China's THAAD retaliation spreads to big screens

By Yun Suh-young

Films have become another victim of China’s economic retaliation against Korea’s deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery here.

China banned Korean films from being screened at the 7th Beijing International Film Festival to be held from April 16 to 23, according to Yonhap News Agency, Tuesday.

Several Korean films had been invited to the festival, but none will be featured due to an order from the Chinese government.

“The film festival had invited Korean films, but their screening has been scrapped by the authorities,” a source told Yonhap.

This is in contrast to the situation last year when several Korean films were shown at the festival and grabbed nominations. The 2016 festival also featured Korean stars such as Lee Min-ho and Kim Woo-bin.

However, this year, no Korean film was on the preliminary screening list.

Not a single Korean film was released in China last year, according to data from the Korean Film Council. Plans for a Korea-China production “Mask,” featuring Korean actor Ha Jung-woo and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi, have been called off.

Several Korean films, including the action zombie flick “Train to Busan,” were sold to China last year but have yet to be shown, a contrast to the three to four annual releases of Korean films in previous years.

“China has a screen quota system so it’s not easy for foreign films to be screened in China, but even though box office hits such as Train to Busan were imported, they’re not being shown. From this we can infer that a ban has been imposed,” a source told Yonhap.

News on Korean entertainers and films has disappeared from Chinese TV and newspapers, according to the agency.

Beijing’s retaliatory moves against Seoul’s decision to deploy the U.S. anti-missile system have intensified in recent months, including the cancelling of appearances by Korean artists in China. Numerous Korean dramas and TV shows had previously been banned.

In the tourism sector, the Chinese government ordered agencies to stop selling package tours to Korea and told its citizens not to shop at Korean stores, notably the Lotte duty free and department stores.The Korean retail conglomerate provided land to the government for the location of the U.S. missile shield.