“The Battle of Changjin Lake,” a Chinese film about the Korean War (1950-53), broke all revenue records in its home country and earned a critical journalist arrest.
The film, released on the occasion of the National Day on 1er October, dethroned “Wolf Warrior 2”, another patriotic work, which dated from 2017. It collected 5.6 billion in receipts (781 million euros), said Wednesday the platform of sale of tickets Maoyan.
The feature film is about an episode of the Korean War, when Chinese troops pushed back their American opponents on a North Korean battlefield in freezing temperatures.
While the war was started by North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, it is known in China as the “War of Resistance to American Aggression and Aid to Korea.”
Chinese troops entered the conflict as North Korea was on the brink of defeat to United States-led UN troops.
As relations between China and America are once again strained, President Xi Jinping’s regime encourages patriotic works.
A law adopted in 2018 also strikes outrage against revolutionary heroes with prison.
As such, a former journalist was arrested a few days after the film’s release after questioning on social networks about the merits of the Chinese intervention in Korea, which left 200,000 dead according to the official report of Beijing, much more according to the Americans.
“More than half a century later, the Chinese still have not started to think about the justification of the war”, wrote Luo Changping, former editor of Caijing magazine, who had made himself famous by denouncing corruption cases.
His message was promptly censored from his account on the social network Weibo, followed by more than 2 million Internet users.
He was taken into custody for “insulting the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs,” police in southern Hainan province said.
If convicted, 40-year-old Luo Changping could face three years in prison.
The vast majority of films shown in cinemas in China are made nationally. In theory, only 34 foreign films, handpicked, have the right to be shown each year in theaters of the Asian country.
However, this quota does not apply to works shown during festivals, on online broadcasting platforms or in film libraries.