The horror film ‘Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey’ will not be released in Hong Kong and Macau, the distributor announced on Tuesday a few days before the planned theatrical release.
This retreat illustrates the growing self-censorship in Hong Kong under pressure from Beijing, including in the artistic and cultural spheres.
Since meeting slim then-US President Barack Obama in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been caricatured as Winnie the Pooh, the light-hearted children’s story character originally dreamed up by Briton Alan Alexander Milne.
A far cry from the Disney and Soviet studio Soyuzmult film versions that popularized the character on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the Blood and Honey version is a gore adaptation by Rhys Frake – Waterfield, which opened in the United States in February States was published.
Originally promised for a very modest theatrical release, this low-budget production, born thanks to the transfer of rights to the public domain, has turned into a phenomenon that benefits from a worldwide release.
Distributor VII Pillars Entertainment expressed “deep regret” for the Hong Kong cancellation in a Facebook post on Tuesday, without giving a reason.
The Hong Kong government said it had issued a broadcast license for “Blood and Honey,” apparently suggesting the film was not censored.
But the organizer of a preview planned for Monday canceled the event, citing unspecified technical reasons.
Winnie the Pooh has become a symbol of opposition to the Chinese president in recent years.
In response, China has constantly redacted the internet even within its borders, and in 2018 denied the release of the Disney film Christopher Robin, which starred the character.