It might not be the Mao run state that it once was, but that isn't preventing them from cracking down on any form of entertainment/art they find offensive. Just last month Hollywood productions including Will Smith film The Pursuit of Happyness were banned until further notice and now The Chinese state administrators have imposed a 24 month ban on producer and director for Lost in Beijing. To be released in New York City via New Yorker Films exclusively at the Cinema Village on the 25th of this month – look for our review on this banned substance.
Li Yu (whose 2004 Dam Street won the CICAE Prize at the Venice International Film Festival, the jury prize at Vienna and the Best Film Prize at Deauville) defends his film as a "story and the events, life, and characters’ behavior and feelings are all based on the real life of China’s urban socialites today. All four characters in Lost in Beijing experience being misled, confusion, and the feeling of being lost. But more or less, everyone starts to find out where his or her deep, inside feelings belong. There is a beginning of hope for everyone".
Here is the statment published in Screen Daily "The news came as a shock for Fang and the film's director Li Yu as the film-makers were just celebrating the film's box office gross reaching $2.5m, which makes it one of the best-performing small-budget films in 2007. First, the producers were accused of spreading the unapproved version of the film and pornographic clips of the film on the internet and also producing the unapproved film into audiovideo products."
