China's 'Game of Thrones' Fans Try Torrents, VPNs For Uncensored Episodes (scmp.com) 47
"Winter is coming for fans of the hit television series Game of Thrones, with the final season set to hit screens around the world after a near two-year hiatus," reports the South China Morning Post. There were 96 million views for a discussion about the show on China's Twitter-like platform Weibo.
"But those watching inside China are also bracing for the chill of censorship." In recent years, Chinese authorities have ramped up the pressure on the television and film industries to clean up content they deem vulgar or politically incorrect. This has led to some serious censorship of foreign productions. Recent examples include the removal of scenes of smashed heads and bare flesh from the American superhero film Logan, and the apparent manipulation of a scene in Oscar-winner The Shape of Water so that a naked woman is made to appear to be wearing clothes...
In a bid to get around the censorship, many Chinese Game of Thrones fans have turned to virtual private networks and torrent download websites to access unexpurgated versions of their favourite episodes.
Tencent Video holds the exclusive distribution rights for the show in China, leaving one Weibo user to post "I'm begging Father Tencent not to censor too much, thank you."
Another added "This censored version is not interesting. I would pay money to watch the uncut version."
"But those watching inside China are also bracing for the chill of censorship." In recent years, Chinese authorities have ramped up the pressure on the television and film industries to clean up content they deem vulgar or politically incorrect. This has led to some serious censorship of foreign productions. Recent examples include the removal of scenes of smashed heads and bare flesh from the American superhero film Logan, and the apparent manipulation of a scene in Oscar-winner The Shape of Water so that a naked woman is made to appear to be wearing clothes...
In a bid to get around the censorship, many Chinese Game of Thrones fans have turned to virtual private networks and torrent download websites to access unexpurgated versions of their favourite episodes.
Tencent Video holds the exclusive distribution rights for the show in China, leaving one Weibo user to post "I'm begging Father Tencent not to censor too much, thank you."
Another added "This censored version is not interesting. I would pay money to watch the uncut version."
Making some big withdrawals against... (Score:2, Interesting)
...their Social Credit Scores.
I am amazed anyone would have the shortsightedness to post comments like this under the current chinese regime. I mean holding views like 'I would like to see more nudity or violence' does not really factor in to the acceptable cultural and personal values that the current Chinese administration wishes to cultivate in its citizens. Perhaps these people are due for reeducation.
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I have relatives who immigrated from China. Essentially there seems to be an unwritten contract between Chinese citizens and the Chinese gov't: "Keep our lives smooth and relatively prosperous, and we'll go ahead and let you run everything."
Part of this viewpoint is the "village's big eyeball" of Chinese culture. (The name varies.) The typical village kept a collective eye on everybody; there was no real privacy. The village elders ran the show and everybody accepted that as long as there were no big proble
Re: Chinese History (Score:2)
It seems that most, if not all old stories have a moral that has to do with something unseemly about human nature.
Rumplestillskin? Yhea, it is what you think it is (or was anyway).
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I'm not in China (Score:2)
Once the "final" season is over, I guess I will probably binge the whole thing.
I think I have the first seven seasons on my NAS someplace.
I'm also kind of surprised nobody in China can buy the DVD/Blu-Rays, rip them and sell them in a nice open-air market like they do with everything else.
In other words, article is claptrap.
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China has well over a billion people. Just setting up a market stall in some little village in a province isn't going to provide all of China with uncensored episodes.
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Chinese fans release subtitles online. From what I can tell they are very high quality, and you can choose to have extras like characters names appear on screen when they are shown for the first time in an episode. I could actually do with that in English sometimes.
I imagine GoT is widely pirated over there. Fibre gigabit internet is fairly common in cities, they haven't been installing any new copper for years.
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I'm sure there will be uncensored copies available at all the local DVD outlets in a few days, it takes time to download the show and burn it to sufficient copies of physical media.
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Once the "final" season is over, I guess I will probably binge the whole thing.
Same here. I had my credit card out, ready to buy it, and I tried three different places (reputable places! My country's exclusive distributor, my ISP/TV company, and HBO directly), but none of them wanted my money, for different reasons. So if they don't want my money... they're not getting it. I have friends who will buy the DVD set when it comes out, I'll just borrow it, nah.
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Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
We finally have conclusive evidence why Democracy is worth fighting for: The Shape of Water character is available to us uncensored, and more importantly, unclothed.
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Actually TV in China, while heavily sanitized for violence and sex (not even cleavage is shown), is strangely horrific.
For example they have a show about the how great the police are, your basic propaganda stuff. One regular feature is where they find people who where kidnapped as children and who are now young adults, and re-unite them with their families. On national TV. The first time they see their parents in maybe two decades and it's in front of an audience of millions. I guess it could be fake but ha
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I've been there too, and completely agree. Traffic safety is basically non-existent. People use their horns a lot, often when making ordinary manoeuvres, just to make sure everyone else is paying attention. Of course the problem is that people quickly start to tune the sound out.
Translation. (Score:2)
Translated, the above means "I'm not interested in the plotline, show me titties!"
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This prudish shit, coming from the land of tentacle porn and bukkake.
Most of which is censored, if it actually comes from Japan anyway.