Captain Jack Sparrow may have great luck getting out of bad situations, but this time getting in is the problem. China has declared parts of the blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” to be guilty of “vilifying Chinese”. The offensive material comes at the hands of none other than Chow Yun-Fat and his character Captain Sao Feng. Chow’s on-screen time has been cut down to half its original amount, roughly 10 minutes.

Popular Cinema cited the Chinese censorship issues:

The captain played by Chow is bald, his face heavily scarred. He also has a long beard and long nails, whose image is still in line with Hollywood’s old tradition of demonizing the Chinese.

The official Xinhua news agency added, “Chinese censors also cut Chow’s line in which he states ‘Welcome to Singapore’ because it hints Singapore is a land of pirates.” Oddly they didn’t seem to have such an issue with Sparrow’s short sidekick, the squinty eyed Mr. Lee, who fights with chopsticks instead of a sword and threatens his enemies with his catchphrase, “I ruve you rong time!” Weird, cause that’s what I’d consider offensive.

Zhang Pimin, the deputy head of China’s film bureau, promises the cuts “will not impair either the continuity of plot or the image of characters.” Well that’s a relief. But if you are concerned about the cuts and find yourself trapped in China someday soon you could always just pick up the full version off the street for about the price of an egg roll.

Thanks to Steve for sending the source article over.

Source: Reuters