posters featured the Hong Kong skyline spread out over Victoria Harbor—with a little something extra: a skyscraper that’s actually located in Shanghai.  The Oriental Pearl Tower is distinctive—for more than twenty years it’s been a landmark for the commercial center of mainland China.

Media in Hong Kong (social and otherwise) erupted with indignation…. lashing out under the hashtag “Hong Kong is Not China.”  The influence of the Beijing government is a sensitive topic in Hong Kong.

The Hollywood reporter said “as political slip-ups go, accidentally wading into the issue of Hong Kong independence is about as bad as it gets.”  The Paramount movie studio changed the poster… blaming a third party vendor.  But instead of just removing the Oriental Pearl Tower, the new poster removes the entire Hong Kong skyline—replacing it with Shanghai.  As for the movie, it debuts next week at the Venice Film Festival….with a wider theatrical release in November.  No word on when it may come to Hong Kong.

Nick Yee’s passion for music developed at an early age, as he collected jazz and rock records pulled from dusty locations while growing up in both Southern California and Honolulu. In college he started DJing around Honolulu, playing Jazz and Bossa Nova sets at various lounges and clubs under the name dj mr.nick. He started to incorporate Downtempo, House and Breaks into his sets as his popularity grew, eventually getting DJ residences at different Chinatown locations. To this day, he is a fixture in the Honolulu underground club scene, where his live sets are famous for being able to link musical and cultural boundaries, starting mellow and building the audience into a frenzy while steering free of mainstream clichés.
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