‘The Departed’: Martin Scorsese’s Movie Banned in China
‘The Departed’, directed by Martin Scorsese, is regarded as a classic of contemporary film and has won multiple awards, including Best Director. The movie encountered a major obstacle in China, one of the biggest marketplaces in the world, despite its enormous success. ‘The Departed’ offers an intriguing example of how geopolitical tensions influence the global cinema industry, despite not being the first Hollywood movie to be banned in China.
The film centres on two moles: Colin Sullivan, a mobster who is a part of the Boston police, and Billy Costigan, an undercover police officer who infiltrates the Irish mob. Although the main focus of the movie is this game of cat and mouse, Chinese censors were alarmed by a side plot featuring Chinese criminals connected to an illicit arms trade. The film was banned because it raised the possibility that China was complicit in international weaponry smuggling, which was considered politically sensitive despite the film’s other violent and corrupt themes.
Image Courtesy: IMDb
The censored version of the picture was distributed straight to video, even though it was not allowed to be screened in Chinese cinemas. The removal of sequences featuring Chinese criminals in this version lessened the geopolitical implications of the plot. However, this suppression undermined the film’s original artistic vision by weakening its narrative impact.
Tensions with the United States resulted from China’s establishment as a growing global power by the middle of the 2000s. This international posturing involved ‘The Departed’. Hollywood companies started altering movies to comply with China’s censorship regulations after realizing the country’s increasing box office importance. ‘The Departed’ made more than $300 million worldwide despite being barred from Chinese theatres. However, its lack of availability in China begs the question of the wider effects of censorship in a film industry that is becoming more and more worldwide.
–Farheen Ali
